1000 Cool Things About Vancouver is a pretty self-explanatory Scout column that gives equal weight to the common attributes and obscure intangibles that make our city well worth living in. Getting to a thousand is a pretty ambitious goal, but we believe in our city and are already well on our way!

Kits Beach would be a shoe-in for our 1,000 Cool Things About Vancouver project if it wasn’t so damn obvious. It’s also just a little too crazy and crowded in high summer, which is unfortunately the time of year when we would most like to avail ourselves of its awesomeness. The best way to endure it is to simply escape it.

Indeed, when all the bro hollering, teen preening, tinny music on portable speakers and countless other injuries to your tranquility reach their intolerable crescendo, just jump in the water and swim out to the floating wooden raft. Even during peak times when the sun is at its most impactful there’s seldom more than 10 shivering and soaked people standing on it at a time. There’s really not much room on it for more.

Here you can sit and relax while basking in the warmth of not only the sun, but also the accomplishment of the short swim that brought you and the others dripping around you. If you’re really lucky, you might even arrive to find nobody on the float at all. It’s a rare thing in high summer, but it happens. Should the opportunity to enjoy it alone (or alone with a friend) ever present itself to you, go for it.

Kits Beach

Neighbourhood: Kitsilano

Kits Beach