The 12 most beautiful places in Washington

Washington state is a land of extremes. Year-round snowy peaks are visible from downtown Seattle. Months of cloudy gray skies create lush forests saturated in green on the west side. To the east, the Cascade mountains capture so much moisture that the landscape abruptly turns to arid and semi-arid desert. And statewide, the summer sun stretches on so late into the evening that you can trek without a headlamp until after 10 pm. These extremes create some of the most beautiful landscapes in the country, with enviable hiking, boating, and wildlife spotting. As a local, I’m always happy to highlight the most beautiful places in Washington that you won’t be able to see anywhere else.

Good news: Washington has a knock-your-socks-off waterfall. Even better news: It's just 45 minutes from downtown Seattle. Thanks to its location, Snoqualmie Falls is an easy add-on to any Seattle trip. Walk from the parking lot to the overlook, where frothy white-capped water charges off a cliffside into a 270-foot drop, disappearing into the mist below. Then trek the short but steep Snoqualmie Falls Trail down to the bottom of the falls and crane your neck back for a real sense of its size.

The falls aren’t just pretty, they’re practical. You can learn about their power-generating history at Snoqualmie Falls Hydroelectric Plant and Museum, or stop by the gift shop for a souvenir. Add in a little pampering by booking time in the sauna and steam rooms at The Salish Lodge, the lovely building on top of the falls.

"The mountain is out!" locals call out to each other on a clear day. That tells you just how much Mount Rainier, also known by its indigenous name Tahoma, means to Washingtonians. Even though it’s visible from hundreds of miles away, hiking in Mount Rainier National Park is the best way to experience the active volcano in all its glory.

For the easiest views, consider taking a quarter-mile walk from the Sunrise Visitor Center to Emmons Vista, where you can see Mount Rainier and the river-filled valleys below in all their glory. For those willing to hoof it a little farther, the 5.5-mile Skyline Trail Loop will make you feel close enough to Rainier to touch it. Want a once-in-a-lifetime backcountry adventure? Loop the peak on the 93-mile Wonderland Trail. For a treat, close out the day with a ride on the Crystal Mountain Gondola (just outside the park) and have a cocktail at Washington’s highest-elevation restaurant, Summit House.

Fun fact: Washington has the largest ferry fleet in the entire United States—and the prettiest, if you ask me. Just look at our postcards and local artworks and see just how many spotlight the ferries in action crossing the Salish Sea, a section of the Pacific that runs from British Columbia all the way to Olympia.

One of the easiest ferries to grab is from downtown Seattle to Bainbridge Island, an artsy, walkable community opposite Elliott Bay. Once you set off, head out onto the open-air deck for some of the loveliest Seattle skyline views—and then grab some local chowder at the cafeteria indoors. If you’ve got more time to wander, take the longer ferry ride from Anacortes for a visit to the San Juan Islands (see below) or drive to Port Angeles, where you can take a ferry to Victoria, Canada.

This might be as close as you get to Scandinavia in the Pacific Northwest. Located 20 minutes from downtown Bainbridge, Poulsbo is known as “Little Norway” for its history of Norwegian settlers. You still get a sense of that history through colorful murals that dress up the town’s alleyways, timber-framed buildings that look airlifted from Europe, and of course, Sluy’s Bakery, where you can order Danish pastries, Finnish ribbons, and traditional Norwegian Fatiggman cookies.

But the reason Poulsbo makes our list for most beautiful is its outstanding view over Liberty Bay from the Waterfront Park. On a clear day, the majestic Olympic mountains tower over the surrounding hills and Mount Rainier dominates the view to the southeast with marina boats bobbing in the foreground. Bring a picnic of baked goods or grab a coffee from Poulsbohemian to catch a sunset over the water.

First, a point of clarity: San Juan Island (singular) is just one island in the greater collection of San Juan Islands (plural). It’s also one of the most welcoming spots for visitors and makes for a charming weekend getaway. Take a 90-minute ferry from Anacortes to Friday Harbor, a bustling little town right off the ferry dock where most of the island’s lodging is located. Once you’ve dropped off your bags, get back out on the water with an orca-spotting tour and guided exploration of the local waterways. Not feeling another boat ride? You might be able to spot the orcas from Lime Kiln Point State Park, also called “Whale Watch Park.” Other can’t-be-missed views include the top of Mt. Finlayson (a short hike up), where you’ll be able to see other islands such as Shaw and Lopez to the north and east, and the Olympics to the south. Or kick back and take in the Friday Harbor marina from Cease and Desist beer house, which has local Washington brews on tap.

If you’re hooked on the islands and want to see more, interisland ferries are available to Shaw, Lopez, and Orcas island.

This one’s for the adventurers. North Cascades National Park only has one major road, a couple of hard-to-reach lodgings, and pretty much zero cell service. It’s truly rugged out here—but it’s worth it to experience the sublime surrounding peaks, 300-plus glaciers, countless alpine lakes, and 400 miles of trails. And hiking is the name of the game here. For newbie hikers, the 4.4-mile trip to Blue Lake won’t leave you too huffy—only the views will take your breath away. If you’ve been building up your hiking endurance, it’s hard to beat the epic glacial scenery of the 12-mile, 4,000-foot-elevation-gain hike to Cascade Pass and Sahale Arm. (Sorry to your quads in advance.)

If you’re not into hiking, let your car do the climbing. The scenic North Cascades Highway provides plenty of photo ops. Stop at the overlook for Diablo Lake, which shines a milky turquoise in the sun thanks to glacial sediment, or park and gaze in awe at multi-peaked Liberty Bell Mountain at Washington Pass. If you’ve got the time, continue the journey along the Cascade Loop Drive toward Chelan and consider a side trip to the park town Stehekin, which is only accessible by boat (via a daily ferry) or plane ride. Just 100 or so people live there year-round, but it’s a popular home base for hikes and has a much-beloved bakery that offers shuttles from the ferry dock.

Olympic National Park is so diverse and enormous that it wouldn’t be right to call out a single spot, so we’ve split it up into a few key places. First up, the spectacular Hurricane Ridge—the most epic place to see miles of mountain layers—and it’s totally accessible by car during the summer season. Drive 17 miles from sea level to nearly over 5,000 feet, where even the parking lot grants 180-degree views of surrounding (and often snow-capped) peaks.

Take a quick three-mile round-trip hike up Hurricane Hill, where your view expands to 360 degrees with views of Victoria, BC in the distance. For fewer crowds, try Sunrise Hill, which is a little longer at five miles and gains 1,000 feet but offers similarly impressive vistas.

Another Olympic National Park highlight, this time on the west end, the Hoh Rain Forest is a moss-covered fairytale dream of a place. Get your bearings on the 0.75-mile Hall of Mosses interpretative walk, which has informative signs explaining the biology behind all the swirling shades of green. Extend that walk with the 1.2-mile Spruce Nature Trail and look for giant nurse logs—dead logs that become fertile soil for new trees.

For a longer adventure, hike as much or as little of the 37-mile round-trip Hoh River Trail as you want. You’ll get lovely mosses, impressively large Western red cedar, Douglas fir, and big-leaf maple, all while rambling along the namesake river. The trail ends after a steep climb (and a rickety climb down a ladder) to the massive Blue Glacier, which regularly mesmerizes hikers with its aqua-tinged crevasses.

Mountain peaks, mossy forests—this Olympics highlight has another incredible and entirely different landscape: the coast. Every mile of the Olympic Coast offers something new, from sandy beaches to rocky capes to a massive natural gap in a cliffside (aptly called Hole-in-the-Wall) that you can walk through at low tide. Check out the utterly spectacular number of haystack rock formations that extend from the water, often appearing and disappearing in coastal mist. Along the way, you'll spot in-the-wild aquarium creatures in the tidal zone, like vibrant green and pink anemones and purple starfish.

One warning: Only some of the coast is easily accessed from parking areas, such as Rialto Beach and Lake Ozette. Other spots require consulting tide charts and a strong sense of balance. (Sailors nicknamed the coast “the graveyard of the Pacific” for a reason, so respect those tides and step lively!)

Three words: Still-active volcano. Mount St. Helens made headlines in 1980 for erupting in a blast that left behind an unreal moonscape. As if that isn’t incredible enough, this site transforms in the summer when a carpet of wildflowers rises out of the gray soil.

Make your first stop Bridge View Point, which gives you a good overview of just how massive the 150-square-mile destruction zone really was. Then head to the Forest Learning Center, where you’ll get views of the valley that became flooded with mud and debris. But your most impressive view will be from the Johnston Ridge Observatory, where you can see into the mountain’s impressive crater with your naked eye. If you get here around mid-July and August, you’ll get to see the wildflowers at their peak. Take a walk along the Boundary Trail to get a cinematic close-up of the blooms busting out their colors.

If all your images of Washington involve misty mountains, let us introduce you to the east side of the state dominated by farmland and desert. It even has rattlesnakes! (Hey, the Southwest can’t have all the fun.) The 150-mile Coulee Corridor has all that desert drama thanks to canyons carved by ancient glacial floods.

Breathe in the scent of sagebrush and make a stop at Sun Lakes Dry Falls State Park. Here you'll spot a jutting cliffside with a carved lip stretch 3.5 miles. What you're actually looking at is a now-dry waterfall, once the largest in the world. Just south of Dry Falls, walk a short 1.5-mile trail to see the Lenore Lake Caves that were carved from the same glacial floods. And keep your eyes on the sky—the Audubon society has its own nickname for the byway: “The Great Washington State Birding Trail.”

Picture gentle, rolling hills covered in bobbing wheat fields. This is the Palouse region, on the east side of the state. Its rolling terrain was formed tens of thousands of years ago with wind-blown dust and silt. And the tippy top of Steptoe Butte State Park juts out of this otherwise rolling turf.

Take a narrow road up to the 3,612-foot high point of Steptoe Butte. From here, you can see for nearly 200 miles on a clear day and watch those rippling hills, which become even more apparent—and magnificent—from up high. If you visit in the spring, you’ll find the hills covered in a lush, rolling green. Later in the summer, they turn tan and look almost like sand dunes. Also, look west. It might not look much different, but all that land is new—at least in geologic terms. Steptoe Butte marks what was once the edge of the North American continent.