Guide to the best road trips in the PNW.
The Pacific Northwest looks deceptively “doable” on a map. Like… surely you can knock out Seattle, Olympic National Park, Portland, the Oregon Coast, and a quick detour to Crater Lake in one week, right? And then reality shows up wearing a rain jacket and holding a ferry schedule. Between mountain passes, microclimates, winding coastal highways,…
As a kid, my desert imagination was basically a Sahara screensaver: endless dunes, heat-haze mirages, and a sky so blue it looked aggressive. If there were camels and pyramids, even better. Deserts felt far away—exotic, overseas, and definitely made of sand. Then I grew up and realized the American West has deserts too… and most…
There is a reason people call this the “crown jewel” of state parks. At 9,200 acres, it is Oregon’s largest and most diverse state park. To my knowledge, no other state park has a total of ten unique waterfalls, some of which you can actually walk around the back of! It’s one of my favorite…
It was just after sunrise when I stepped barefoot onto the cool sand of Manzanita Beach. The fog clung to the tree-lined cliffs, and a dog chased seagulls in the distance as the town slowly woke up behind me. That quiet, golden moment made me fall in love with Oregon’s coast — a place where…
The Columbia River Gorge isn’t just a scenic drive — it’s a hiker’s paradise that locals like me keep coming back to, season after season. As someone who’s lived in Oregon most of my life and hiked these trails more times than I can count, I can tell you: there’s nothing like stepping into this…
After over 20 years exploring the Pacific Northwest as both a local and a travel planner, I can say with complete confidence: fall is when this region really shows off. The tourists thin out. The air turns crisp. And the landscapes? They ignite—golden larches in the east, misty coastlines in the west, and forest trails…