Random Observation/Comment #560: Honeymoon Roadtrip was the best choice ever. A lot of car tunes, audiobooks, podcasts, and funny discussions that brought us closer.
Things Pacific Northwest Does Well
Pure nature bliss – National parks are sprinkled throughout this magical place.
Clouds – When you get the non-rainy ones, they’re really something #cloudporn
Hospitality – Super friendly people with a lot of smiles. It was easy to strike up a conversation. People were eager to share their favorite trails or places to eat.
Scenic byways – The 101 drive was mind blowing. Driving through national parks is a new favorite tourist activity.
Little to no traffic and great parking – Despite visiting during peak season, there were no issues with parking (even in Portland).
Local IPAs – Consistently a great choice. A must for IPA lovers.
Pour over coffees – These are the real deal coffee shops that brew coffee for the single serving. Stumptown is based here and didn’t disappoint.
Doughnuts – What Oregon lacks in bagels, they make up for in doughnuts (mini doughnuts are a must)
Drive through coffee spots – Ubiquitous across the Oregon “highways.” They are all so sloooow. Undeniably slower than regular coffee places. Not sure how they deal with rush hour. Bonus points for the cute themes and accessibility. Vinessa accidentally chose a bikini themed one …awkward.
Pinot Noir – The climate of Willamette Valley makes for delicious grapes and flourishes beautifully. These rival their more famous California neighbors in Sonoma.
Things Pacific Northwest Can Improve
Diversity – We noticed the majority of people we came across were either Asian or white, and found ourselves missing the diversity from back home.
Mixed food scenes – Perhaps we had too high of expectations, but we found the average place in Oregon was meh and the good places were swarming with lines. Oregon wine country and Seattle saved the day.
Homeless population in Portland – This is by no means singular to Oregon, but was particularly noticeable in Portland. Heartbreaking.
Employment – Job opportunities appear to be very limited (unless you want to sell yoga accessories).
So, how does the Pacific Northwest stack up? We loved the laid back energy and flannel. If it didn’t freeze over the winter, we’d consider moving here.
Our Roadtrip Approach
Roadtrips are fun because the road becomes your guide. You are led by your adventure. We only booked 3 nights of our 8:
night of arrival near the Portland airport,
Abbey Road Farmhouse for our wine excursion, and
night in Seattle before the cruise.
Everything else was basically picking random Airbnbs the morning of. Most Airbnbs were happy to rent on a weekday and had a fairly self-sustaining method of picking up and dropping off keys. Landmarks were mainly discovered by asking the wait staff at restaurants. It worked out pretty well. Plus, it keeps things spontaneous.
We started driving east to Mount Hood, then south to Crater Lake National Park/Bend, next to the Redwoods, then north up 101 to Willamette Valley, with the final leg towards Washington through Mount St. Helens. Whew
Our Itinerary
Friday – The necessary day
Overnight at an airport hotel
Saturday – Let’s be tourists in Portland for a day.
Stumptown Coffee Roasters – Conveniently located near Voodoo Doughnuts. Grabbed a cup to keep us company on line. It is also served pretty much everywhere.
Voodoo Doughnuts – Informing Oregonians of our visit immediately prompted eye rolls but this staple is a cute introduction to the doughnut scene.
Walked to Saturday market by the water front – We lucked out with perfect weather so had fun checking out the local vendor scene.
Drive to Seattle – fairly easy since we were staying an hour away
Explore Seattle walking around Pike Place – tried to avoid the crowd
Seattle Great Wheel – touristy, but not a bad way to spend an hour
Antique stores – a few places to poke around while walking towards the public market
Public market flowers – $5 is a pretty good deal. Happy anniversary!
Lunch at Hudson – a little place out of the way, but we had a car
Visited a few malls to buy stuff
Dinner at the Cheesecake Factory – It was that or wait over 2 hours somewhere else. That being said, super tasty comfort food is always a roadtrip special meal.
Stayed in Bellevue coast hotel – we would have rather stay closer to the city, but this worked out pretty well.
Sunday – #cruiselife
Say goodbye to our car, Buckley.
Walk around pier 66
Board cruise
See Alaskan Cruise post
Sunday (1 week later) – #FatCruiseLife
Disembark cruise 10lbs heavier 🙁
Drop off bags at Concierge of the cruise ($3 per piece up to 3:30pm) – if you go to the airport and drop it off to come back for a full day, it would have been $19 for 2 hours. Airport robbery.
Biscuit Bitch – get the “gritty scrambled cheesy bitch” – nom nom nom
Chihuly Garden & Glass – Buy a package ticket to save wait time at the Space Needle. All the reviews say to go here for a reason. A great place for a date, if you ask me.
Seattle Needle – A bit expensive for a hit/miss view, but have fun at the top with their fancy timelapse screens that records photos every 10 minutes of every day.
Wow.... I see this was originally posted in SEPTEMBER of 2016.... Y'all claim to have been in my neck of the woods during "peak tourist season" but if you had been then parking would have been a war zone everywhere you went so you must have been here after schools were back in session for the year and after the rainy season had begun to creep back in. Typically it's actually really sunny here in the PNW until September and maybe into October.
As far as the homeless go, I'm surprised you didn't get mugged or get an unwelcomed contact meth high at the Portland waterfront, but y'all were there during the daytime so it's not a real shock. In 2025 you would be disgusted by the homeless population in the free drug city that is Portland.
Diversity? Ha, y'all called out the whites and Asians like a racist but ya didn't see all the Mexicans? All the Pacific Islanders? How about the Middle Eastern folk? Sounds like you went places that only white folks or Asians would actually go and that's why you didn't see the diversity.
I'm sorry you went to that shit hole Chinese food place in kalama, surprised you didn't get sick from it like most people do, btw, it's the worst Chinese food place in Cowlitz county, only the drunk hicks of kalama like it, the Mexican spot is way better.
Ape caves aren't even close to spooky, just wet and cold.
Wow.... I see this was originally posted in SEPTEMBER of 2016.... Y'all claim to have been in my neck of the woods during "peak tourist season" but if you had been then parking would have been a war zone everywhere you went so you must have been here after schools were back in session for the year and after the rainy season had begun to creep back in. Typically it's actually really sunny here in the PNW until September and maybe into October.
As far as the homeless go, I'm surprised you didn't get mugged or get an unwelcomed contact meth high at the Portland waterfront, but y'all were there during the daytime so it's not a real shock. In 2025 you would be disgusted by the homeless population in the free drug city that is Portland.
Diversity? Ha, y'all called out the whites and Asians like a racist but ya didn't see all the Mexicans? All the Pacific Islanders? How about the Middle Eastern folk? Sounds like you went places that only white folks or Asians would actually go and that's why you didn't see the diversity.
I'm sorry you went to that shit hole Chinese food place in kalama, surprised you didn't get sick from it like most people do, btw, it's the worst Chinese food place in Cowlitz county, only the drunk hicks of kalama like it, the Mexican spot is way better.
Ape caves aren't even close to spooky, just wet and cold.
Snowflake road trip is what ya had.