After 10 days in Spokane, 5 days in Leavenworth and 6 days in Seattle, our final stop in Washington state was Port Angeles.
Port Angeles is on the Olympic Peninsula, just north of Olympic National Park. Although it’s only ~60 miles northwest of Seattle, it takes longer than you might expect to get from one city to the other.
We had a lovely week there, partly thanks to the wonderful property we stayed at, partly due to the area’s natural beauty and partly as a result of meeting up with some friends.
Here’s a roundup of everything we did in Port Angeles, WA.
How We Got To Port Angeles
If you want to drive to Port Angeles from Seattle without needing to take a ferry, you have to drive down around Tacoma and up again. That route more than doubles the distance in miles and takes about 2.5-4 hours depending on traffic.
Your other driving option is to take one of the different ferries that can transport you from the Seattle area westwards to the other side of the water. We took the Seattle-Bainbridge ferry to Bainbridge Island as there was a Thomas Dambo troll we wanted to see there before continuing our drive on to Port Angeles.
The ferry cost a total of $32.10. $22.25 of that was for a standard vehicle and driver, with the other $9.85 being for the second passenger. Fares vary depending on the size of your vehicle, ages of additional passengers, etc.
Pets are allowed on the ferry which was important to us as we had Truffles with us. They can either remain in your vehicle, or join you in exterior areas. If you’re a foot passenger, you and your pet are allowed in the interior areas, but otherwise pets have to stay outside. Thankfully it was a nice day and so it wasn’t a problem being outside. To make things easier though, we did pop her in her K9 Sport Sack (our affiliate link).
I took half a Dramamine pill before the ferry ride as I sometimes get seasick. I’m not sure if that was necessary in the end as the journey was smoother than I’d been anticipating, but better to be safe than sorry.
Where We Stayed In Port Angeles
We stayed all seven nights at this property we booked through Vacasa. Wyndham Rewards has a partnership with Vacasa and, at the time, this property only required 15,000 Wyndham points per night versus the $350 per night cash rate – an absolute steal! What made it even better is that having the Wyndham business credit card meant we got a 10% discount on the award rate, so it only cost 13,500 points per night.
The Wyndham/Vacasa partnership has since changed, so if booking this property now at that price we would’ve had to redeem 27,000 points per night. Still not a bad redemption, but twice what we had to pay.
This vacation rental though – wow! We’d gotten there late at night and so it was dark when we arrived. Waking up the next morning to this view was incredible.
Looking out over Lake Sutherland at sunset wasn’t a hardship either.
Even when the weather turned, the views were still excellent. It therefore made it hard to motivate ourselves to explore the area when we could just enjoy this vista.
That’s the exterior; the interior was lovely too. It was officially a one bedroom property, but the lower floor (there were three floors) was – in effect – a bedroom too as there were several beds and a bathroom, along with a laundry area.
The master bedroom upstairs was very clean, comfortable and spacious.
On the middle floor was an extremely well-equipped kitchen with an open floor plan into the living room.
After almost seven years of living in hotels and Airbnbs, I can honestly say that this is one of the best properties we’ve ever stayed at. Everything about it was wonderful (well, except for having to walk up and down so many stairs to take Truffles outside!). So much so that we were truly sad to leave at the end of our week there – it’s somewhere we’d make the effort to visit again.
What We Did In Port Angeles
Olympic National Park – Marymere Falls
Just a short drive from where we were staying was Marymere Falls. This is in Olympic National Park and as a result isn’t dog-friendly, so Truffles had to stay behind for this hike.
The trail is about 0.9 miles each way, with some parts of it at the end being a bit strenuous, but nothing that a little breather won’t fix. It’s a pretty trail on the way there, passing over a stream and past moss-covered trees.
It didn’t take too long to reach the waterfall.
The more strenuous part of the trail comes once you arrive at the falls. That’s because the trail continues uphill to allow you to take in a view of it from above. That part isn’t essential though, so if you don’t feel like hiking uphill you won’t be missing out on much versus what you can see below.
Olympic National Park – Hall of Mosses in Hoh Rainforest
Olympic National Park is massive – almost 1 million acres. If you were to drive around Olympic National Park and Olympic National Forest, it would take you more than seven hours without stopping.
It has several different ecosystems, including a temperate rainforest. Knowing that we had limited time to visit Olympic National Park due to other commitments (both work and otherwise), we decided to make visiting Hoh Rainforest within the park a priority.
With this once again being in the National Park, the Hall of Mosses trail at Hoh Rainforest isn’t dog-friendly. We were visiting several other places that day though, so we didn’t want to have to leave Truffles back at the Vacasa rental and cut our day short. As a result, we brought her along with us for our activities that day, but she stayed in the car while we walked along the Hall of Mosses trail. We’d checked the weather forecast that day and it was due to be cool, so she was fine being in the car with the windows cracked. This was in early May though; I’m not sure if that’s something that would be safe in the summer.
Hoh Rainforest gets inundated with almost 130 inches of rain every year, making it the wettest forest in the contiguous United States. It therefore wasn’t a surprise that is was damp out the day we visited. The dampness also explains why the Hall of Mosses has quite so much moss.
Neither Shae nor I were overly impressed at first because the Hall of Mosses trail initially felt like the Marymere Falls trail we’d hiked a couple of days beforehand. However, as we get further along the trail, it became much more impressive – like something out of a fairytale.
Olympic Discovery Trail
In the afternoon after we’d hiked to Marymere Falls, we met up with a pup that Truffles (AKA Shae) follows on Instagram. Wanda and her parents met us for a walk along the Olympic Discover Trail, a 135 mile-long rails-to-trails route.
It was a lovely walk and it was very nice getting to meet Wanda, Brian and Jenn.
Meeting Up With Other Friends On Whidbey Island
We met up with some other friends while in Port Angeles. Shae went to school with Valerie back in Virginia and they’ve stayed friends ever since. She came to stay with us about 15 years ago when we lived in England and we’ve seen her a few times since, most recently in Denver, CO at the end of the first year of our road trip.
It had therefore been 5.5 years since we’d last seen her and her three children, so it was fantastic getting to catch up with them all on Whidbey Island – just north of the Olympic Peninsula. One day wasn’t enough, so we’re going to see them again when we drive back down to Washington after visiting Alaska this summer.
Fort Casey State Park
We visited a few places with Valerie and her family that day, the first of which was Fort Casey State Park. The fort was built in the late 1800s, but it didn’t prove to be particularly useful due to improvements in weapon technology and introduction of military aircraft.
Deception Pass
We’d had a couple of people recommend Deception Pass to us, so we were glad to have an opportunity to visit it while meeting up with Valerie. Deception Pass is a strait separating Whidbey Island from Fidalgo Island, with the Deception Pass Bridge spanning the divide.
There’s a pedestrian walkway on both sides of the bridge allowing you to safely walk across and look out at the strait.
On one side of the bridge there’s a stairway you can take down, crossing underneath the bridge and back up the other side to view Deception Pass from the other side of the bridge so that you don’t have to try to cross through the traffic.
North Beach in Deception Pass State Park
Just a short drive from the bridge was North Beach in Deception Pass State Park, so we spent some time down there before Shae and I had to leave to catch our ferry back to Port Angeles. There was a ton of driftwood on the beach, so the kids had a great time playing amongst that.
Olympic Game Farm
On our way out of Port Angeles we stopped in at Olympic Game Farm, a drive-through safari with bears, bison, yaks, llamas, elk and more. You can feed specially-made bread to most of the animals (bears being one of the main exceptions), with the animals coming up to your car to take it from your hand. Some of them will even stick their enormous heads inside the car to get the bread.
We had an amazing time there. It was so much fun that after driving through once, we bought more bread and drove through a second time! Check out this post for more which includes a video of our experience.
Twilight Stuff In Forks & La Push
Shae is a Twilight fan, so staying in Port Angeles (which is mentioned in the Twilight series) meant it was close to the town of Forks which is where the books are actually set. As a result, before heading to Hoh Rainforest, we stopped off in Forks and La Push so she could visit some of the sites there – here’s her account of it.
“Brown is warm. I miss brown. Everything that’s supposed to be brown – tree trunks, rocks, dirt – is all covered up with squashy green stuff ” – Bella in Twilight by Stephanie Meyer.
It’s so true! I hadn’t realized just how green everything was going to be on the Olympic Peninsula. I can see why Bella felt that way; it does have its own beauty though. It was incredibly fun to visit the area that the Twilight Saga is based upon. I decided to reread the series while we were there. My favorite books in the series are the bonus ones of Midnight Sun (Twilight rewritten from Edward’s point of view) and Life and Death (the gender swapped version of Twilight). My least favorite is New Moon. I’m #teamedward and there’s a lot of Jacob in it. But to get to see the locations made the books come to life even more.
If you decide to go to Forks, stop in at the visitor’s center first so you can get a map of locations, some fun extra info on why Stephanie chose the Olympic Peninsula and to grab some merch if you’re so inclined. For my fellow Twihards, here’s just some of the sites we saw while in Forks and La Push. The highlight being the treaty line sign!
Thomas Dambo Trolls
In the Seattle/Olympic Peninsula/Portland (Oregon) region there are six trolls created by Thomas Dambo that are part of a collection called ‘Way of the Bird King’. On our way out of Seattle we stopped at a couple of them, stopped at a third one on Bainbridge Island on our way to Port Angeles and then visited a fourth on our way out of Port Angeles heading up to Canada.
There’s two more that we need to visit to see the full collection, so we’ll be doing that in July once we get back from Alaska and will post about them all then. For now though, here’s a little taste – this one is Jakob Two Trees who can be found in Issaquah, about 20 miles east of Seattle.
Where We Ate & Drank In Port Angeles
Caudill Bros
After visiting Marymere Falls and walking along the Olympic Discovery Trail, Shae and I stopped in at the pet-friendly Caudill Bros to do a tasting of their spirits. We had a fun time, with the whiskey, and brandy that we tried being tasty; I ended up buying a bottle of the American Single Malt whiskey.
New Moon Craft Tavern
While at Caudill Spirits, Shae asked the guy serving us if there was a good place in town to get cocktails. He suggested New Moon Craft Tavern, so we decided to check it out.
When arriving there, the bartender seemed a bit confused about the concept of making cocktails, so Shae just ordered a glass of red wine instead. The bar had a good selection of craft beers, so I ordered a Caramel Mocha Latte Golden Stout brewed by Belching Beaver of San Diego. This was much more flavorful than I’d been anticipating and didn’t taste like any beer I’ve had before (but not in a bad way).
Olympic Cellars
This next description is from Shae:
One day when Stephen was working, I took Truffles on a little girls day out adventure to the dog-friendly winery – Olympic Cellars – which is just outside of Port Angeles. I did a small tasting and we sat out enjoying the sunshine. There are some pretty views from the patio area, the wines were really good and I grabbed a bottle to go that I enjoyed another time.
Seabolt’s
While visiting our friends for the day up in Coupeville, we went for lunch at the seafood restaurant Seabolt’s in Oak Harbor. I ordered fish & chips (cod) and it was excellent – the best fish & chips I’ve had in a long time.
Lopez Island Creamery
Later that afternoon we drove up to Deception Pass, stopping at Lopez Island Creamery on the way. They had delicious ice cream that was nice and creamy. I can’t remember the exact flavors I got, but it was some kind of salted caramel and some kind of berry (I think blackberry?).
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