Dream job alert: Meet the Activities Coordinator behind HI Vancouver's packed summer calendar

Before setting up our own personal itineraries, we caught up with Fawzi Ibrahim—the brains behind HI Vancouver’s packed (in a good way!) activities calendar. Fawzi is like the friend who knows all the best parties, secret sunset locations, and hidden-gem bars. 

It’s no wonder he's in charge of the social itinerary at both our HI Vancouver Downtown and HI Vancouver Jericho Beach locations. We don't know what we're looking forward to more: the World Cup viewing parties, drag queen performers for Pride, a new Indigenous cultural experience on the beach, or a campy pirate party aboard a boat sailing through the salty Pacific. 

Here's what he had to say about summer plans at HI Vancouver and a glimpse into what it's like to work this dream job:

You have such a fun job! I’m sure there’s no typical day but tell me a bit about what a HI Canada activities coordinator does.  

Fawzi: Sure! Let's say I'm setting up all the activities. I think, okay, it's summer so what would work best? A lot of walking tours would work well, and of course beach volleyball, kayaking, and barbecues. I figure out what the best activities for the season would be and I add those plus the bar crawls. I make sure to put them at the best times possible. So of course, I wouldn’t want to put a bar crawl on a Tuesday, I’d want to put that on a Friday or Saturday. For something like kayaking, I’d want to do it in the afternoon on a weekday. A barbecue, I’d also want to do in the afternoon or evening so people could just relax and eat some food. I’m basically timing everything for when it would work best. Then I work on promoting and advertising the activities. Once the activities are set up, I bring guests from the hostel to the location point, and then we start the activity. Typically each one runs for a couple hours. Right now, I’m also helping HI hostels in Canada plan events for the World Cup.

That's a huge event and it’s coming up! What do you have planned?

We're doing watch parties at every hostel. If the hostel has a field, we're doing soccer matches. We're doing prediction games as a part of the watch parties so people can guess which team is going to win. If they're right, we'll draw a winner and they'll win a prize: our first official HI Canada jersey. We’re also doing random challenges, like for example, say hello in a different language. So little activation games throughout the six weeks and we're doing World Cup bar crawls.

In a hostel environment, you’re planning social events for people all over the world. What’s the demographic typically? 

We have everyone, of course but we get a lot of Germans and Australians, a few from the U.K. and France. Those are the travellers from outside of Canada. They’re usually in their twenties and thirties.

For summer 2026, we've talked about FIFA. What other activities are you looking forward to? I know there’s a big party for Pride! 

This is the third year we're doing HI Pride! We're working with a charity called Vancouver Friends for Life. They're helping us book the drag queens that we're going to have. We have a DJ, a raffle, a barbecue, and drinks. It’ll be on the Saturday, so it's the first day of Pride. We're hosting it on the HI Vancouver Downtown patio, but we’ll also have stuff going on on the rooftop which will be more of a chill zone. We're just basically going to vibe! Our party is from 4-10 p.m. for those looking for an evening party. We're only charging $25. Donations from the raffle are going to go to Vancouver Friends for Life which is an incredible charity that supports people with HIV, dementia, and ALS. I really just want to vouch for them too—like, I love them. I can’t say who will be performing yet but there’s one drag queen who I believe is coming. She’s an incredible drag queen. Her makeup is insane! She goes all out. She should be on RuPaul's Drag Race, honestly.

As for the second part of your question, we also have a pirate boat party on Canada Day. We rent out a pirate ship and we bring 40 guests there. We’ll have music, drinks, and basically we just party like pirates. We do pirate shows where the guests fight each other on the boat. It’s something we’ve done the past couple of years and it's always been such a hit! They even give you pirate gear. So you're literally just like on a boat partying like pirates.

You're very outgoing and I can tell that you're fun to be around! What's your favourite part about the job?

I love getting to know the guests! That's my favourite thing. We follow each other on Instagram and I can live vicariously through their next adventures. If I'm ever visiting a country like Germany, I could be like, ‘Hey, I have so many German friends now!’” It’s a really cool part of my job—meeting people, learning from them, and seeing other cultures.

How would you describe the culture and feel of Vancouver compared to other parts of Canada?

Vancouver, especially in the summertime, is such an incredible experience! You have nature, mountains, and oceans. You have many music festivals. And we have a specific culture here too. Something that people might not know about Vancouver is that we're a very hippie town. It creates such a cool environment because you meet people from all walks of life. Vancouver explodes full of brightness in the summertime. You won't be disappointed if you come here during the summer. You really won't.

Beautiful! I wonder if you could think of a standout memory from the hostel—a certain day that you look back on and cherish.

We have a volunteer with us. His name is Eric Graff. He's been volunteering with us for 32 years. He does the Lynn Canyon and Capilano tour. He’s currently 84 years old. For his 30th anniversary with us, we threw him a party! We were celebrating his tours and his work. We bought him a cake, threw the party on the roof, and put up decorations. He's originally from Copenhagen, so we had Copenhagen flags and we made a video for him as well. He was so happy because what he’s doing is making a difference and he felt appreciated. He’s still going strong! He was just in India for six months!

How amazing to be 84, volunteering, hiking, travelling, and partying on the roof of HI Canada! I’m thinking of this rooftop and his tours, but I’m also curious about the other locations I could visit while staying at either Vancouver location.

The rooftop is at the downtown hostel. For our bar crawls, we go to four separate bars throughout the city: on Fridays we go to Portside, Funky Winker Beans (which is a karaoke bar), Cambie and Lamplighter. On Saturday, we go to The Yale Saloon, Twelve West, Cabana and Good Co Bar. We do beach volleyball on Jericho Beach right outside the hostel. We do bike rides and drum circles in Stanley Park. Then we also have tours and events in Lynn Canyon, Capilano Bridge, Bone Island—which is a ferry ride away from the mainland—and Grouse Mountain. 

Does it depend which hostel I stay at or can I do these tours at either location?

Downtown and Jericho connect on both! We do the same activities.

Given the time of year, we’re mostly talking about summer right now. What kind of things happen during the winter months? 

We still love the walking tours because as long as it's not raining too bad, there’s plenty to see! We also do the bar crawls of course, because they're inside. We get creative with other indoor events like rock climbing and beer pong inside. Things like that.

Tell me about one more activity that I should put on my calendar!

There’s one summer activity that we're doing which is brand new. It’s an Indigenous cultural gathering and it’s our first big Indigenous event that we're throwing. We throw Indigenous-focused events twice a month, but this is our first time hosting at HI Vancouver Jericho Beach. We're going to have vendors, a band, and hopefully dancers. It’s happening on August 23rd from 1-5 p.m. So we’ll be doing all those fun things. We have an Indigenous culture advisor, Chris Coutrie, and he and I are working closely together to plan it and to build something big. It’s going to be incredible! We really want to teach everyone—Canadians as well as people who aren't from Canada—about the lands that we live on.