Seattle, Olympic and Mount Rainier National Park
5 min readSep 20, 2021
4 days, 3 nights
Day 1: Explore Seattle downtown
- Kerry park viewpoint — Nice view point to get city view. Can skip it if planning to go to space needle later in the day.
- Pike place market — Pink door, Beecher's Handmade Cheese and Piroshky Piroshky bakery are some of the good food places to try. We tried chicken, beef and vegetarian piroshky at Piroshky Piroshky bakery.
- Amazon spheres — Need to be with an amazon employee to enter the spheres. Outside the spheres, there is an amazon go store to try out.
- Space needle — has fee to enter. The top observation deck gives spectacular view of the city. Space needle has a restaurant on top with a revoling glass floor. Visitors can also try out the revolving glass floor without entering the restaurant.
- We went to Din tai Fung, Bellevue for dinner (Chicken wonton with spicy sauce is a must!!!)
- Gas works park for skyline view of the city
Other things to do in Seattle if you have more time: Chihuly Garden and Glass museum, Museum of pop culture, the museum of flight
Food recommendations in Seattle: Pike Place Chowder, Six seven restaurant (one of the best views), Pink door (Italian), Di flora (Asian fusion), Cactus (Mexican), Umi sake (Japanese), Din tai Fung , Thai tom, Nue, Elliott’s Oyster house
Day 2: Olympic National Park
The day starts early and ends late but its worth it
- Bainbridge island ferry — Take Ferry to Bainbridge island from Colman dock. We took 7.55am ferry and yes, your car goes on the ferry.
- Hurricane ridge visitor centre — Do Hurricane Hill via Hurricane Ridge trail which is a 3.4 mile hike. Olympic Switchback Trail is another popular hike (2.7 mile)
- Port Angeles for lunch, food and gas — This is pretty much the last stop for food. We carried to go subway to eat later in the day and worked out pretty well for dinner at Ruby beach
- Lake crescent — We did a quick stop by at Lake crescent. Perfect for swimming if going during summer season. Do carry swimming clothes.
- There is a small town called Forks town on the way to next stop which also has very very few food options in case you want to pick up something but I would still recommend Port Angeles for food.
- Hoh rain forest visitor centre — Do hall of moses trail (0.8 mile loop, flat) and spruce nature trail (1.2 mile loop, flat). If you have time for only one, I would highly recommend spruce nature trail which also has a nice river stream at the end.
- Ruby beach — We reached an hour before the sunset here (Perfect place to have your to go subway sandwiches here) and stayed an hour after sunset for star gazing. Since, there is no town around the beach, it was pitch dark and perfect for star gazing. There were few other folks on the beach who stayed back as well for the same. Pro Tip: If you are not in an hurry to head back and if it’s a clear sky day, stay back for one of the best stargazing experiences.
- Back to hotel/Seattle— drove back to Seattle instead of taking ferry on the way back as to go back all the way to Bainbridge Island from last spot is pretty much the same distance.
Day 3: Mount Rainier National Park
- Head to Mount Rainier National Park, which is roughly 2 hours drive from Seattle. We entered from Nisqually Entrance Historic District entrance of the park and targeted to reach by 11–11.30am. Make sure you fill up gas before you enter. There are couple of gas options available, an hour before you enter the park.
Make below stops assuming you enter from Nisqually Entrance Historic District entrance of the park:
- Christine falls (viewpoint)— Make your first stop here. Its a very short walk to Christine falls from the parking area. If you want to do comet falls, its an 3.2 mile hike which we skipped.
- Make quick stop at Ricksecker viewpoint. Very beautiful and very clear view of Mount Ranier from here.
- Narada falls trail (viewpoint) — Its a very short walk to the falls from parking lot.
- Glacier vista/panaroma point hike (5 to 5.5 mile hike) — must must must do hike and the best part about the park. Highly recommend to do in clockwise direction for spectacular views during climb up— starts from paradise visitor centre and goes to glacier vista point and panorama point through skyline trail (Follow this order — paradise visitor center → glacier vista→ panaroma point → upper skyline trail → golden creek trail → myrtle falls → back to paradise visitor center)
- Quick stop at reflection lakes and other lakes like Louise lake, bench lake etc. In the interest of time, we stopped only at reflection lake and skipped other lakes.
