Washington Travel Guide

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2026 2026 Fodor’s Go List Destination

Whether you’re looking for hip cities, beautiful hikes, or laid-back beaches, the diversity of Washington state means there's something here for every type of traveler. In Seattle, you can sample farm-to-table treats at Pike Place Market and get a glimpse of the city lights at the top of the Space Needle, while smaller cities like Tacoma and Olympia entertain with quirky museums and small-town charm. Outdoor adventurers can explore national parks like Olympic, North Cascades, and Mount Rainier, as well hike up to Mt. St. Helens and the Cascade Mountains. Beach bums will find their bliss here too, with the San Juan Islands and Long Beach Peninsula offering plenty of swimming, surfing, and whale-watching.

Guidebooks for Every Journey

Fodor's Pacific Northwest: Portland, Seattle, Vancouver & the Best of Oregon and Washington

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Fodor's Seattle

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Fodor's Complete Guide to the National Parks of the USA: All 63 parks from Maine to American Samoa

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Fodor's The Complete Guide to the National Parks of the West: with the Best Scenic Road Trips

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The Best of the Pacific Northwest

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Guidebooks for Every Journey

Fodor's Pacific Northwest: Portland, Seattle, Vancouver & the Best of Oregon and Washington

Easy Planning
Local Writers
Itineraries
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Fodor's Seattle

Easy Planning
Local Writers
Itineraries
Helpful Maps

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Fodor's Complete Guide to the National Parks of the USA: All 63 parks from Maine to American Samoa

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Fodor's The Complete Guide to the National Parks of the West: with the Best Scenic Road Trips

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Local Writers
Itineraries
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Top Destinations

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Port Angeles

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...

Mount Rainier National Park

Like a mysterious, white-clad chanteuse, veiled in clouds even when the surrounding forests and fields are bathed in sunlight, Mt. Rainier is the centerpiece of...

North Cascades National Park

Countless snow-clad mountain spires dwarf narrow glacial valleys in this 505,000-acre expanse of the North Cascades, which encompasses three diverse natural areas. North Cascades National...

Port Townsend

On a peninsula—the small, crooked arm of the Quimper on the northeastern tip of the larger, torch-shaped Olympic—Port Townsend is a place where the modern...

Long Beach

Long Beach bears a striking resemblance to Brooklyn's Coney Island in the 1950s. Along its main drag, which stretches southwest from 10th Street to Bolstadt...

Ocean Shores

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...

Forks

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...

Ilwaco

Ilwaco (ill-wah-co) has been a fishing port for thousands of years, first as a Native American village and later as an American settlement. A 3-mile...

Seattle

Seattle is a city of many neighborhoods: eclectic, urban, outdoorsy, artsy, gritty, down-to-earth, or posh—it's all here, from the quirky character of the Seattle Waterfront...

Westport

Westport is a bay-front fishing village on the southern spit that helps protect the entrance to Grays Harbor from the fury of the Pacific Ocean...

The Olympic Peninsula and Washington Coast

Wilderness envelops most of the Olympic Peninsula, an unrefined and enchanting place that promises craggy, snowcapped peaks, pristine evergreen forests, and driftwood-covered coastlines. This is...

The Puget Sound Islands

The islands of Puget Sound—particularly Bainbridge, Vashon, and Whidbey—are easy and popular day trips for Seattle visitors, and riding the Washington State ferries is half...

The San Juan Islands

The waters of the Pacific Northwest’s Salish Sea, between mainland Washington and Vancouver Island, contain hundreds of islands, some little more than rocky reefs, others...

Spokane and Eastern Washington

The Columbia Plateau was created by a series of lava flows that were later deeply cut by glacial floods. Because its soil is mostly made...

Olympic National Park

A spellbinding setting is tucked into the country's far northwestern corner, within the heart-shape Olympic Peninsula. Edged on all sides by water, the forested landscape...

Sequim

Sequim (pronounced skwim), incorporated in 1913, is a pleasant old mill town and farming center between the northern foothills of the Olympic Mountains and the...

Centralia

Centralia (sen-trail-ya) was founded by George Washington, a freed slave from Virginia, who faced serious discrimination in several states and territories before settling here in...

Bellingham

The fishing port and college community of Bellingham has steadily transformed itself from a rough-and-tumble blue-collar town to the arts, retirement, and pleasure-boating capital of...

Washington Cascade Mountains and Valleys

The San Juan Islands, the Olympic Peninsula, and the great swaths of midstate wilderness provide Washington’s favorite photo ops, but there are plenty of adventures...

Orcas Island

Orcas Island, the largest of the San Juans, is blessed with wide, pastoral valleys and scenic ridges that rise high above the neighboring waters. (At...

White Salmon

Tiny White Salmon, which sits on a bluff with commanding views of the Columbia River as well as the town of Hood River, is a...

Prosser

On the south bank of the Yakima River, Prosser feels like small-town America of the 1950s. The seat of Benton County since 1905, it has...

Wenatchee

Wenatchee (we-nat-chee), the county seat of Chelan County, is an attractive city in a shallow valley at the confluence of the Wenatchee and Columbia Rivers...

Quincy

On the fences along Interstate 90 to Gorge and north on Highway 281 to Quincy, crop-identification signs highlight what the Quincy Valley is known for:...

Pullman

This funky, liberal town—home of Washington State University—is in the heart of the rather conservative Palouse agricultural district. The town's freewheeling style can perhaps be...

Moses Lake

The natural lake from which this sprawling town takes its name seems to be an anomaly in the dry landscape of east-central Washington. But ever...

Ephrata

Ephrata (e-fray-tuh), a pleasant, small farm town and the Grant County seat, is in the exact center of Washington. It was settled quite early because...

Coulee Dam National Recreation Area

Grand Coulee Dam is the one of the world's largest concrete structures. At almost a mile long, it justly deserves the moniker "Eighth Technological Wonder...

Packwood

Its location, between Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens, makes this delightful mountain village on U.S. 12 an attractive destination for those who plan to...

Richland

Richland is the northernmost of the three municipalities along the bank of the Columbia River known as the Tri-Cities (the others are Pasco and Kennewick)...

Cle Elum

A former railroad, coal, and logging town, Cle Elum (pronounced "klee ell-um") now caters to travelers stopping for a breath of air before or after...

Stevenson

With the Bridge of the Gods toll bridge spanning the Columbia River above the Bonneville Dam, Stevenson acts as a sort of "twin city" to...

Leavenworth

Leavenworth is a favorite weekend getaway for Seattle folks, and it's easy to see why: the charming (if occasionally too cute) Bavarian-style village, home to...

Vancouver

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Spokane

Washington's second-largest city, Spokane (spo-can, not spo-cane) takes its name from the Spokan tribe of Salish Native Americans. It translates as "Children of the Sun,"...

Southeastern Washington

Just north of the Columbia River Gorge, southwestern Washington serves as a gateway to the Mt. Hood region in Oregon, as well as offering its...

Whidbey Island

Whidbey is a blend of low pastoral hills, evergreen and oak forests, meadows of wildflowers (including some endemic species), sandy beaches, and dramatic bluffs with...

Walla Walla

A successful downtown restoration has earned Walla Walla high praise. The heart of downtown, at 2nd and Main Streets, looks as pretty as it did...

Lopez Island

Known affectionately as "Slow-pez," the closest significantly populated island to the mainland is a broad, bay-encircled bit of terrain set amid sparkling blue seas, a...

Aberdeen

The pretty town of Aberdeen, on Grays Harbor at the mouth of the Chehalis River, is known for its lovely harbor, spread glittering and gray...

San Juan Island

San Juan is the cultural and commercial hub of the archipelago that shares its name. Friday Harbor, the county seat, is larger and both more...

Copalis Beach

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...

Ashford

Adjacent to the Nisqually (Longmire) entrance to Mount Rainier National Park, Ashford draws around 2 million visitors every year. Long a transit route for local...

Everett

Everett is best known for the Boeing Aircraft plant and for having the second-largest Puget Sound port (after Seattle). The naval station here is home...

Bremerton

Nearly surrounded by water, and with one of the largest navy bases on the West Coast, Bremerton is a workaday city of about 39,000 with...

La Conner

Morris Graves, Kenneth Callahan, Guy Anderson, Mark Tobey, and other painters set up shop in La Conner in the 1940s, and the village on the...

Edmonds

This charming, somewhat suburban small city just north of Seattle has a waterfront lined by more than a mile of boutiques and restaurants, seaside parks...

Winthrop

Before the cowboys came, the Methow Valley was a favorite gathering place for Native American tribes, who dug the plentiful and nutritious bulbs and hunted...

Gig Harbor

One of the prettiest and most accessible waterfront communities on Puget Sound, Gig Harbor has a neat, circular bay dotted with sailboats and fronted by...

Poulsbo

Velkommen til Poulsbo (pauls-bo), a charming village on lovely Liberty Bay. Soon after it was settled by Norwegians in the 1880s, shops and bakeries sprang...

Olympia

Olympia has been the capital of Washington since 1853, the beginning of city and state. It is small (population 48,000) for the capital city of...

Tacoma

After decades of decline, Tacoma has been steadily undergoing a renaissance in recent years, with development around the waterfront and in other parts of downtown...

Port Gamble

Residents from the opposite side of America founded Port Gamble around a sawmill in 1853; hence its New England–style architecture mimicking founder Captain William Talbot's...

Stehekin

One of the most beautiful and secluded valleys in the Pacific Northwest, Stehekin was homesteaded by hardy souls in the late 19th century. It's actually...

Snoqualmie

Although it's just a 30-mile drive from downtown Seattle, much of the densely wooded town of Snoqualmie (sno-qual-mie) feels as though it could be hours...

Neah Bay

One of the oldest villages in Washington, Neah (pronounced nee-ah) Bay is surrounded by the Makah Reservation at the northwestern tip of the Olympic Peninsula...

Washington Wine Country

The Yakima River binds a region of great contrasts. Snowcapped volcanic peaks and evergreen-covered hills overlook a natural shrub steppe turned green by irrigation. Famed...

Yakima

The gateway to Washington wine country is sunny Yakima (pronounced yak-imah), home to more than 90,000 people within the city limits and another 25,000 in...

Ellensburg

This university town is one of the state's friendliest and most easygoing places. "Modern" Ellensburg had its origin in a July 4 fire that engulfed...

Cashmere

...

Sunnyside

The largest community in the lower Yakima Valley and the hometown of astronaut Bonnie Dunbar, Sunnyside runs along the sunny southern slopes of the Rattlesnake...

Chelan

Lake Chelan, a sinewy, 50½-mile-long fjord—Washington's deepest lake—works its way from the town of Chelan, at its south end, to Stehekin, in North Cascades National...

Zillah

The south-facing slopes above Zillah, a tiny town named after the daughter of a railroad manager, are covered with orchards and vineyards. Several wineries are...

North Central Washington

Wilderness embraces much of north-central Washington, replete with old timber towns, cascading creeks, glacial peaks, and low-hanging valleys dusted with wildflowers. The region’s natural beauty...