Washington State Trip Itinerary & Overview

Our family just got back from a 10-night trip to Washington state. The visit was our first time anywhere in the Pacific Northwest, and I can definitely say we were impressed. Wow. What a BEAUTIFUL place! We had such a great time, but there is a part of me that is a little sad that we couldn’t see even more of this gorgeous part of the country.

Although 10 nights seemed like it would be enough to see everything we wanted to, it wasn’t. There is so much natural beauty in Washington! So we had to narrow down what we could see and do. We chose to divide our time between Seattle and two national parks – North Cascades and Olympic. Unfortunately, Mount Ranier (which we hear is amazing too) will have to wait for next time.

Today I am going to do a quick recap and overview of our Washington adventure for anyone planning a visit to the Evergreen State, or one of the national parks. After this post, I will do a quick highlights post on each section of the trip with more detailed information and photos on what we enjoyed about each stop.

Planning this trip

Over the years of traveling together, I think we have settled into an approach that works for our family’s tastes and temperament.

The other day I had this Venn diagram popped into my head. Do you remember those? Imagine one circle that encompasses “incredible sites and experiences”. Then imagine another circle right next to it that encompasses “no crowds or lines”. The intersection created by those circles seems to be our sweet spot.

For a trip like this, where there is so much to see and ground to cover, we have to do a lot of sifting and editing. That means saying “no” to a lot of good things so we can say “yes” to the best things for us. I broke down the specifics of how we do this on THIS post a couple years back if you are interested. Not much has changed since then.

We also really love the anticipation of a trip almost as much as the trip itself. Brian and I enjoy reading, scouring and asking questions for months leading up to the day we leave so that we can make wiser decisions about what we want to make time for and what we can let go. That takes a lot of pressure off and helps us really embrace the present while we travel.

Itinerary

For the itinerary, we ended up using a very similar template to our California trip. The two trips were very much alike in the fact that we mixed in city time with camping time, and the same amount of nights.

Nights 1,2,3 – Seattle

As much as we love the impeccable beauty of the national parks, we also love experiencing city life. Since we live in a small(ish) town, visiting larger cities gives us the opportunity to enjoy new museums, public parks, art, food and so many other things that are not part of our lives at home. Seattle was SO awesome. Oh my gosh, what an amazing first impression. There is no doubt in my mind that we need to go back! Stay tuned for a highlights post coming very soon!

Nights 4,5 – North Cascades National Park

This is when the camping portion of our trip began. We left Seattle in a camper van and used it as our home base to explore the parks. Our initial plan did not include going to North Cascades National Park. Just Olympic. Geographically, it was not that convenient. North Cascades is East of Seattle, and Olympic is to the West of Seattle. So there would be some backtracking. However, so many people raved about the beauty of it, that we knew we had to go. I’m so glad we did because the mountains and glaciers and lakes were exquisite. It was also much less crowded than Olympic. A lot of Seattle people head this way to enjoy nature.

Night 6 – Port Townsend/Sequim

We chose Port Townsend as the place to break up the two national parks. Port Townsend is such a cute coastal town on the Strait of Juan de Fuca. We took a whale watching tour from there which was a big hit with all of us.

Choosing Port Townsend as our midway point was kind of a last minute decision a few weeks before we left, so our lodging options were limited. As cute as the town was, there were a lot of local Victorian Inns that I wasn’t so sure about. I know, you are probably wondering how I can sleep in a van with no bathroom, but I am picky about the wallpaper in an inn. Weird, I know.

So we ended up driving to the nearby town of Sequim that evening to stay in a generic (but very clean) Holiday Inn Express. Showers and comfy beds for the win!

Nights 7,8,9 – Olympic National Park

After leaving Sequim, we headed to Olympic National Park for phase II of the camping adventure. We camped at Deer Park Campground on the first night (which was on top of a remote mountain) and at Kalaloch Beach Campground the next two nights. Olympic is famous for its diversity of climates and the fact that in one day you could be in a rainforest, a mountaintop and the beach. Such a special place! Cannot wait to share more photos from Olympic with you.

Night 10 – Seattle

Our last night in Washington was back in Seattle. It gave us the opportunity to get a little more of they city in before heading out on our flight early the last day. We only really had an afternoon by the time we arrived and dropped off the camper van back to its home so we stayed close by our hotel.

Seattle lodging

For the first three nights in Seattle, we stayed in THIS cozy Airbnb apartment.  I pretty much followed my Airbnb process outlined in THIS post to find it. Hotel prices in Seattle in the month of July were insane. Staying in a comfortable basement  apartment in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood was definitely the right call for us.

We tend to choose hotels over Airbnb when it is 2 nights or less. So for our final night, we had reserved one night at Kimpton’s Palladian Hotel in Seattle. The property featured a really fun tongue in cheek decor featuring portraits of famous Seattleites. 

Kimpton properties have been our top choice the last few years. The design is always chic and whimsical, plus the customer service has been outstanding thus far. Despite the already high regard for Kimpton hotels, the Palladian exceeded it.

When I called from the road to see if they would allow us to get our room earlier than the 3pm check-in (showers were a necessity), not only did they go out of their way to make it happen, they also upgraded us to a King suite 🙂 Then, as if the customer service didn’t do enough already, the front desk duo were so sweet to the boys and brought them a basket of goodies. And wine for us too.

Camper van life

As I mentioned before, we rented a camper van for the national parks portion of our travels. The camper van was from a small outfitter called Black Forest Westfalias, based out of Seattle. I cannot say enough good things about this company and the van experience. The afternoon before we left, one of the co-owners brought it to our Airbnb and gave us the full rundown of how everything worked and where things were stored. The van had everything you could possibly want or need for camping. Dishes, silverware, blankets, a table, even a few games.

Our Westfalia, “Dutch”, was restored and updated really well. It was comfortable for all of us. The back seat collapsed down (like a futon) into a bed for two. Then the top popped up with a cushioned platform that slept two more.

This being our fourth time going out west to camp in the national parks, we have tried a several different camping methods. I think this has been our favorite so far.

Below is the interior on the day they brought it to us. You can see there is a long bench seat on one side and another single behind the driver’s seat. That little rectangle on the back wall was a table top that pops up. The cooler behind the passenger seat was where we kept our perishables. When the rooftop tent was popped up, we would get up there by stepping up onto the cooler. The floor was a wood laminate, which worked nicely for cleanup of crumbs and sand.

The photo below gives you a better view of the pop up tent. Whenever we arrived at a campsite, Brian would pop it up because it was a nice little spot you could get away to read and relax. I loved the screens on three sides too. The view from the night we stayed on Blue Mountain was really special. I could see the moon from my bed, and in the morning, the sunrise.

One thing we would do differently

Although this was probably one of my favorite trips of all time, there’s always something we learn with hindsight. Brian and I are such geeks about improving our processes for the future that we actually talk about things like this. Might as well share with you 🙂

We will have reservations for all campsites before going. You might find it a little crazy, but we only had campsite reservations for two of the five  nights we camped. Most of the campsites in both parks were “first come, first serve”. And the ones that actually had reservations were all booked months in advance. Our friends that had been a few weeks before said there was lots of availability, but by the time we got there, there really wasn’t. We had a few close calls and some time wasted looking for spots at different campgrounds. Going forward, we will just need to make reservations way in advance and not leave things to chance.

Coming back, for sure

One of the toughest parts of planning this trip was not being able to see all of the stunning places in Washington we wanted to see. Next time we go, we would love to go to Mount Ranier National Park, the San Juan Islands, Vashon Island, and so many more places. SNot to mention the fact that there were whole areas of Seattle we didn’t get to — Ballard, Fremont, Capitol Hill.

I suppose instead of being sad about not getting to it all, I will focus on how awesome everything we did get to see and do was. And then start brainstorming when we can get back to this stunning state.

Of all the family adventures we have gone on, I think this one takes the cake as my favorite. I feel like we grew closer together with the shared experiences and even the challenges. We are still laughing about about some of the ridiculousness that ensued as we traveled around Washington together.

Let’s face it…if you can survive 10 nights of constant “together” time and come out the other side, you have no choice but to come out closer.

Looking forward to sharing some more details and highlights from each segment of our time in Washington over the next few days!

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Posted by Ale & filed under Family Time, Travel. This post has 11 comments.