Outdoors
Read More ›
Retrace These Retro Washington Road Trips, Updated for the GPS Era
Drive the state’s historic scenic byways with an updated version of a 1940s-era road trip guide.
This article originally appeared in the November 2017 issue of Seattle magazine.
In the midst of the Great Depression, writers and photographers were deployed nationwide to research and craft detailed highway guides for every state (a Works Progress Administration project). The final edition of Washington: A Guide to the Evergreen State, published in 1941, offered 21 road trips with details on the state’s geography, history and culture.
Digital update: Today, you can retrace the same trips—all updated to reflect seven decades of more recent history—via a recent digital restoration of the guidebook, available online from the nonprofit Washington Trust for Historic Preservation.
Plan a trip: Try the Laurier-to-Pasco tour, which starts at the Canadian border and travels through Spokane, showcasing some breathtaking views of winding wheat fields, lava wall coulees and a 130-mile-long artificial lake. The tours carefully guide you via GPS while also providing accounts of each stop’s rich and diverse past, such as the history of small company towns scattered throughout the North Cascades in the Everett-to-Leavenworth tour.
Get dramatic views of the sweeping landscape at Palouse Falls State Park.
Collectively, they pass through all of the state’s Main Street communities (there are more than 30 that participate in the state’s program incentivizing main street revitalization for heritage tourism), including Chelan, Prosser, Mount Vernon, Yakima, Olympia and Walla Walla, and the routes overlap with many of the state’s scenic byways, such as the Strait of Juan de Fuca Highway National Scenic Byway or Coulee Corridor National Scenic Byway. Optional side trips are included too; take the Bellingham to Artist Point (at the base of Mount Baker) route, with side trips to Silver Lake and Sedro Woolley.
It’s in the details: The site (and app, if you save the URL to your smartphone’s home page) provides distance, driving times and countless tour legs to explore, leading you everywhere from the Puget Sound’s major islands to less explored areas such as Skokomish and Davenport. With each tour thoughtfully curated around a handful of unique themes, you can revisit Washington again and again.
Main Event: Visit a Main Street community in November and enjoy events such as Olympia’s Twinklefest.
Visit the Grand Coulee Dam, a technological wonder on the Columbia River.
Follow Us
A New Perspective on the Oregon Coast
Beyond the usual suspects like Astoria and Cannon Beach lie 300 miles of open road.
The Oregon Coast is a beguiling drive year-round, but autumn is when it feels most vital. The colors deepen, whales loiter in the shallows, and kites swoop against gray skies dappled with bursts of sunlight. At Tillamook Bay, Highway 101 veers inland through fifty miles of old-growth forest before re-emerging along the water. On this…
Inn at Langley: Where the Shore Meets the Sky
After a property-wide redesign, the Whidbey Island retreat reopens with a locally inspired take on vacationing in the Pacific Northwest.
Michelin-star chef Johnny Spero never planned to end up in the Pacific Northwest. A lifelong East Coaster born and raised in Baltimore, he began his culinary career at 16, working for a series of big-name chefs and restaurants before opening his own establishments in Washington, D.C., including Reverie, which earned him his Michelin star in…
The Northwest’s Gateway to Wine, Culture & Adventure
Escape the crowds. Slow down. Savor fall in the Lewis Clark Valley. As autumn paints the hillsides in gold, crimson, and amber, the Lewis Clark Valley becomes a picture-perfect place to slow down and savor the season. Where Washington and Idaho meet, fall brings crisp days, colorful landscapes, harvest among the vines, and plenty of…
Meet West Seattle’s “Freelance Beaver Detective”
A group of urban beavers helped Pamela Adams through a tough time. Now she’s returning the favor.
Pamela Adams was living in Port Townsend when her marriage fell apart. Little did she know at the time that she would soon find love again while doggedly pursuing the Five Families—not the ones of Mafia lore, but a four-legged sort living along the Longfellow Creek Watershed. Prior to moving to Washington, Adams resided in…