Sauntering Vancouver: 2025 in Review

I covered more ground on my perennial quest to walk all the streets in (Metro) Vancouver! And what makes it so nice is how different each was. There were:

The three great expeditions:

• a fun trek where Jo and I walked the full length (~18km) of Burnaby, dipping my feet in both the southmost (river) and northmost (sea) points to bookend the adventure

• a long-awaited 15km along the entire Hastings St, starting at the base of Burnaby Mountain and ending at Coal Harbour's waterfront, on a bench next to a man who was losing his mind

• a ~10km expedition through both the walkable parts of Burnaby and those that made me contemplate my suicidality. Went up the hills that make New West and shared roads with articulated trucks towards Burquitlam. All for $10 IKEA DAIM cake (and yes, I'd do it again!)

Walking out of a funk

Not all walks were impulsive explosions of curiosity and agency. A few were calm saunters to piece myself back together during a depressive slump. When I got the Gogomi notification that I'd completed Parkcrest-Aubrey, I shrugged. Those walks meant much more than that.

The one I remember most was on a rainy day when barely anyone was outside. I took a stroll around, all hooded up, because I'd much rather be in the gloomy outside than be gloomy inside. That's when I stumbled upon a bird drowning in a puddle at an alleyway near Halifax and Howard Ave.

I got closer and realised that it wasn't drowning, but actually playing! I stared at it for too long, feeling envious of this little starling. Something shifted. Since then, I've been noticing birds more, especially the hummingbirds who visit my neighbour's balcony almost every morning. Given my tendency to take things too far, who knows, might join these folks.

Roaming with others

Speaking of joining folks, 2025 meant more walks with old friends and meeting new ones:

• Errand runs (getting pots with Vi) and tourism challenges
• Chasing warm fall gradients around East Van with Rob (this year's autumn really bloomed, eh?)
• Em and I caught up over a quick walk in Strathcona and stumbled upon some artefacts hiding in plain sight! (waiting for the tiktokers to hidden-gemify some of them)
• Kai showed me how to scale a wall, while we dilly-dallied around Mount Pleasant
• In the summer, I walked all the way to downtown New West to meet a friend, then we lined the quayside together (found a koi pond I could sit next to all day)
• The most random was bumping into an elderly woman who also moved from an African country to Vancouver, though 30 years before I did. We traded stories while walking around her neighbourhood, Sperling-Broadway.

Rounding up

These, plus about 200 others, made for a busy sauntering year. I ran the numbers and 2025 saw 422 km walked, 21 new neighbourhoods and 124 hours on foot.

As for quest completion, all this adds to a...+3% bump for Vancouver, and +7% for Burnaby. Now you understand why I describe the quest as perennial! If you read between the lines, you'll figure out that the goal isn't really to walk all the streets of the region.

One thing about this quest is that there's no such thing as being delayed anymore. You can just putter around. For example, my friend was late to a coffee hang, I said "sure" and just walked around the neighbourhood a bit, "chasing reds" on Gogomi until they got there. A fun way to pass the time, rather than, I don't know, cycling through the same 5 apps on my phone.

"Walking is mapping with your feet. It helps you piece a city together, connecting up neighbourhoods that might otherwise have remained discrete entities... Walking helps me feel at home."

— Lauren Elkin