What to see in the Olympic Peninsula?|183473

We_re planning a day trip from Seattle to the Olympic Peninsula. We_re renting a car and taking the ferry from Seattle to Bremerton and want to drive through the peninsula from there, returning to Seattle that night. Is it reasonable to expect we can do this in 1 day? What are the _must sees_? Any tips would be greatly appreciated! Thanks :)

Yes, you can do it!

Head for Sequim from Bremerton. That_ll take just over an hour. When you get to Sequim, don_t miss (if you like big animals) the Olympic Game Farm. It_s home to lots of retired Disney (and other movie) animals and you get to feed them from your car. Be prepared to have zebra heads half way into the front seat and buffalo begging from you. It_s a lot of laughs, and you can drive through it in half an hour or 45 minutes.

Then on to Port Angeles, just 15 minutes beyond. The most important thing to do there is to drive to the top of Hurricane Ridge. The road to the top starts right in downtown Port Angeles on Race Street and you_ll be up there in about half an hour. You_ll have one of the most spectacular views in the world up there, and it won_t be much out of the way.

Then back down the hill and on to Forks, a little over an hour away, where you can either tour the _Twilight_ book settings or skip them and go on to the ocean beaches, any one of which you can stop at and scout for rocks and driftwood. The Kalaloch Lodge on the coast is a good place to have a meal (probably dinner by this time, as you would likely have had lunch in Port Angeles).

Then down the coast to Aberdeen/Hoquiam/Olympia--just drive through unless you want to see the house where Kurt Cobain grew up in Aberdeen--and back to Seattle. It_ll probably be late by the time you get back--maybe 9 or 10--but you will have put in a good, fun day.

If you don_t want to stretch out the day that much, just stop when you get to Port Angeles and turn around and head back to Bremerton the same way you came. You_ll be back in Seattle by late afternoon.

EDIT: Re: Hood Canal Bridge.
Well, now that does present a problem. There are ways to get to the Peninsula without the bridge, but they don_t really work with a trip to Bremerton on the ferry.
Instead of taking the ferry from Seattle to Bremerton, why don_t you drive north to Mukilteo (Everett area) and take the ferry to Whidbey Island. Once on Whidbey Island, you drive to Keystone and take the ferry to Port Townsend. From Port Townsend (a cute little Victorian-style town) you drive 45 minutes to Sequim and the rest of what I describe above is still intact. This does add some time to your trip but allows you to visit the Olympic Peninsula as you originally planned.
Otherwise, the only logical way to do this during that 6-wk time frame of bridge closure is to do it backwards--that is, drive around the Sound by going down through Olympia, then up the coast on 101 through Aberdeen to Kalaloch, Forks, Port Angeles, Sequim--and then back to the ferry at Port Townsend, back to Whidbey Island and Mukilteo, and back to Seattle on I-5. Without the bridge though, you can_t really incorporate a ferry ride to Bremerton in with a day on the Peninsula. Sorry about the timing.

ANOTHER EDIT: Without the Hood Canal Bridge, the best way to get on the Peninsula is the ferry from Whidbey Island to Port Townsend. That involves the option I mentioned in my first edit, i.e., going to Mukilteo (north of Seattle) first, taking one ferry to Whidbey, then driving to the ferry at Keystone on Whidbey and taking the short trip across to Port Townsend. (You should be able to do all that within a time frame of under 3 hours, and then you_re ready to explore the Olympic Peninsula in whatever part of the day you feel you have left. If you intend to return the same way you got there, you will need to set aside three hours at the end of your day to do that. I trust that will give you at least 6-8 hours on the Peninsula. It_s about 45 minutes to Sequim from Port Townsend, about 20 minutes to Port Angeles from Sequim, and about 75 minutes to Forks from Port Angeles. If you want to stop for lunch in Port Townsend, figure 75 minutes, the Olympic Game Farm in Sequim, figure 90 minutes, the drive to the top of--and back-- and time to appreciate Hurricane Ridge, figure 2 hours. That_s over 7 hours without having dinner; maybe you have dinner in Forks and drive back to Port Townsend in that last 3 hours you_ve reserved for getting back to Seattle; OR--if you get as far as Forks, you may as well drive down 101 to Olympia and then back north on 1-5 to Seattle. You should be able to do all that in about the same amount of time without backtracking. HOWEVER, if you don_t feel you can make it to Forks without extending your day too much, you could drive just beyond Port Angeles to some eating spot on the way to Forks (It_s a beautiful drive, and Granny_s, about 10 miles out on the highway, is a good choice) and then turn around and go back to Port Townsend to begin your ferry trip back to Whidbey and to Mukilteo. As I forgot to calculate waiting time at the ferry landings, chances are you_ll have to add about an hour to the whole trip in order to account for waiting at each landing. Or, you could save time altogether by picking up something to eat as you wait for ferries, or by eating ON the ferry. Options are a bit limited on those particular ferries, but you can always find something to get you by. The time savings would be worth it, I think, making you feel less rushed as you explore the Peninsula).

If you don_t mind coming home at night time, then you definitely can make a day of it and see many sights. There are so many fun things to do across the Peninsula would go to the Petrified Forests, or visit Port Townsend (very cute town) I personally would take the ferry to Port Townsend, drive around through the Olympic National forest, check out the petrified forest, head over the the coast and come home from the south, but you can also go the other way and start from the south and save on some ferry costs or skip the ferry altogether. The ferry (as I_m sure you know) may save you time, but for the wait of the ferry that you have most of the time doesn_t really save you time, just a little bit of driving and gas. I hope that helped, sorry I couldn_t give you too many more ideas. We always seem to hit the same destinations and I bet there is a lot more out there. :)

You could kill two birds with a stone by seeing the
Pacific Ocean and the Olympic National Rainforest.
One popular place to enter the rainforest is at the
place where the Hoh River empties into the ocean.

You could hike on the beach there before or after
taking a hike through the rainforest. There is an
entrance to that forest by the north side of the Hoh
River. You could find it there off of Highway # 1.