Not only can you not lose because this is a FREE tour...but you will gain so much interesting info! I'm sure hopping on and off a bus would be just fine, but for us, with just one short day in this vast city, we were looking for a quick connection, and that's exactly what we got on this recent Sunday. We met our tour guide, Ali at the designated time (11am) at the designated place, and 20 or so of us enjoyed an incredibly interesting walking tour of Chinatown. There is no way we would have gotten the feel for this city had we not taken this tour. Several folks were repeat tour guy visitors, so they must have enjoyed those as well. Our group had folks from several countries. It is a relaxed tour at a pace that is just right...not too fast and not too slow. Seriously, just right! And absolutely everyone in our group was happy to hand over generous thank you tips. Well-deserved. Ali was kind enough at the end of the tour to guide anyone who wanted dining suggestions or directions. For us, he was even kind enough to let us walk along with him since we were heading in the same direction. As a result, we were fortunate enough to get an extended tour, as he remained a wealth of Vancouver info as we went along. Highly recommend! read more

Tour Guys Vancouver - Ali on the China Town tour! - Walking Tours Near Me - Vancouver, British Columbia

I love FREE, Culture, history, and having a tour that rolls all 3 together. We took the Free Downtown & Chinatown Tour with Alex. She pointed out some places of interest, told us the history of Chinatown, took us to a herbal store, and ended the tour at the Chinese Gardens. The tour was over 2 hours, and she gave suggestions for lunch. I love these type of tours because they are given by people who have lived there for a good amount of time, and who are passionate about what they are presenting. She was no exception. read more

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I did the Gastown tour with Emma and she was amazing. Vancouver isn't a old "historic" city like what you will find back home in the states, that being said it does have a lot of rich history and Emma was the perfect guide to explain what that history was. Our tour went a bit over the two hours, and despite the heavy rain it was very informative and everyone there enjoyed it. Well all peppered Emma with questions and she was patient and gracious enough to answer everyone of them. You won't find a better walking tour. read more

Tour Guys Vancouver - Emma was awesome! - Walking Tours Near Me - Vancouver, British Columbia

Best walking tour available in Vancouver! A must try out guide Marla, was very knowledgeable charismatic and fluent in Korean! Her description of the history of the downtown tour was Amazing, I learned so much! I highly recommend this walking tour. read more

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Not much to say other than Tour Guys offers FREE, totally engaging, educational tours of various Vancouver neighborhoods each day. We took the Granville Street & Gastown walking tour with Sahil (aka Chocolate Bear) who kept us entertained and engaged the entire time. This is no small feat when you're wandering city streets with a motley crew of tourists from all over. We tipped him generously, and hope you do too. Two words of caution: 1) There are no washroom breaks on the tour if you're small-bladdered or over-hydrated. 2) We ran about 35 minutes over the advertised 1.5 hour tour, so it may not be the best pick if you have a hard-and-fast schedule for the remainder of the day. read more

We were heading to Granville Island when we happened to pass a concrete column with chalk message saying the free walking tour is across the street and begins at 1:00 pm. I check the time and it's 12:50. So on a whim we joined the free walking tour of Granville Island with our guide Jayne. My wife and I are both locals (both born in van) but we love walking tours in every other city we visit. We always talk about doing a Vancouver one and we just stumbled upon the Tour Guys. We weren't the only locals as there were three others who lived in town. The Granville Island tour is approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes and covers mostly the lesser traveled east side of the island. This was a good thing since I don't think I had even been some of those areas. Jayne was a great guide as she was enthusiastic and passionate about Vancouver. This tour didn't cover the market place which is the busiest area. I don't know, maybe there's not much to say about it except for fresh produce and that it's somewhere to eat. But they could do some cool random fact like oh hey this is where Tom Cruise aka Ethan Hunt was standing in Mission: Impossible 3. read more

Excellent free tour at Granville island. Our tour guide, Alena was very informative. Recommend for: -free tours -pier walks -great sightseeing in Vancouver read more

Tour Guys Vancouver - Walking Tours Near Me - Vancouver, British Columbia

Tour Guys have knowledgeable, enthusiastic tour guides and most of the tours they offer are FREE. We took the Chinatown tour and arrived just as our guide kicking off. The guide was friendly and over the course of the approximately 90 minute tour, she got to know each of us in the approximately 20 person group. The tour wasn't a propaganda-filled brochure for the city. The full history of Vancouver was on full display - prostitutes, drugs, bigotry, riots, and the evolution to the diverse, growing, welcoming city Vancouver has become. There was even a little Jimi Hendrix history in there. I highly recommend Tour Guys as a way to see and learn more about Vancouver from passionate Vancouverites. More cities should have tours like this! read more

Love going on walking tours and learn about the history of where you are visiting/vacationing. Tour Guys of Vancouver provides free walking tours. Our tour guide was Ali, he was like a walking textbook on the history of Vancouver. We met at the fountain at the Vancouver Art Gallery. The tour we signed up for was Chinatown & Strathcona. Always wanted to find out if there were any difference between the Chinatown in NYC, San Francisco, and Vancouver. We pass by a painted mural as we headed towards Chinatown and Ali provided information and history of First Nations (Native American Indians), African Americans, Asians and immigrants that came to Vancouver. This is a free walking tour and it lasted for a good 90 minutes. So do not forget to tip these guys. There were other people in the group that attended the Granville & Gastown tour yesterday. If you are in Vancouver for more than a couple of days, I would say take their other tours. Ali is a wealth of information and connected with everyone. Our tour ended at the Sun Yat Sen Garden. Ali helped us with directions as well as informing us with restaurants are good places to dine for lunch. read more

Free tour with Alex. Our tour of Chinatown was incredibly informative and even lasted over two hours. Alex was excellent, friendly, and even managed to share her humor. I would recommend to all visitors! read more

I did the gastown tour with Marla and the China town tour with Alex. Marla was absolutely amazing. She was funny, informative, and overall a great person.she is also kind, think of the people around us that might over hear her on sensitive subjects. Overflowing with information, she answered every question and even gave us some food recommendations. Definitely recommend doing. I also did the china town tour. Alex was super informative. Also joking around on the riot explanations was very nice. 10/10 recommend especially if you're in Vancouver for a couple days. read more

This is an awesome FREE Vancouver downtown and waterfront walking tour that anyone can enjoy. The tour is approx 1.5 hour long and starts out at 11am from the Vancouver Arts Museum and ends at the Waterfront downtown. I was on a tour with a group of 8-9 other people and Lauren was our tour guide (although during the summer, I heard it can be crowded, upto 50 people...that they even needed 2 tour guides to run the tour). She was friendly, happy to answer any of our questions and simply was passionate about telling us all about Vancouver (Vancouver is just a little over 100 years old, so it helps that Lauren is a history graduate, so it was really nice to learn about Vancouver from a historic perspective as well). We pretty much stopped by the Art Museum, Pendulum Place, Christ Church Cathedral, Marine Building and the Waterfront area (Canada Place and a statue nearby) and learned so many different things that I wouldn't know about if I hadn't been on this tour. Highly recommended. Also, even though the tour is free, I recommend leaving some tips for the your tour guide. It doesn't have to be a lot, but it's a nice gesture to show your appreciation (since the tour guide isn't paid by Tour Guys to do this and their source of income is really coming from the tips they get (if you give any!). read more

Time after time, my view that walking tours are the best way to see any city, is reaffirmed. The Tour Guys in Vancouver are certainly no exception. Our guide was the friendly Lauren who was great from the start. Our group was small, being that it was on Friday in middle of the day on a very wet day. We were on the Downtown & Olympic Waterfront tour which started in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery. We were well dressed for a downpour so we didn't let the weather dampen our tour. Lauren told us this was a great day to see the "real Vancouver" with all the wet weather. We got a good opportunity to view lots of public art throughout Downtown along with Hotel Vancouver, Christ Church Cathedral, the Marine Building Canada and waterfront area were my favorite portions of the tour. Lauren was a history major so she had a wealth of knowledge and answered our questions so well. She was bubbly and fun to boot. She definitely made our tour even more enjoyable. I highly recommend this tour to anyone visiting Vancouver and it makes an excellent starting point for your trip. Definitely a strong five stars! read more

Tour Guys Vancouver - Olympic Cauldron - Walking Tours Near Me - Vancouver, British Columbia

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Our walking tour was led by Ali and he did an awesome job! I highly recommend going on this walking tour during your stay in Vancouver. Ali did a great job of talking through the history of Vancouver, the downtown area, as well as Gastown. He also went above and beyond with restaurant recommendations and other places to go/see in Vancouver. P.S. Wear comfortable shoes. read more

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We did the Vancouver Downtown & Waterfront tour today with Erik. It was excellent! Erik was very knowledgeable about the history of the areas and buildings we visited. He gave us lots of interesting facts and stories related to sites we visited. Erik also made lots of good recommendations on places to visit and restaurants to eat at. It was a very enjoyable 2 hours and I'd highly recommend it. read more

Murder Mystery Tour: Our guide was Leni; she is very charismatic and you can tell she really enjoys her job. Her enthusiasm is contagious :) read more

I went on two tours with this group. The first tour was the Downtown tour with Marla and I really enjoyed it. She was super sweet and informative, breaks into song occasionally, and was funny with trivia questions and calling out drivers for their un-Canandian like behavior. I liked that the tour was not all outside because it was really hot, so I appreciated going inside some of the buildings and even taking time to sit and admire inside the church. The Granville tour was good. Our guide was Emma and though she was really passionate about the art and local business of the island, I didn't care as much. She, too, was very informative on the history of the island, but she spent more time speaking on all the artsy shops there. We ended the tour in the market, which was overwhelming. I wish I could have done the other tours offered by the company as I'm sure they would have been great too. read more

I did the Beer Makes History Better tour July 29th along with two friends and had the luck that Steve was our guide. I can't say enough good things about the tour. Heck, even a month afterwards, I'm still yammering on to friends that weren't along on the tour and urging them to do it. Steve has definitely done his research and manages to impart a ton of really interesting information in a manner that really shows off his interest and passion for the subject and it's not just a rehearsed patter -- he was able to field questions that took us out and away from the normal subject matter and then deftly brought everything back together again with ease. The four pubs along the route matched well with the tour -- Lamplighter, Steamworks, Rogue Wet Bar, and finally Mahoney & Sons. It's an easy walk, with plenty of stops along the way. The beers and snacks provided along the tour were a perfect mix of tasty and tasty. Basically, Tour Guys have an awesome way to spend a sunday afternoon down in a scenic part of our city. I strongly recommend making an effort to get yourself a spot on one of their tours. read more

Tour Guys Vancouver - Ali edifying on the downfall of the Ching dynstasy - Walking Tours Near Me - Vancouver, British Columbia

We did the Gastown/Granville tour with Marla - what a fun and educating experience. Marla was lively (even though she was called in at the last minute because the original tour person lost their voice) and fun and very knowledgeable. The tour starts near Granville and ends in Gastown and lasted about 2 hours as advertised. I had a walker and it was easy terrain for me and there are steps, but not a ton so if you have some help, which I did, that wasn't a problem. For a quick bite afterwards, we walked back up Water street and ate at the food court on the left side (about 3-4 blocks from where you get dropped off. The hamburger was just OK, but the Vietnamese food was excellent and easy on the budget. This tour was one of the highlights of our week in Vancouver and I can't recommend it enough - there was at least 1 other couple who was on their second tour with this company and I wish we had time to do the same because i'm sure all of the tours are fantastic - you can't go wrong. read more

I've been on 2 tours with Tour Guys and they've both been great! The most recent was the Beer Makes History Better tour. Our fabulous guide Jessica guided us around downtown Vancouver as we stopped at various pubs, and she told us about the four P's: Prohibition, Prostitution, Pot, and Protest, as well as other tidbits on Vancouver history. You get most of the information and history at the beginning because you spend the entire tour drinking beer. Need I explain this? ;) We stopped at the Lamplighter, Steamworks (they have a DELICIOUS Pumpkin Ale!), Rogue and then we finished at Mahony & Sons, which I'd never even heard of until I went on this tour because it is so new. The amount of information is perfect. Straight to the point, no fillers. All of the beer you'll drink on this tour is absolutely delicious. Not only are you given information about Vancouver, but you're given some information on the beers themselves and the pub's history. I would be happy to recommend this tour to anyone who likes beer, or has an interest in Vancouver history (and beer). Mmmm, beer. read more

Five star tour, not because it's free, due to the professionalism. It's informative and interactive. Alina knew many of the locals around the area and stopped to get their input. Feel free to ask questions, Alina will know the answer. Many topics covered! Just to clarify, the tour is free and tipping is to your discretion. read more

Tour Guys Vancouver - Alina - Walking Tours Near Me - Vancouver, British Columbia

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Robert was an awesome guide!! Loved getting to know the art and architecture of the city with his stories and insight.

My girlfriend and I recently took the highly acclaimed "Murders, Mysteries & Mayhem" tour. It was by far one of the best tours we've been on, and certainly the best way of learning and understanding the dark history of our beloved city beyond the confines of a book. Our guide (Lauren) was articulate, knowledgeable, and with a combination of wit was able to deliver the stories of our downtown core and Gastown perfectly. Myself, a history graduate from SFU, I thought I had a thorough knowledge of our local histories, but I was pleasantly surprised with all the tales I hadn't heard about. For all ages, I highly recommend this tour to you. As locals, we have a tendency to take for granted all the landmarks we drive or walk past everyday. Little would you have guessed that a murder, or even a conspiracy had once unfolded on the very plot of land you stand on! read more

FREE TOUR???? Does that even make sense for their business??? Doesn't matter; it's free!!! We signed up for the Chinatown tour in Vancouver. The tour starts from the Centennial Fountain at the Vancouver Art Gallery, and it ends at the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden. Leni was our tour guide. She was absolutely amazing. Knowledge, funny, and FULL of energy. While we were walking to a location, she would have private conversations with each of the guests to be a little more personable. She has an amazingly bubbly personality, and it's impossible not to fall in love with her. (Did I mention this was a free tour?) Obviously, these tour guides work for their tips, so please don't be like some people in our group that magically disappeared at the end of the tour. Pay what you think the tour is worth. We want to keep tours like this alive! Reward them for their time, efforts, and remarkable knowledge about the city and history. read more

Took the Gastown tour with "Chocolate Bear" (CB). Great tour! Key points: - You will learn a lot about Vancouver's history, culture and where to eat - The guide knows all the answers to your questions - CB is very knowledgeable, friendly and genuinely interested in where people in our group were from and what they were doing in Vancouver. Only criticism is that the tour was advertised as 1.5 hours but ended up being 2 hours. No big deal, but something to keep in mind if you are pressed for time. Did I mention it's FREE?! (tips encouraged) read more

My husband and I came to Vancouver for a few days. I found Tour Guys through Yelp and saw they had great reviews, so I booked the June 24th Gastown Tour with Ali while my husband was in a conference. Ali did a fantastic job! I loved hearing all of the history of the area and that he even brought his tablet with old pictures. He would talk about the area and show pictures of what that intersection, etc looked like in the past. I liked that tour so much, my husband and I booked the Downtown/Waterfront Tour with Jayne on June 25th. She too did a great job! Since we had a smaller group, she was able to take us in the lobbies of several buildings, which was awesome. Seeing all the different types of architecture, public art pieces, and hearing the history of that area was also really cool. We highly recommend Tour Guys! read more

Despite torrential rains & chilly weather, Sahil (aka Chocolate Bear) proved to be an engaging, energetic and highly entertaining tour guide on the super interesting Murder, Mystery & Mayhem walk. His passion, enthusiasm and subject knowledge overwhelmed the somewhat grim materials, making murder FUN!! We would highly recommend - hella fun date! read more

Tour Guys Vancouver is a very impressive walking tour company. I had the pleasure of working directly with Steve to create a custom 4 hour tour/team building event for a recent trip to Vancouver. Steve listened to my request and crafted a custom tour blending together several of the standard tours while building in several team challenges. My group of 9 truly enjoyed the afternoon exploring Vancouver. Though we make the trip each year this was our first time making time to learn about the history of the city. Steve's easy going style had the group captivated by the illustrious history of Vancouver. Steve was a gracious host throughout the day even personally escorted us to Granville island at the conclusion of the event to ensure we were on time for our team dinner. We actually started the tour with Jessica who led us on a team based food challenge. This was definitely a fun way to dive deep into the Food Truck scene of Vancouver. While still being sensitive to food allergies, we were able to have a fun time exploring and bonding as a team with a healthy level of team competition. Jessica's level of enthusiasm kept the team engaged as hunger levels started to rise. As for pricing, Tour Guys were by far the most competitive in the Vancouver area. We reached out to a number of similar companies and most would not accommodate groups of less than 20. Tour Guys not only were willing to work within our budget but they were willing to customize to meet the need our specific team without charging a significant premium. I would hesitate to recommend to anyone looking to take a standard tour or custom. read more

The best tour you could ever go on. Yeah, it's free, but it's pretty fun and educational. Even though I lived in the city briefly, I learned a lot of things about the history and architecture I was never aware of. Our tour wrapped around lunch time, and it was great to get a recommendations on where to eat. This tour is a must-do for both tourists and locals. read more

Free tours? Wow. Okay, hopefully you're going to tip your guide well (the only money they make), but even a generous tip works out to less than most companies will charge you. All the tours are walking tours, which means you can ask as many questions as you want without having to move on to the next destination as the bus/trolley/boat/whatever moves down along the route. Our guide was a fountain of information and with all all our questions the 90 minute tour ran well over two hours. I took the Chinatown tour, which starts at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Since we had to walk to Chinatown, the first half of the tour actually wasn't about Chinatown. That's not a complaint though; our guide did an excellent job of covering some darker aspects of the city's history (riots, internment, segregation) while still keeping an overall upbeat tone. There were even some locals in our group (with out-of-town friends) who learned new things. And as we ended the tour, we got some recommendations for good places to eat. I ended up with a dim sum assortment to eat in the garden. I *highly* recommend taking one of these tours if you're in town. read more

This tour is an absolute must for ALL visitors to Vancouver: young or old, backpackers or diplomats, couples or families. Having never been to Vancouver before, I was looking for something cheap to do to get acquainted with the city. The Tour Guys popped up on a few other travel sites, so I decided to give them a shot. Having no idea what to expect, I went with low expectations, but I can honestly say this tour (Eat your Cart Out) was the highlight of my weekend. Our tour guides (Steve and Jess) were personable, fun, and vastly knowledgeable. As we walked around the city, they presented us with delicious food and entertaining trivia. Both had an uncanny sense for engaging all of the members of the tour and by the end had memorized where we were all from. When the tour concluded at a pub with a delicious round of beer, Steve and Jess hung around to talk and mingle. Jess went on to make dinner reservations for a family, while Steve ordered a few extra pitchers for us to all share. He then hung around with our group and another couple for another two hours after the tour finished to discuss life, politics, sports, you name it. He didn't hesitate to offer some great recommendations on where to go and what to do for the remainder of our trip. Both went above and beyond the call of duty of a tour guide. Although we weren't able to afford much of a tip as poor college kids, I hope this review will serve as my thanks. If I ever venture back to the Pacific Northwest, I guarantee I will be signing up for the other tours that the Tour Guys offer. You guys rock =) read more

We scheduled a Tour of Downtown before we arrived in Vancouver. Erik was our guide and was excellent so much so that we came back 2 days later for a tour of Gastown with Erik again. We have a daughter in a wheelchair and he was very aware and considerate making sure to clear out taller people so she could see him when we made a stop, as well as providing directions for elevators to access some of the locations. Highly recommend! read more

We did the Gastown tour with Emma and I think it's one of the best choices we made! Our guide was super informative about everything we wanted to know and more! She was very funny and was the perfect way to start the trip! Highly recommended read more

Just finished up our tour of the Vancouver financial district and our tour guide, Emma, was very engaging. The tour was informative, entertaining and a lot of fun. Highly recommend this company. read more

Tour Guys Vancouver - Olympic Caldron - Walking Tours Near Me - Vancouver, British Columbia

We reserved a Chinatown tour--in advance--for Tuesday at 10am. We waited for 30 mins and nobody showed up for the tour or responded to our voicemail and email inquiry about the delay. Don't be fooled by the ratings and don't plan your day around this tour, better yet find another tour. read more

We planned our day around this tour and our guide did not show. We tried multiple times to call and email with no response. A handful of us were waiting and most decided to go our separate ways after a half hour. read more

When we arrived in Vancouver for a four day stay, I knew one of the first things we wanted to go was do a tour to get a feel for the city. I was wavering between doing a bus tour and a walking tour, and finally settled on a this walking tour after reading so many positive reviews. And I am so glad I did! The Chocolate Bear was our tour guide of Gastown. He was upbeat, friendly, and full of interesting facts about the area. Our family enjoyed his relaxed, joking style. Our tour lasted just about two hours, a bit over the expected length of time. Not that that was a problem for us with the good time we were having learning about the city. I highly recommend this tour. And if you are able, please tip your tour guide well. I would have spent well over $100 on the tour bus, and I know that this was a much better experience. Great job! read more

A friend and I went on the Chinatown tour and it was EXCELLENT! Our guide Alex was so friendly and knowledgeable about everything from architecture to food. The tour went beyond Chinatown and into history of the city on the walk from downtown, which was unexpectedly wonderful and informative. Definitely recommend if you're wanting some history of the Chinatown neighborhood or if you're just looking to learn about the city and have a great stroll. Awesome experience! read more

Oh my - that was fun!! I decided to celebrate my birthday a little early by organising an evening around the Beer Makes History Better tour. It was a blast! Normally it would start at the Railway Club but due to a glitch Guilt & Co let us use their cool space to start out. Our tour guide Jessica was on her virgin run and we were over capacity and slightly unruly. She handled our boisterous group with aplomb! First there was a PowerPoint presentation to lay the foundation of cool facts and figures around beer, Canadians and international intrigue. While Jessica was talking the first round of beers came out. Once done we were off to the historic Cambie Hotel. It was too noisy in there for presenting so the historic points were covered outside. After that it was off to the Lamplighter. Already my friends were telling me how little they knew of Vancouver's history and how awesome this tour was. Even though the Lamplighter is now owned by the much maligned Donnelly Group it was pointed out that they restored the tin ceiling inside. That actually impressed the group quite a bit. At this location a round of shots are provided in lieu of beer - bartenders choice and it was a tasty one. The final stop is at the Met (also Donnelly Group so identical decor to the previous spot). Here the group took advantage of the $2.25 appetisers. At each location most people ordered a 2nd beverage and the tour fee is $20. You start at 6:30 and end at about 10:30 which is a good finishing time for a Thursday night if people have to work Friday. They need 10 people to make it happen and like to keep it to 20. We were definitely over 20 but each spot managed our size as best they could. If you're looking for a fun idea for a group get together I'd highly recommend this tour. We learned some interesting facts about the four Ps of Vancouver - prostitution, protest, pot and prohibition. There's a scavenger hunt portion and the winning group got an extra pitcher of beer at the last stop. We had some tasty pints and got to snack along the way plus we got to enjoy an evening stroll on a beautiful night. Beer really does make history better!! read more

What a gem of a find! Tour Guys offers free tours of a few different areas in Vancouver. It's really a "pay what you feel the tour is worth" model, and I have to commend these guys for setting this up brilliantly. Our family (including 3 kids) were already signed up for a relatively expensive food tour, so we weren't sure that we wanted to for another tour. However, since this was a free tour, we checked it out. We met for the Chinatown tour with Ali and it was one of the more fun, enjoyable and informational tours we've been on. Ali was friendly, fun, and an informational whiz! This was a history lesson, entertainment, and exercise session all in one! At the end of the tour, everyone tipped/"paid" Ali. While I don't know what everyone else felt the value was, our family certainly enjoyed it would highly recommend it. Knowing what we know now, we would've paid top dollar up front for this tour! read more