Tour prices fluctuate, so inquire about rates when booking.

Airplane Tours

Baxter Aviation conducts tours to the mountains, glaciers, and islands around the city from C$79 per person based on four people or more per plane. You can see Vancouver from the air for about C$99 for 20 minutes with Harbour Air Seaplanes.

Fees & Schedules

Baxter Aviation (604/683-6525 or 800/661-5599. www.baxterair.com). Harbour Air Seaplanes (604/233-3505 or 800/665-0212. www.harbour-air.com).

Boat Tours

Aquabus Ferries operates tours of False Creek on small covered boats and vintage wooden ferries. Twenty-five-minute tours cost C$6 and run year-round; 45-minute minicruises are offered May through October and cost C$9. The tours leave every 15 minutes from the Aquabus dock on Granville Island.

False Creek Ferries has a 40-minute tour for C$10. It leaves from Granville Island daily, every half hour. A 25-minute tour for C$6 runs weekends and holidays only. It leaves every 15 minutes from Granville Island.

Harbour Cruises, at the north foot of Denman Street on Coal Harbour, operates a 1¼-hour narrated tour of Burrard Inlet on a paddlewheeler. Tours are given from April through October and cost less than C$20. Harbour Cruises also offers sunset dinner cruises, four-hour lunch cruises up scenic Indian Arm, and four-hour brunch tours into Howe Sound.

Paddlewheeler Riverboat Tours, at the New Westminster Quay, can take you out on the Fraser River in an 1800s-style paddle wheeler. Tours run year-round, and include a variety of sightseeing and evening entertainment options, including cruises to historic Fort Langley.

Fees & Schedules

Aquabus Ferries (604/689-5858. www.aquabus.bc.ca). False Creek Ferries (604/684-7781. www.granvilleislandferries.bc.ca). Harbour Cruises (1 North Foot of Denman St., at W. Georgia St., West End. 604/688-7246 or 800/663-1500. www.boatcruises.com). Paddlewheeler Riverboat Tours (Unit 139, 810 Quayside Dr., New Westminster. 604/525-4465 or 877/825-1302. www.vancouverpaddlewheeler.com).

Helicopter Tours

Tour Vancouver, the harbor, or the mountains of the North Shore by helicopter for C$140 to C$165 per person (minimum of four people). Most tours leave from the Harbour Heliport next to the Pan Pacific Hotel downtown. Tours are also available from the top of Grouse Mountain.

Fees & Schedules

Helijet Charters (455 Waterfront Rd., Downtown. 604/270-1484 or 800/987-4354. www.helijet.com).

Orientation Tours

Gray Line conducts a 3½-hour Deluxe Grand City bus tour year-round. The tour picks up at all major downtown hotels and includes Stanley Park, Chinatown, Gastown, English Bay, and Granville Island. The fee is about C$55. From May through September, Gray Line also has a narrated city tour with 21 stops around downtown, Stanley Park, and Granville Island aboard double-decker buses; passengers can get on and off as they choose and can travel free the next day. Adult fare is about C$30.

The one-hour Stanley Park Horse Drawn Tours operate March 1 to the end of October and cost C$22.42 per person. The tours leave every 20 to 30 minutes from the information booth on Stanley Park Drive. The tours include transport from downtown to Stanley Park. The Vancouver Trolley Company runs trolley-style buses through Vancouver on a two-hour narrated tour of Stanley Park, Gastown, English Bay, Granville Island, and Chinatown, among other sights. A day pass allows you to complete one full circuit, getting off and on as often as you like. Start the trip at any of the 23 stops and buy a ticket (C$30) on board. The four-hour City Highlights tour run by West Coast City and Nature Sightseeing is about C$54. A longer tour for C$65 includes a visit to the Capilano Suspension Bridge. Pickup is available from all major hotels downtown.

North Shore tours usually include a gondola ride up Grouse Mountain, a walk across the Capilano Suspension Bridge, a stop at a salmon hatchery, a visit to the Lonsdale Quay Market, and a ride back to town on the SeaBus. North Shore tours are offered early March through late October by Landsea Tours and mid-April through October by West Coast City and Nature Sightseeing. The five hour tours are about C$89.

Fees & Schedules

Gray Line (604/879-3363 or 800/440-3885. www.grayline.ca). Landsea Tours (604/255-7272 or 877/669-2277. www.vancouvertours.com). Stanley Park Horse-Drawn Tours (604/681-5115. www.stanleypark.com). Vancouver Trolley Company (604/801-5515 or 888/451-5581. www.vancouvertrolley.com). West Coast City and Nature Sightseeing (604/451-1600 or 877/451-1777. www.vancouversightseeing.com).

Private Guides

Early Motion Tours picks you up at your hotel for a spin through Vancouver in a 1930 Model-A Ford convertible. Vancouver All-Terrain Adventures offers customized city tours in a luxury four-wheel-drive Suburban at C$75 an hour for up to seven passengers. Group and individual tours in eight European languages are available from VIP Tourguide Services.

Fees & Schedules

Early Motion Tours (604/687-5088). Vancouver All Terrain Adventures (604/984-2374 or 888/754-5601. www.all-terrain.com). VIP Tourguide Services (604/214-4677. www3.telus.net/tourguides).

Special-Interest Tours

If Vancouver looks familiar, chances are you've already seen it on screen, posing as an American city in any of the hundreds of U.S. movies and TV shows filmed here. Vancouver Movie Tours will take you behind the scenes to locations made famous in film and video, including the apartment used by Agent Scully in The X-Files. Three-hour tours run daily, year-round, and cost C$75. A tour of Scully's apartment costs C$29.

Fees & Schedules

Vancouver Movie Tours (604/609-2770 or 888/250-7211. www.vanmovietours.com).

Walking Tours

Students from the Architectural Institute of British Columbia lead 90-minute walking tours of the city's top heritage sites Tuesday to Saturday, mid-June through August. Tours are C$5 per person and meet at 1 PM at various locations. Guides from the Chinese Cultural Centre offer 90-minute walking tours of Chinatown's heritage buildings, clan associations, shops, temples, and other attractions, many of which are not normally open to the public. Tours cost C$10 and run daily at 10 AM and 2 PM between June and September. Reservations are essential. The Gastown Business Improvement Society sponsors free 90-minute historical and architectural walking tours daily June through August. Meet the guide at 2 PM at the statue of "Gassy" Jack in Maple Tree Square. Guides with Walkabout Historic Vancouver dress in 19th-century costume for their two-hour historical walking tours around downtown and Gastown or Granville Island. Tours run March through October and cost C$25.

Fees & Schedules

Architectural Institute of British Columbia (604/683-8588; 800/667-0753 in BC. www.aibc.ca). Chinese Cultural Centre (50 E. Pender St. 604/658-8883. www.vancouver-chinatown.com)

Gastown Business Improvement Society (604/683-5650. www.gastown.org). Walkabout Historic Vancouver (604/720-0006. www.walkabouthistoricvancouver.com).