City Walks Vancouver #46: Lighthouse Park

What better way to explore your own city and stay healthy than exploring it on foot? Sarah gave me these fantastic pack of walking cards of Vancouver with "50 Adventures On Foot." Yesterday I decided to try them out and selected card #46: Lighthouse Park. About 30 minutes drive from the city, it's a great escape into nature with abundantly tall trees and panoramic views of the open water and sky. Oh, and there's a lighthouse to boot. The lighthouse is closed off to public access, but with so much to explore you'll find enough great spots in the park that it won't even matter.

Once occupied by Canadian forces during WWII, the lighthouse served as a location for surveillance of enemy ships and submarines that might slip into the Burrard Inlet. Barracks were built in the forest behind the lighthouse to house officers. Surrounded by water on most sides and heavily forested, it's easy to see why this natural area served as a good lookout for any signs of danger.

This was a great walk, which I would not have known about if it weren't for those walking cards and I'll definitely return to explore other trails. I've already planned on which card I'll be trying out next weekend and am very much looking forward to another great walk.

There's actually a website that scores cities based on its walkability. It's great for people who are planning to move to a new area and would like to live in a walkable neighborhood. You can type in the address and the site will return a listing of the nearest restaurants, grocery stores, shopping areas, etc. nearby as well as give a score for that neighborhood's walkability (100 being walker's paradise.) The site ranks San Francisco and New York as the top most walkable cities in the U.S.