4/20/2018 12:04 AM
Edited Date/Time: 4/20/2018 12:05 AM
omalley wrote:
Seattle itself:
-Pike Place Market
-Space Needle (not sure if they’re done by September with construction)
-Waterfront (restaurants, great wheel, aquarium etc)
Greater area:
-numerous hiking/MTB areas in the mountains
-wineries
-several ferries, both in Seattle as well as north of Seattle. Edmonds (city about 30-45 min north) takes you out to the Olympic peninsula. Anacortes (about 2.5 hrs north of Seattle) takes you to the San Juan Islands. If you want to explore the San Juans, hit me up, I was raised out there. You’ll need reservations for those ferries, I can get you the info.
The Moto scene (other than private tracks) has been pushed south of Seattle and to Eastern WA. Not much in the Seattle area like there used to be.
Boxvan446 wrote:
I was looking at all the ferries (how do you choose with that many options!). Are those two you recommended the best ones to take? Can you make a day out of visiting San Juan Islands? Is it worth it to try and go to Sidney, Victoria, and Vancouver? Too much hassle? Thanks for the reply
Here is the link for the State ferry system. http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/ferries/
The left side has a link to the schedules. You have to choose a route (Anacortes-San Juan-Sidney, Edmonds Kingston etc). In the pull down menu, the routes you’d likely be interested in are as follows:
Anacortes-San Juan
Edmonds-Kingston
Mukilteo-Clinton
Coupeville-Pt Townsend
The others are mostly short Seattle ferries for folks who live just across the water.
Not sure what is currently the case, but you used to have to call ahead to use the Sidney (BC, Canada) ferry from anacortes or the San Juans. The Anacortes-San Juan ferries use reservations. They only allow a little bit of last minute traffic. The good news is reservations are free, as long as you show up or cancel in advance. No shows are a 10.00 fee.
You could absolutely spend a day island-hopping. However, you’d spend a good chunk of your time on ferries instead of exploring, so you might want to pick an island, or stay overnight. Just keep in mind that most lodging on the island is b&b, ie there isn’t a holiday inn or something you could drop in last minute.
The schedule changes each season, so you’d likely need the fall schedule which will come out in the summer.
The Mukilteo-Clinton, Pt Townsend-Coupeville, and Edmonds-Kingston all take you to the Olympic peninsula, just different parts. If you are inclined to go, I’d recommend the Pt Townsend run. You go through deception pass, with a very scenic bridge (sounds dumb-trust me it’s cool), a park with trails, NAS Whidbey (free air show, lol), and when you get to the other side, Pt Townsend is pretty cool.
The San Juans have four basic islands:
San Juan-most “city” like, lots of food etc, county seat
Lopez-very rural, haven’t been there since I was very young so can’t say much
Shaw-mostly residential
Orcas-second behind San Juan for attractions, stuff to do. Has Rosario resort, where Robert Moran built his mansion, Moran State Park with lakes, trails etc, and a bunch of other stuff. I grew up there so I’m biased...lol
I forgot about the MTB options at Stevens Pass-that’s worth checking out.