Hop in the Car For a Quick Trip to Whidbey
Take a springtime road trip to Coupeville for the 29th annual MusselFest
By Elsy Pawelak February 2, 2015
This article originally appeared in the March 2015 issue of Seattle magazine.
Where: Historic Coupeville, Washington, on Whidbey Island.
Why: For the 29th annual Penn Cove MusselFest (3/6–3/8; Coupeville Recreation Hall, 901 NW Alexander St.; thepenncovemusselsfestival.com).
Where: Founded in 1986 by locally based Captain John Colby Stone, the festival is dedicated to the sweet, meaty, nationally revered mussels grown in Whidbey’s Penn Cove. (A member of the U.S. Merchant Marine, Captain Stone also offers charter tours of Penn Cove on his 52-foot ketch, Cutty Sark; svcuttysark.com.) Shellfish lovers delight in consuming approximately 3,500 pounds of mussels over the weekend, by way of a mussel-eating contest (who in the crowd can eat three keg cups of mussels the fastest?), a chowder competition (with local restaurants going head to head), cooking demonstrations and plenty of samples. Adults can wash ’em down in the beer garden with craft brews from Flyers Brewery, while kids rock out to live children’s music.
Side Trip: On the way to Coupeville from the Clinton ferry landing, stop in Langley at the quirky Kalakala Co. Mercantile (138 Second St.; 360.221.0161; kalakala.co), an artist-owned café and curio shop peddling strong local coffee, tasty local provisions and appealingly unusual local art.
Follow Us
The Rise of the Experience Economy
REI brings back guided travel, betting that memories matter more than stuff.
In my household, with two young boys under the age of five, we often have to remind them to take things back. Did you really mean to tell dad that his dinner isn’t good? You might want to take that back. Did your brother deserve to be hit? Let’s rethink that one. Extreme analogies aside,…
Bellevue Is Treating Accessibility Like Infrastructure
A partnership with Wheel the World makes it easier to plan travel with verified details.
For a lot of people, the hardest part of travel planning isn’t arranging flights or booking a hotel. It’s figuring out whether a place will actually work for your needs once you get there. Bellevue has partnered with Wheel the World, a travel platform used worldwide, to verify accessibility details for hotels, attractions, restaurants, and…
Northwest Enters Winter After Warmest Fall on Record
Unseasonably high temperatures and rain instead of snow have pushed regional snowpack to record lows for this point in the season.
Across the Northwest, a record-warm fall and lack of snowpack going into the winter is putting more drought pressure on Oregon, Idaho, Washington and western Montana. Despite record rain in western Washington recently, and earlier this year in central and southern Oregon, the showers are filling up already overdrawn reservoirs in many areas, scientists said…
Renew Yourself in Bellingham, Washington
Images courtesy of Visit Bellingham Unwind and reset in 2026 with a trip to peaceful Bellingham, Washington. Located between the stunning Cascade Mountains and the tranquil Salish Sea, there’s no better place for a trip packed with quiet moments in nature combined with the amenities of a culturally rich college town. Bellingham is known for…