Hi, Just wanted to introduce ourselves. We are considering emigrating to Vancouver from Hampshire, UK. We're a family of 2 adults and 3 children aged 3, 5 & 7. We have a 3 week trip planned during August. We plan to do some sightseeing and research while there.

Just thought we'd say Hi.

Emma and Peter

Hi. Vancouver sounds like paradise doesn't it?

Hope you have a lovely time, never been myself. It's supposed to be the warmest part of Canada

Hi

We are in Hampshire/Dorset(Bransgore), whereabouts are you?

Welcome to BE, hope you have a great recce

Its 35 C so it's pretty warm right now!

Hi

We're also hoping to move to Vancouver Island from Hampshire. We also did a three week recce last year with our four children and loved it.

Hope the recce goes well.

If you get the time take the kids up to the aquarium. You will have a great day there.

Hi and welcome, we are heading for Vancouver Island. You'll find loads of help on here and meet friends aswell.
Good luck with your plans.

Thanks for all your comments. It really is a busy time for us as there's so much to think about.

We are actually in Yateley, Hampshire - Wendy S, It seems we're just down the road from you. In fact we used to live in Church Crookham! What a small world.

As we're new to using a Forum, I hope I am allowed to continue to ask questions here, if not, please let me know.

We are wondering whether it makes sense to hire an RV instead of worrying about accommodation plus car hire - any advice here would be much appreciated. Our plan is to go mid August for 3 weeks, which includes the first week in September. Is this a practical way to get around?

Many thanks.

It depends a bit on where you want to go. For a holiday then great, for a recce trip you may have problems.

RVs can be big beasts and are definitely not suited for driving around town, and are impossible to park in places designed for cars and trucks. For the part of your trip when you are setting up interviews, visits to real estate agents, and generally checking out places to live, you will be much better off renting a suite and and small car. I would even think twice about renting a car for some of the time you are in Vancouver. It depends on where you need to go but the business district is quite compact, many places are accessible on public transport, and parking is expensive downtown.

I have never used an RV but I guess for touring the Province there is something to be said for one. I have no idea how much the cost to rent so you will need to compare this to the price of hotel rooms, and remember that their gas mileage is awful. Also, in August most of the RV parks and campgrounds will be full so you must make reservations in advance, or get there really early to secure a spot. The Labour Day weekend (first in September) is the last big camping weekend of the year and everything will be booked in advance. Afterwards you should be able to find spaces in RV parks quite easily.

In the US, Walmart seem quite happy to let RVers use their parking lots for overnight stays. I don't know if the same is true for Canada.

To add to the excellent information JonboyE has given you .......

If you want to ask travel type questions (about hotels, rental cars, tourist attractions), a great place to ask those kinds of questions is the TripAdvisor forum.

You can ask about RVing at TripAdvisor. There are some RVers there. But the really serious RVers discuss things on the Open Roads forum.

Like this forum, the TripAdvisor (TA) forum has a Wiki section (in which forum members have provided information). Here are a couple of TA Wiki pages that may be of interest to you:
When you're on the TripAdvisor website, just do a search for INSIDE + NAME OF TOWN, and see what comes up.

My favourite website about Vancouver is Find Family Fun. It's written and maintained by a real life family with three children. You can sort attractions by price range, by geographic location, and so on. The descriptions tell you the age ranges to which different attractions appeal.

A member of this forum, Surrey Expat, wrote an excellent Wiki article called Scouting Trip. But I don't get the impression that you're ready for a serious recce trip yet, that is, one that includes job hunting activities, etc. Your original post seems to indicate that you still want to look at BC and find out if it appeals to you as a place to live.

You asked whether or not you were allowed to carry on asking questions here. Well, not strictly speaking. But a newcomer has lots of diplomatic immunity. You can make mistakes in the beginning. But, strictly speaking, the Meet and Greet forum was only designed as a place to say Hi. If you have ongoing questions, you technically are supposed to ask them in other forums. You can find out more about this from the Wiki article called Choose the right forum-Canada.

Hope that helps.
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Here's some additional information.

If you really do want to travel in an RV, read these excellent articles by Camping_Girl:

Renting an RV

RVing Info & Useful Tips

Equipment List

Campfire Cooking

Bears
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Many thanks for all the advice, tips and links Judy - you've certainly given us plenty to research, but that's exactly what we need to do!

We'll post all further questions in the appropriate sections.