[Kameko]

I'm leaving on a road trip from Vancouver, BC down along the 101 to San Francisco/Sacramento area in just over a week. I've been so busy making arrangements for the care of my animals that it completely slipped my mind to look up fun things to do/see along the way. Now that I've started, most of what I'm coming across are really popular, congested tourist attractions - not my cup of tea. Does anyone have suggestions as to fun, interesting stops between Vancouver and North Cali?

I'll be travelling with my partner who's excited about seeing Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach . Me, I'm looking for more... unique destinations like old mining towns, ghost towns. I'm hoping we can stop at places that we'll both enjoy.

[nosliwmit]

The Willamette Valley southwest of Portland Oregon is very picturesque. There are a lot of vineyards and wineries (McMinnville, Newberg, Dundee, Carlton etc.) that make very nice wines and offer lovely scenic views (and vineyards) to photograph...

[Reliant K1000]

I did a trip down there in the late 80s just after the earthquake...

- The Oregon Coast is very picturesque...sand dunes and sea that is much more wavy than Vancouver.
- I loved Seaside, OR especially.
- Northern California is nice and you might get some good shots in "vineyard country". Kind of like the Interior of BC
- San Francisco is great with its hills and nice architecture. Santa Cruz was a favourite.
- So many nice sunsets...I remember really perfecting my technique on this trip.
- Stay off of I-5 as much as possible. The trip becomes a bore then...

Enjoy!

[RoxnDox]

Well, if you want to avoid the congestion of driving thru Seattle, you can take Hwy 9 over to Whidbey Island (exit I-5 at Mount Vernon), which will take you across Deception Pass. Then take the Keystone ferry over to Port Townsend on the Olympic Peninsula and pick up 101. Drive 101 around the Olympics and down the upper Washington coast as well, it's a pretty drive. Lake Crescent is very nice, not much there but a very scenic drive along it. After rounding the mountains it'll put you along the coast for a while before the road ducks back inland. I suppose you could go visit Forks along the way, just watch out for vampires and werewolves . You could take a little side trip to hit the beaches at Ocean Shores - quite a bit different from most of the coastline, nice but tends to be pretty touristed-up. The river crossing into Oregon is pretty cool (IMO) and probably less frantic than the I-5 into Portland. Tour the Tillamook cheese plant? Fort Astoria?

Jim

[p38arover]

Cell phone coverage on I-101 is pretty patchy.

things to see:

The Museum of Flight in Everett
Mohai in Seattle
You have your own tower in Vancouver so the Space Needle may be Ho hum.
Ballard locks
The tower overlooking Astoria.
The Spruce Goose
Seattle underground tour
bunkers at Fort Casey

Some of the things I saw - as you can see, I was a tourist and not a local but in addition to the above

Rain Festival



A cool beer on those hot summer days. :green_lol:



Mohai at Lake Union Park (catch a tram) - I saw it at the old location but it has since moved to here.



Centre for Wooden Boats at Lake Union Park





King St Railway Station (undergone/undergoing restoration)



Hoh Rain Forest



Snoqualamie Railway Museum



Winthrop





Space Needle and Monorail (great views over the city)



I liked Ballard Locks







Fish race viewing area at Ballard Locks

[SpecialK]

Santa Rosa, about 1 hour north of San Francisco has...The Charles Shulz "Peanuts" museum (very nice, not crowded)...


an airplane museum, the Luther Burbank home and gardens, Jack London state park not far away, and in Sebastopol not far away is collection of about 30 art/sculptures made from various items along 2-block stretch of Florence Av.

[kcmadr]

San Francisco - take the ferry to Alcatraz. Book a few days ahead!

Spruce Goose & Museum at McMinnville.
Seattle Museum of Flight - OR - Everett Boeing Factory tour. If Everett then stop in and see Paul Allen's Flying Heritage Collection. Incredible.

Chuckanut Drive and Whidbey Island.

Mount St. Helens.

Napa Valley.

Astoria - up the Columbia River Gorge is Multnomah Falls. Spectacular!

Cannon Beach and Haystack Rock.

Pacific Hwy in general.

In San Francisco, make the effort to get out to Yosemite National Park. Nobody ever said it wasn't worthwhile.

Redwood National Park.

[SpecialK]

...Yosemite National Park. Nobody ever said it wasn't worthwhile*.

*When it is not on fire and being evacuated.

Sutro baths on the cliff at the west end of Golden Gate park.


and the Legion of Honor in the park are also interesting places. (No tripod/monopod inside the Legion of Honor).

[kcmadr]

*When it is not on fire and being evacuated.

Even then, it is still worthwhile.

[Kameko]

These are great! I completely forgot about the Sutro Baths (visited last year) and would love to stop by again, hoping the weather's nicer than last year. I'm definitely going to the Redwood Forest, I've been to the bay area 3 or 4 times and still haven't made it there Winthrop looks great, reminds me of Wallace, ID; I love heritage buildings/towns. Keep the ideas coming if you can!

[Not a Number]

When I was in graduate school at the University of Washington some of the other grad students who were natives of Washington said not to miss Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic National Forest. Unfortunately I never had the opportunity to visit there.

[RoxnDox]

These are great! I completely forgot about the Sutro Baths (visited last year) and would love to stop by again, hoping the weather's nicer than last year. I'm definitely going to the Redwood Forest, I've been to the bay area 3 or 4 times and still haven't made it there Winthrop looks great, reminds me of Wallace, ID; I love heritage buildings/towns. Keep the ideas coming if you can!

Winthrop is a nice little town to visit, but it's the wrong direction if you want to stick to the coastal route :-) It's over on the eastern slopes of the Cascades... Lovely drive, wrong way (unless you want a long detour, of course) but hey you can take the inland route on your way home!

Jim

[Miguel]

Consider taking the ferry to Victoria, and then the Black Ball ferry to Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula-- a very unique place. Drive up to Hurricane Ridge for the views into the heart of the Olympic mountains. Then head west on 101 including Lake Crescent as previously noted. As you head west you have the option to take rout 112 which leads to Neah Bay and Cape Flattery, the northwesternmost tip of the lower 48 in the US. It is an awesome place. Great museum up there as well.

As you approach Oregon, do check out Lewis & Clark country. The Long Beach peninsula is one of my favorite places. You can even drive 15 miles on the beach. Great restaurants there too. Astoria, Oregon is a charming, relatively old small city. Seafood there rocks too. Cannon Beach is nice but a tad touristy. Manzanita along the coast is a wonderful beach. Bandon, OR is artsy and has excellent cheese. Brookings by the CA border has a perfect beach, I recall passing out there in the late summer sun for much of a day.

Hope his helps, it's all good.

M

[kcmadr]

These are great! I completely forgot about the Sutro Baths (visited last year) and would love to stop by again, hoping the weather's nicer than last year. I'm definitely going to the Redwood Forest, I've been to the bay area 3 or 4 times and still haven't made it there Winthrop looks great, reminds me of Wallace, ID; I love heritage buildings/towns. Keep the ideas coming if you can!

Ah! A heritage building I forgot to mention is the Tillamook Air Museum in OR. It's currently housed in a massively huge wooden hangar that was used in WWII for blimps. It is really huge. You have to go into it to believe it. It is "the largest clear-span wooden structure in the world". Tillamook Air Museum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's due south of Astoria along the coast, and right along your intended route.

[p38arover]

Gahhh! How did I miss that on my two trips to WA, OR, and CA?

At least I saw the Museum of Flight, the Spruce Goose, Boeing tour, and had flights in a B17 Flying Fortress and a B25 Mitchell (owned by the Commemorative Air Force) out of Clark Field.