The Swifties are coming. Not to Seattle—that was last year, when Taylor Swift’s Era’s Tour hit Lumen Field. No, they’re coming from Seattle this week, streaming across the border to Vancouver, BC, for the last stop of the singer’s blockbuster circuit starting December 6.

Seattle account manager and Swift fan Amie Feintrich planned to hit up one of those Seattle dates back in 2023, tickets purchased and everything. Then a nasty flu hit. “I couldn’t walk two blocks, let alone stand for two hours and be out until 2am,” she says. She sold her Seattle tickets and made plans to travel all the way to Miami for a future date—until Swift announced the Vancouver dates. Now she’ll drive just over 140 miles to catch the singer.

Washington has long been a landing pad for Canadians in search of American amenities; just wait in line in a Bellingham Trader Joe’s or walk the streets around T-Mobile Park during a Toronto Blue Jays series; Canadian accents abound. But with its 54,500-seat BC Place stadium and enclosed Rogers Arena next door, both in dense, walkable downtown, Vancouver pays us back.

Beyoncé hit both metropolises last year; Tyler, the Creator will hop from one to the other in 2025. We can’t really call Vancouver a “backup” when the FIFA World Cup descends in 2026; Seattle will host six games, while Canada’s west coast city will host seven. It does double the opportunities for tickets, though.

But sometimes the biggest draw is the stuff we can’t get locally; next year Katy Perry’s concert tour stops at BC Place but nowhere in the US. The Invictus Games, famous philanthropic project of Prince Harry, lands in Vancouver and Whistler in February with competitive sports for injured military veterans, including the first winter sports event.

Vancouver boasts its alternative status a little further south, too, in the wide terminals of YVR international airport. The screens pop with destinations you can’t reach directly from Seattle–Tacoma’s gates—Dubai, Fiji, Sydney, Auckland, Bangkok, Xiamen. The airport’s usefulness as an international hub is evident by the Fairmont Hotel built right into the terminal, its workout room directly above the counters where travelers tag their checked baggage. Loathe a connection? Launching a trip from YVR expands the nonstop options.

I took my own trip north to Vancouver in fall, grateful for its proximity so we could catch a hockey game. (Yes, we have local NHL action, but not nearly enough Pittsburgh matchups to serve a Penguins fan like my partner.) The Amtrak train trip from King Street Station took almost four hours, but the scenic Chuckanut-adjacent views made up for the length—not to mention how we were deposited in Vancouver right next to the city’s stadium district.

Here, the Yaletown neighborhood sits in downtown’s southeast corner, walkable to the bustling tourist centers of Granville Island, Canada Place, and Gastown, but somehow quietly removed. Venture away from the stadiums for the crusty liege waffles of Café Medina and the fusion cuisine of Kissa Tanto. But the immediate vicinity is speckled with the 7-Elevens and dog parks of residential life.

This is a Vancity for visitors hungry for more than museums and aquariums. The waterfront is feet away; a somewhat-secret 30,000-square-foot public park hides on the sixth floor of the Parq Casino complex, accessible through the Douglas Hotel. The prongs of the BC Place roof jut into its outdoor patio, dotted with ponds and greenery. It’s almost easy to miss the casino tucked into the building below it, but its wide floor of baccarat and craps tables gets actual, natural light.

Some cities toss their football fields and concert complexes in the far suburbs, ringed by parking lots. Here, as in Seattle, the big show is part of the big skyline. The Mount Pleasant neighborhood, home to many of the city’s Michelin-starred eateries, sits just beyond the iconic dome of Science World.

The area’s so dense that during this weekend's Eras Tour performances, the city has asked non–ticket holders to avoid hanging out in the streets around BC Place. No “Taygating,” as it’s called—the ferries and TransLink trains will be full enough with concertgoers.

The morning after my hockey game in Rogers Arena—good fans, rowdy, but polite—I wandered into Olympic Village, a neighborhood adjacent to Mount Pleasant and onetime home of the athlete housing for the 2010 Winter Games. I scored a sandwich from breakfast food truck Crack On. Candied jalapeños and tomato relish added excitement to an egg-and-bacon classic.

I could see the stadiums across False Creek, where small ferry links here to there, though it’s only about 20 minutes to walk around. A group of Pokemon Go players gathered and dispersed, heads deep in their phones, and locals strolled by with their dogs. For a moment before beginning the trip back toward the national border, I was somewhere between tourist and local. As a city-loving Seattleite, it’s nice to know we have Vancouver in our back pocket. It’s a hell of a backup.