The Pacific Northwest
- Traveling Cat Photos
- Jun 10, 2025
- 4 min read
Updated: Aug 14, 2025
The PNW has a reputation for being breathtakingly beautiful. We’ve traveled through many of its diverse areas from Idaho to Washington to Oregon and can attest to that reputation being well-earned! But with such a large area to explore how can you manage it on just one trip? The simple answer is that you can’t. We’ve visited this area three times now, getting ready to embark upon another trip this Summer, and we feel like we’ve barely touched the surface. What we are going to in this blog is highlight parts of our trips so you can narrow down which section of the PNW you would like to explore on your next visit to this area.
We are based in California so our first views of the PNW are of the Southern Oregon Coast. The Northern Coast with its many lighthouses and Astoria are talked about a lot but it seems like Southern Oregon gets pushed aside when it has several truly memorable reasons to visit.
Southern Oregon is home to Bandon, with its own beautiful lighthouse and wide-open beaches, sand dunes and Gold Beach but Central Oregon also has a lot to offer up right along Interstate 5. Wildlife Safari in Winston, Grants Pass and Portland are all wonderful stops worth your time. However, it’s Portland that makes for a wonderful jump-off point, both East and West, for exploration. West is towards Astoria, home of The Goonies, but East is home of the Columbia River Gorge and Old Highway 30. Along this route you will find breathtaking views and FIVE drive-up waterfalls including the famous Multnomah Falls.
If you continue up the 5 you will find Mount St Helens, a still active volcano, Olympia with its spectacular downtown waterfalls, Tacoma and, of course, Seattle. Exploring each of these stops is a days’ worth of fun and wonder.
In fact, if you are on a National Park Quest, Washington offers up three National Parks that will stun you: Mount Rainer, North Cascades and Olympic National Parks are all located here. But we are going to recommend one more stunning drive. Just North of Seattle, East of Bellingham are Mt. Baker and Mt. Shuksan which, by themselves makes this drive up from Seattle totally worth the day trip! However, along this drive is Nooksack Falls. This very easily accessible set of Falls will leave you mesmerized.
Seattle is, always, a lot of fun to visit. As with most big cities, you could visit several times and never see all that it offers up. The fun spots are Pike Place Market, home of the tossed fish, Kelly Park where you will get some of the best views of Seattle, The Space Needle, the Museum of Pop Culture and three of the five Dambo Trolls and well as the Fremont Troll who is still holding up the bridge and a VW bug at the same time.
But let’s head away from the City for another adventure. From Seattle and Tacoma, you can take ferries out to the San Juan Islands. The last two of the Seattle area Dambo Trolls live on Vashon and Bainbridge Islands and make for worthy reasons to explore both of these truly beautiful locations. If you keep heading up the 16 you will run into Port Gamble, a lovely little touristy town, and Port Townsend, that sports vintage architecture and boats that will leave you wandering around town just to see more.
You rejoin the 101 here as you head into Port Angeles. This is the jump off point for the Vancouver Island Ferry so you can head into Canada and enjoy the city of Victoria, home of the world famous Butchart Gardens. You can also use Port Angeles as the base for your Olympic National Park explorations. Located just 15 minutes from the park entrance, it is the most Eastern side of this enormous National Park.
For many, Olympic National Park is what they dream of when they think about the PNW. Lush forests, dripping in moss, wide beaches with huge driftwood logs and giant boulders out in the surf, and high mountain peaks with breathtaking views of the Cascades. And Olympic is all of those things and more. This is not a Park you will be able to see in one or two days. While you can find much to enjoy in that short time, we’d venture to say that at least a week is needed to really have a chance to get a peek at what this Park has to offer.
There’s one last stop we will mention in this area. Forks. Forks, Washington is home to Twilight. According to legend, this is the town that Stephanie Meyers was thinking about when she wrote the Twilight books. And while not all of the films were created here, the town still leans in heavily to that Twilight vibe and reputation. There are tours you can take, guided and self-guided, with lots of fun book and movie trivia included. And if you are looking for souvenirs there is a lot here, in several different areas of town, to pick up just the right one while enjoying the movie props, costumes and history. Even if you are not a Twilight fan, it’s fun to see how hard this town leans into its reputation.
As you continue down the coast of Washington and into Oregon there will be many dazzling coastal views. We think they rival the Pacific Coast Highway in California! But we know we have just scratched the surface here so we are sure there will be many more stories to share with you all about how wonderful the PNW is and why you should be planning on visiting it on your next trip. There are just so many wonderful places to visit, like the Tillamook Cheese Factory, we know you will find a lot to do and see in this area of the US!
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