10 Washington road-trip spots recommended by the people who know them best

LET’S FACE IT. You’re not much of a planner when it comes to figuring out a spring or summer Washington road trip.

Clip and save this story. Email it to yourself. You’ll find at least one appealing nugget among these 10 recommended by experts and locals.

Or you might be one of our new arrivals. Everything is a discovery to you.

Let’s get started.

The Palouse: One of the most beautiful drives you’ll ever take

About 300 miles east of Seattle, after you’ve crossed the Columbia River at Vantage, turned south for a short bit, then gotten on Highway 26, you’ll be driving a long stretch of highway through flat farm and brushland.

Then, really, as if by magic, these astounding rolling hills of wheat appear as far as you can see. No wonder Fine Art America, “the world’s largest art marketplace,” has more than 9,800 Palouse photos for sale. The nutrient-rich landscape perfect for growing crops was created by windblown silt, or loess, formed as glaciers crushed bits of rock along the land surface.

Robert Lambeth, 44, of Deer Park just north of Spokane, has been a frequent visitor to Palouse country over the years. He wrote his master’s thesis about the World War I-era union-busting of farmworkers there.

He takes his family on road trips to the region, visiting small towns. He photographs it.

He loves the Palouse in the spring, when the wheat has started to blossom, and then as it turns green in the summer, and golden brown in the fall.

“I’ve seen it 1,000 times. I just never get tired of it,” says Lambeth. “It does seem like a sea of wheat, just suspended in time.”

Want more details for a trip? Search palousescenicbyway.org.

The UW Planetarium: High-res, free viewing of the universe

They’re an enthusiastic group at the University of Washington’s Department of Astronomy. On the second floor of its campus building is its planetarium, which has a 30-foot dome.

Forty people can sit around the edge of the circular auditorium and look up. What they experience is a one-hour show that uses six projectors and high-end graphics. Above them, the universe unfolds.

Contrary to what some attendees initially believe, “What we’re showing is not fake images but real images, generated from real telescopes, from real data,” says Andy Tzanidakis, a doctoral candidate in the department, and student director of the planetarium.

Those are images straight from the James Webb Space Telescope, using the WorldWide Telescope, open-source software originally developed at Microsoft and now run by the American Astronomical Society.

At the shows, says Tzanidakis, “We can explore the Earth in really high resolution. We can fly through the landscapes on the Earth. We can zoom in on the oldest observable light in the universe. It’s called the Cosmic Microwave Background, the remnant light that emerged after the Big Bang.”

There are four free public shows on the first Friday evening of the month. They book quickly at facebook.com/uwplanetarium. A group of 10 to 40 people can request a free show at astro.washington.edu/uw-planetarium#group. Group types include K-12 students or seniors, although “other” is also considered with an explanation.

Long Beach: It might be hype, but the ‘World’s Longest Beach’ is worth the drive

Four years ago, at the height of the pandemic, anonymous leaflets were left on car windshields at timeshare condos at Long Beach in Pacific County.

The isolated, picturesque county, for a time, was one of two Washington counties with zero confirmed cases of COVID-19.

“Your vacation is not worth our lives. Go home. Stay home,” the leaflet stated.

Never mind.

“We need tourists. That’s our No. 1 industry,” says Katja Spitz, executive director of Visit Long Beach Peninsula. “They’ve always been welcome.”

Long Beach is a three-hour drive from Seattle. It’s got little shops; seafood markets; and, in August, the Washington State International Kite Festival.

But there’s another reason tourists pose under the large arch across Bolstad Avenue West, which leads to the ocean. It proclaims: “World’s Longest Beach.”

At 28 miles, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. That honor really belongs to the Praia do Cassino beach in Brazil, at 150 miles, according to WorldAtlas.

Still. It’s an attractive destination.

“You see more people walking in an hour around Green Lake than in one year here,” says Matt Winters, editor and publisher of the Chinook Observer newspaper. He tracks more than 4 million steps a year in his walks. Plus, he says, “In Seattle, you’re used to a wintertime, gray shroud that hangs over. Here, you might have a big rainstorm for an hour, but then it’ll be perfectly clear for the rest of the day.”

In 2014, the town was included in Travel + Leisure‘s listing of “America’s best beach boardwalks.” The half-mile boardwalk near downtown Long Beach “appears as if suspended in the grassy dunes,” proclaims its tourist bureau.

More info on everything Long Beach: visitlongbeachpeninsula.com.

The Manhattan Project National Historical Park Hanford: Our own ‘Oppenheimer’

On March 6, 1943, the 2,000 people living in the small towns of Hanford and White Bluffs in Benton County, were told by mail and in a mass meeting held by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that they had 30 days to move.

They were told only that it was because of a secret war project.

“It was a terrible shock. I can’t describe it. It was unbelievable,” Annette Heriford, 22 during the forced evacuation, recalled in the book “Nowhere to Remember: Hanford, White Bluffs, and Richland to 1943.”

The hit movie “Oppenheimer” dramatizes the life story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb. It was in Los Alamos, N.M., that the Manhattan Project built the bomb laboratory for Oppenheimer.

But none of Los Alamos’ bomb design work would be of any use if not for enough uranium-235 or plutonium for at least one bomb. That’s where reactors at Oak Ridge, Tenn., and at Hanford had to come through. They did.

The Manhattan Project National Historical Park Hanford (nps.gov/mapr/hanford-wa.htm), headquartered in Richland, about 200 miles southeast of Seattle, offers two free bus tours. There is a B reactor tour at manhattanprojectbreactor.hanford.gov.

“They can sit at the control room where operators watched the reactor go critical in 1944,” says Colleen French, program manager for the historical park. “There’s almost a moment of silence as they take it all in and realize the significance of what they’re looking at.”

There also are bus tours of what’s left of Hanford and White Bluffs.

Visitors get out of the bus and walk around: the remaining sidewalks; Hanford High School, which was a local social center; the White Bluffs Bank, the only surviving building from that community.

Mount Rainier: You want an easy summertime drive, not a 12-mile hike

I asked Ranger Terry Wildy at the Mount Rainier National Park for a recommendation. I’m talking summertime visits, not treks to snowshoe or put a tent atop snow.

Paradise, she says.

About that name: On its website, the NPS says, “When James Longmire’s daughter-in-law, Martha, first saw this site, she exclaimed, ‘Oh, what a paradise!’ ” Longmire was an early pioneer and sought-after guide to Mount Rainier.

Says Wildy about Paradise, “There are a lot of options for folks. They can drive up there and get a beautiful view just from their car. The parking lot is adjacent to the alpine meadows that Paradise is known for.”

The flowers truly put on a spectacular show.

Plus, there is the Paradise Inn, which opened in 1917: a log frame building using naturally weathered timbers, and a cavernous lobby with two massive river-rock fireplaces and log furniture.

Although there is cellphone service, there is no internet and no television. With 121 guest rooms, the inn’s website says, “Imagine a time past when life was simple without the distractions of today’s modern world.”

There is the short, easy, paved Nisqually Vista Trail at Paradise. “Suitable for families with strollers (there are a few steps a stroller can manage),” says the NPS, although it says snow can linger into June or even July.

Here you can see the spectacular flowers: aster, heather, lupine, paintbrush, lilies and many others. “The growing season is very short — June, July, August,” says Wildy.

And stay on the trail. Trampled meadows can take years to recover, she says.  

This year, to enter the park at certain hours, you’ll need to make a reservation (at Recreation.gov or by calling 877-444-6777). In 2022, there were 1.6 million visits to the park. Sometimes drivers at the park entrances had waits of one to three hours, says Wildy. Something had to be done.

For more about Paradise or Mount Rainier tourism, go to VisitRainier.com.

The Methow Valley: A big little-town farmers market

In the Methow Valley, some 240 miles from Seattle in North-Central Washington, touristy Winthrop has a western town motif, boutiques and restaurants. Nine miles south of Winthrop is Twisp, its more regular-type cousin. This is where you’ll find a business such as the Les Schwab Tire Center.

And it’s here, beginning April 13 through the end of October, on Saturday mornings from 9 a.m. to noon, that you’ll find the Methow Valley Farmers Market. 

It’s easy to find, as it’s at the community center on Highway 20, the main drag through town.

On TripAdvisor, one tourist wrote about planning a trip to the valley to make sure they could make the Saturday event. “What a delightful community market — with products from farm-fresh sheep or goat cheese, to fresh tomatoes, to fry bread, to handmade jewelry and hats. We fill our bags with the bounty, for sure,” said the review. “But plan to spend most of the day, because you will, as we do, spend a lot of time talking with the wonderful folks who grow and make all this stuff.”

Willie Getz, the market manager, says this is the market’s 46^th year, making it among the older ones in this state. “It’s a community thing, a social event, what you do on a Saturday morning,” says Getz. “When it ends at noon, Twisp gets pretty quiet.”

Find more on the market at MethowValleyFarmersMarket.com.

Ruby Beach: Sea stars that kids love

This is an overnight trip from Seattle by the time you drive four hours each way, first south on Interstate 5 and then on Highway 101. You can stay at the world-famous Kalaloch Lodge (overnight weekend stays now range from $235-$323 on its website). The lodge’s erosion issues were documented in this magazine in a July 28, 2023, story, so consider adding it to your Northwest checklist sooner rather than later.

Or you can bunk at cheaper motels in Forks, about 35 miles north.

I asked Amos Almy, a ranger at the Olympic National Park, for a recommended destination in the area. Ruby Beach, he says. It gets its name from red sand that occasionally gathers there. It’s listed in the 2024 Lonely Planet book “Best Beaches: 100 of the World’s Most Incredible Beaches” (“Tree trunks are strewn like matchsticks. Sea stacks cluster like crumbled chocolates.”)

The Washington Trails Association rates the hike from the parking lot to the beach “easy/moderate” and “good for kids.”

It’s the tide pools that get the raves, with urchins, snails, kelp — and, Almy says, “When I’m talking to kids, I always ask if they saw sea stars. Their faces light up. I ask how big it was. Bigger than the size of their heads.”

Sea stars used to be called “starfish,” but they’re not fish at all. They’re invertebrates (no backbone), related to sea cucumbers and sand dollars. Their tiny tube feet allow them to crawl along using suction. They can regenerate arms after they’ve been severed.

“You can see orange stars, purple stars all over rocks,” says Almy. “Typically, you do need at least a negative foot tide. In some places, you could see 20 to 30 of them.”

Yakima: Where ‘American Graffiti’ comes alive

Some of the locals bring out their lawn chairs to catch the sights.

“We’ll get 200 to 300 hot rods, street rods, muscle cars, low riders, fixed-up little Hondas,” says Art Reis, president of the Yakima Vintiques Car Club.

“Cruising the Ave” happens from 6-10 p.m. the second and third Saturday evenings in June through September. It takes place on Yakima Avenue. Look for the Hilton Garden Inn or the Red Lion Hotel Yakima Center, and find a parking spot.

In 2023, changes to the event were discussed at the Yakima City Council, such as shortening it to end at 9:30.

In the end, nothing was done.

Says council member Matt Brown, “It’s part of Yakima’s history. Cruising was done on the Ave in the late ’60s and early ’70s. It’s been part of our culture.”

Sun Lakes-Dry Falls State Park: The dramatic remains of a catastrophic flood

A little more than a three-hour drive east of Seattle is one of this state’s most astounding sights. You can stand on the edge of a 3½-mile wide canyon and look down 400 feet.

Take a selfie. This is nature’s ferocity.

The Sun Lakes-Dry Falls State Park is what remains from an Ice Age flood (14,000 to 18,000 years ago) whose magnitude is hard to comprehend.

David McWalter is the interpretive specialist who lives in the caretaker’s residence across from the Dry Falls Visitor Center. He gives tourists a perspective of what happened with numbers.

An ice dam in Northern Idaho had been holding back a huge lake that backed up all the way to Missoula. The depth was 1,000 feet for 500 cubic miles of water. “That’s the size of two of the Great Lakes, Lake Erie and Ontario,” he says. ”Ice isn’t very good at holding back water.”

The ice dam burst, and water rushed out at 65 miles an hour. “Freeway speed,” McWalter says. “Over 750 feet high. The noise would have been deafening. Just imagine all the world’s rivers jamming in there.”

This flood, and dozens of other Ice Age floods, created the “channeled scablands” of potholes and exposed rock you see driving around Eastern Washington.

Visitors look over the edge and ask. “What happened here?”

This is what happened.

Husky Stadium: Spring football practices are open to the public

A tidbit appeared at the end of a Husky football story in this paper on Feb. 7 about a decision by new coach Jedd Fisch. He said when spring practice opened on April 2 all practices would be “wide open” to the public and media. The Huskies will practice three days a week — Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays — for five weeks, culminating in a spring game on the weekend of May 4.

Conducting open spring practices is truly an item of note for you Husky fans, and that’s a lot of you.

Some coaches are secretive about their spring practices. Here’s an excerpt from a Los Angeles Times story from May 5, 2023, when Chip Kelly was the coach: ”a smattering of maybe three dozen fans watched UCLA’s last spring workout Friday, standing forlornly atop a parking structure and peering over a wall onto the field. Scowling security personnel swiftly admonished anyone that pulled out a phone to shoot a photo or a moment of video.”

At the University of Washington, “I don’t recall in my 32 years that there was ever a time when all spring practices were open,” says Jeff Bechtold, a UW athletics spokesman.

In a phone call, Fisch says he had open practices when coaching at Arizona.

“It’s about the public getting to know our players, and for players to feel the energy of people coming to watch. It just feels like it’s a cool thing, and for people to get a little football fix in the spring,” he says.

Warren Mainard, a contributor to the Husky football site Realdawg.com, has been to plenty of spring practices. “It’s a great opportunity to see what it looks like for a college to prepare their young men for football. The stadium will be empty. There will be a handful of folks there because they’re coaches, parents, family members, other reporters.”

At times, speakers will pump out “lots of music with a strong beat to get the players jumping up and down,” says Mainard. “It’s fun to see all the different drills that they take the players through.”

Details for spring practice hours will be available at Gohuskies.com, or follow @UW_football on X, the former Twitter.