Travelers TV Series: All the Vancouver Filming Locations and How to Visit Them
Netflix's Travelers used greater Vancouver as its primary production base for all three seasons. The city, the SFU campus, and the surrounding Lower Mainland show up in every episode — here's what's where.
Travelers — the Canadian sci-fi series about consciousness-transfer agents from a devastated future — ran three seasons on Showcase and Netflix (2016–2018) and built an international fanbase for its unusually grounded treatment of the time travel premise. Creator Brad Wright and the production team based the show entirely in British Columbia, using Vancouver's architectural range to present a convincing near-future Pacific Northwest US city. The locations are specific, recognisable, and almost all accessible to visitors.
Simon Fraser University: the most recognisable location
SFU's Burnaby Mountain campus (8888 University Drive, Burnaby — 30 minutes from downtown Vancouver by car or bus) appears throughout the series as institutional and corporate spaces. The Academic Quadrangle, with its brutalist concrete architecture and covered walkways, reads as a government facility in several Travelers sequences. The W.A.C. Bennett Library exterior appears in background shots of official-building scenes. SFU is a public university with open campus access during regular hours — the Convocation Mall and main academic concourse are freely walkable. The SFU bus exchange is served by TransLink's 143 and 144 routes from Production Way–University SkyTrain station. Combine with the SFU Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (free, on campus) for a full half-day visit.
Editor's tips
- Take the TransLink bus rather than driving — the SFU parking situation is genuinely difficult
- The SFU Trottier Observatory hosts free public nights on clear Saturdays — check sfuastronomyclub.ca
- Burnaby Mountain Park surrounds the campus with hiking trails and panoramic views of Vancouver
Gastown and downtown Vancouver
The show's urban texture — streets, exteriors, and neighbourhood scenes — draws heavily on Gastown (Vancouver's oldest neighbourhood, Carrall St to Cambie St, Water St as main artery) and the adjacent Strathcona and Downtown Eastside neighbourhoods. The Gastown steam clock (Cambie and Water St) appears in background shots throughout. Water Street's Victorian brick buildings provide the period industrial aesthetic that doubles credibly for early 21st-century US urban fabric. The Waterfront Station area (601 W Cordova) provides the transport hub aesthetic used for several transit-sequence scenes. Gastown is fully walkable from Vancouver's cruise ship terminal and SkyTrain Waterfront Station.
Fraser Valley: the rural sequences
The near-future rural American landscape used in Travelers — abandoned farmhouses, agricultural fields, rural roads — was filmed in the Fraser Valley east of Vancouver. Specifically, the communities around Langley, Abbotsford, and Chilliwack provided the rural and semi-rural sequences. The agricultural landscape here has the flat, expansive quality that reads as American rural Midwest without requiring a US production. For visitors, the Fraser Valley is a 45-minute drive from Vancouver via Highway 1 east. The Abbotsford/Matsqui area has the specific flat farmland aesthetic most visible in the series' outdoor rural scenes. The Fraser Valley is primarily agriculture — not a visitor destination per se, but worth a drive if you want to understand the production geography.
British Columbia as fictional USA: the wider production pattern
Travelers sits in a long tradition of BC productions presenting Vancouver as a fictional American city: The X-Files (1993–2002) established the template; MacGyver, Battlestar Galactica, Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Fringe, and dozens of others followed. The reasons are economic (BC Production Tax Credit provides 35% labour tax credit for eligible BC-based productions) and logistical (Vancouver's architectural range accommodates both urban and rural American visual vocabularies). For filming-locations tourists, this means almost any Vancouver neighbourhood has hosted multiple productions. The BC Film Commission's location database (bcfilmcommission.com) lists registered filming locations by production. Several Vancouver film tour companies (BC Film Tours, Vancouver Movie Tours) run dedicated Travelers-and-genre-TV tours.
Editor's tips
- Vancouver Film School (420 Homer St, downtown) offers public tours that explain the production infrastructure
- Gastown's Steamworks restaurant is worth a stop — the brick-vault basement is atmospheric and the beer list is genuinely good
- The Museum of Vancouver (1100 Chestnut St) has an exhibit on Vancouver's film production history
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Frequently asked questions
Primarily in greater Vancouver, British Columbia — downtown Vancouver (Gastown, Waterfront area), Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, and the Fraser Valley's agricultural communities east of the city. The show presents Vancouver as a fictional near-future Pacific Northwest US city.
Travelers' filming locations are a rewarding Vancouver itinerary component rather than a destination in themselves — the show's production geography is too spread across the city and surrounding region to make a dedicated day realistic. The most efficient approach: combine SFU's campus with Burnaby Mountain Park for a half-day, then spend an afternoon in Gastown and the Waterfront area for the urban sequences. Add a Fraser Valley drive if rural landscape context matters to you. Vancouver itself — with Stanley Park, Granville Island Market, and the Gastown and Chinatown dining scene — rewards three to four days regardless of Travelers interest.
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Marcus Chen
Hotels & Deals Editor · Based in New York City
Marcus reviews hotels for a living — and has slept in over 400 of them. Before TravelBuzzy, he ran the hotel desk at a major loyalty publication and consulted for two boutique hotel groups. He covers the Americas, Japan, and luxury travel.
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