The Olympic Peninsula: Places to Explore

The pretty town of Aberdeen, on Grays Harbor at the mouth of the Chehalis River, was settled in 1867 by farmers. Some of the earliest residents were Scottish immigrants who named it after their own city... Read more

A Native American village for several thousand years, this small coastal town at the mouth of the Copalis (pronounced coh-pah-liss) River was settled by European-Americans in the 1890s. The beach here... Read more

The former logging town of Forks is named for two nearby river junctions: the Bogachiel and Calawah rivers merge west of town, and a few miles farther they are joined by the Soleduck to form the Quileute... Read more

Hoquiam (pronounced hoh-quee-ahm) is a historic lumber town near Aberdeen and the mouth of the Hoquiam River. Both river and town were named for the Chehalis word meaning "hungry for wood." The town was... Read more

Montesano was settled in 1852 at the confluence of the Chehalis, Satsop, and Wynoochee rivers. Log-toting team boats churned through the river passages from 1859 until railroad tracks arrived in 1885... Read more

One of the oldest villages in Washington, Neah (pronounced nee-ah) Bay is surrounded by the Makah Indian Reservation at the northwestern tip of the Olympic Peninsula. Today it's still a quiet, seldom-visited... Read more

Ocean Shores, a long stretch of resorts, restaurants, shops, and attractions, sits on the northern spit that encloses Grays Harbor. The whole area was planned by housing developers in the 1960s, and with... Read more

Sprawling along the hills above the deep-blue Strait of San Juan de Fuca, Port Angeles is the crux of the Olympic Peninsula's air, sea, and land links. The town is capped off at the water's edge by a gathering... Read more

A Victorian-era city with a restored waterfront historic district, Port Townsend is the most picturesque gateway to the Olympic Peninsula. You could easily spend a weekend exploring its art galleries... Read more

The village of Sekiu (pronounced see-kyu) rests on the peninsula's northern shore, a rocky and roiling stretch of coastline inhabited for centuries by the Makah (ma-kah), Ozette, and S'Klallum tribes... Read more

Sequim (pronounced skwim), incorporated in 1913, is a pleasant farming and mill town between the northern foothills of the Olympic Mountains and the southeastern stretch of the Strait of Juan de Fuca... Read more

Westport is a bayfront fishing village on the southern spit that helps protect the entrance to Grays Harbor from the fury of the Pacific Ocean. Numerous charter companies based here offer salmon, lingcod... Read more