Summer always seems to arrive with big expectations. We imagine long, carefree days filled with adventures, but somewhere between chores, appointments, and everyone announcing they’re bored, it’s easy to run out of ideas. Over the years, we’ve discovered that you don’t need an expensive vacation or elaborate plans to make great summer memories. Some of our favourite days have been spent at a local beach, exploring a bike trail, picking berries, or simply eating lunch outside.
If you’re looking for inspiration, here are some of our family’s favourite summer activities around the Lower Mainland, along with a few ideas you can enjoy almost anywhere. Whether you have toddlers, teens, or a mix of ages like me, I hope this list helps you make the most of the sunny season.
This post contains affiliate links; as an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
1. Build a Sandcastle
Our favourite beaches around the lower mainland include:
- Centennial Beach near Tsawassen (features a large playground, nice change rooms and washrooms, beach concession, and miles of sand when the tide is out).
- Spanish Banks near UBC (features volleyball nets, washrooms and concession, depending on where you park)
- White Pine Beach near Port Moody (features washrooms and concession and gets very crowded on busy summer weekends)
- Jericho Beach (features a museum, playground, and nearby amenities)
Don’t forget to bring along all the beach essentials! If you’re heading to Vancouver Island, check out our favourite beaches around Victoria.
2. Go for a Bike Ride
Some of our favourite places to ride include:
- the dikes in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows (flat, easy trail rides with beautiful mountain views and lots of options for starting points and distances)
- the dikes in Richmond and Steveston (huge playground at Terra Nova, very flat terrain, and cute cafes and stores in Steveston)
- the Traboulay PoCo Trail in Port Coquitlam (more hilly and windy but very scenic and fun)
Colleen MacDonald’s book Let’s Go Biking has tons of easy routes to explore with your kids. I highly recommend using a Velocirax to cart all the bikes to your favourite trails and riding destinations. If you have babies and toddlers, a cargo bike is a great way to get them out cycling with you. Pedalheads bike camps helped get all of my kids off their training wheels.
3. Draw Some Chalk Art
Whether you’ve got a sidewalk, patio, deck, or favourite park, sidewalk chalk is one of the most versatile summer activities. My son loves drawing maps and roads for his toy trucks to follow, while my daughters tend to draw pictures of themselves or wild animals. Find some favorite inspiration quotes to decorate a public place or create some chalk obstacle courses down your sidewalk and see who joins in! For really ambitious artists (or summer savings), pick up the huge pack of sidewalk chalk!
3. Have a Picnic
Meals happen regularly every day of the summer. Make them more exciting by eating outside! Many handheld foods are easy to take outside, whether you have a patio set in your backyard or sit on a picnic blanket or haul out a folding table and some camp chairs.
5. Grow Something
Currently, I am better at growing plants inside my home than outside, but we still do our best to grow something. This year, I’ve been happy that my rhubarb plant has actually gotten big enough for us to harvest rhubarb and bake it into a crisp. The strawberries aren’t quite keeping up their end of the production, but my rose bush and hydrangea have been flowering as hard as they can. Whether you start your plans from seeds, runners, or seedlings from your local nursery, it’s fun to nourish them through the summer and watch them change.
6. Play Baseball
My kids never been involved in organized sports besides rugby, but we have an assortment of sporting gear and often head over to the park in the evening (when it gets cool) to play ball. Numerous parks around the lower mainland offer tennis courts, baseball diamonds, lacrosse and floor hockey boxes, basketball courts, or just wide open fields where you can throw a ball or frisbee around.
We’ve scouted several around us so that if we show up at one park and find that the tennis court is too busy or the baseball diamond is already occupied, we’ll head on to the next park. Most of our sporting gear is thrifted, although we order kids’ baseballs and tennis balls from Amazon because the thrift store balls tend to be rather worn and unreliable. We often also combine a bike ride with playing ball by strapping a bat to my bike rack or stuffing the rackets into a rack bag.
7. Go Berry Picking
There are numerous places around the lower mainland to go berry picking. Our favourites are strawberries and blueberries, as they are easy to pick. Try searching online to see what farms are near you, what their rates are, and whether they allow you to bring your own buckets or not. Many farms now have social media where you can get updated information on what berries are available and what else is happening at the farm.
8. Play a Board Game
We try to get outside as much as we can during the summer, but sometimes the weather isn’t great and we hide inside. That’s a perfect time to break out a board game! Sometimes we take board games to cafes or beaches to play games. Our current favourite games include Mastermind (an old classic), Clank (a fun deck-building game), and Seven Wonders (which allows up to 7 players).
9. Visit a Museum
Museums are a great way to get the kids out of the house for a fun new activity while also beating the heat (or rain). Some of our favourite museums around the lower mainland include:
- Fort Langley National Historic Site (pictured above, with their wonderful new hands-on indoor play area)
- Canadian Museum of Flight in Langley (mostly outdoors)
- Gulf of Georgia Cannery in Richmond (mostly indoors, but can get warm on hot days)
- Old Hastings Mill Store Museum near Jericho Beach in Vancouver
- Burnaby Village Museum (mostly outdoors)
10. Bake a New Treat
On hot summer days, “bake” turns into “mix” or “create” a new treat without using the oven, like no bake chocolate cookies or fudge. If the weather is cooler, then we’ll use a free summer day to tackle something that takes longer, like baking cinnamon buns or making pie with those fresh berries we picked.
What are your favourite summer activities?
No Responses Yet