The area around the Holiday Inn on West Broadway is quite safe. It is a shopping and restaurant area, so tends to be busy. The hotel itself is not in downtown proper, though it is fairly close. If you have a choice of Holiday Inns, you might want to look at the Holiday Inn and Suites on Howe Street, which is more distinctly downtown. The transit system is easy to use, so I think you will get along fine using buses. We take the bus and walk (pretty much everything is walkable in the main areas of Vancouver in any case). We usually buy a booklet of tickets, which makes hopping on and off buses easier than scrambling for change all the time. At most bus stops there is a phone number listed that you can call for information, so if you are at spot X and want to get to spot Y, just call and the operator will tell you: very easy to do.

WEbsite for transit info:

www.translink.bc.ca

On the front page there is a link for tourists that plans your journeys for you. Within the downtown area, transit is great. Not so great for outlying areas, but still usable.

Broadway is perfectly safe and close to Granville Island, but unless shopping is your thing, I would think about staying elsewhere. I personally love the West End but downtown has a little less "colour". The West End has the beaches and Stanley Park, not so much shopping and constant action.

The area around the Holiday in is safe. Vancouver General Hospital is a short distance away and a large medical centre is a block away.

But having lived in the area for a bit, I'm going to disagree with the above poster and say that it's not a shopping area.

There is of course Granville Island and boutique shops on Granville Street between Broadway and 16th but a bit far to walk to (in my opinion). But in the immediate area, unless you want to shop at Shopper Drug Mart (24 hrs), London Drugs, book store, medical supply stores, Sports Check and a few small clothing stores there's not much by way of shopping in the area.

There are however plenty of choices for restaurants and fast food chains.

Just a note that there is a 24 hours Casino to the back of the hotel.

As for safety, there's not much after dark on Broadway Street so not reason to be out, but the area is safe enough, though with all metropolitan cities, always exercise a level of caution every where you go.

I have to agree with Bumblebee, that although there are shops, this is not really a shopping area. It is safe in the way that many busy main streets in Toronto are safe - lots of foot and pedestrian traffic - and i don't worry about walking around that area. Even though there are good transit options from that Holiday Inn, I would suggest other more downtown locations. There are lots of hotel options at any budget. Try the westend/english bay area near the beach (like the Coast Plaza Suite Hotel) so that you would have much more within walking distance (cafes, retaurants, the beach, Stanley Park - even to Granville Island if you walk along the beach to the water taxi) and still have good public tansit options. With a teenager, I think you will both have more options staying more centrally.

You can see a lot in 4 days, and still fill up a 5th day.

I live here and suggest you try the Sylvia. It's a small hotel located right on English Bay and close to downtown. It's economical for what you get.

As an analogy, Vancouver's Broadway would be Toronto's equivalent of Eglinton Ave. The Holiday Inn you refer to would be the equivalent of Yonge & Eglinton. Geographically, it's centrally located in Vancouver, but, outside the downtown core.

Happy to report that I traversed the stretch of Broadway under discussion by bicycle today and escaped unscathed.

Despite heavy traffic, slow pedestrians, uncooperative traffic lights and the ubiquitous pigeons my virtue remains unsullied, my life as banal as ever(!)