Seattle Dog Friendly Travel Guide - Part II

Welcome back to our blog! First off, ahhhhh. Thank you so much for reading our first blogpost! 🥰 This is so new to us, and we really appreciate you checking it out!

The second part of our Seattle Travel Guide covers day trips from Seattle. We are by no means claiming that these are the "best" day trips from Seattle, but they're the ones we've personally done and quite enjoyed. We hope to add more to this list after future visits since there are so many fun places within just a few hours drive of Seattle!

This blogpost focuses on our most recent trip over July 4th weekend, 2022. Part 1 is a city guide, and Part 2 covers day trips to the surrounding areas.

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MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK

Google "take your dog to Mt Rainier National Park" and the number 1 response you'd get is "don't bother, just leave them at home". I'm going to be frank. US National Parks, in general, are not very dog friendly. Most parks would only allow dogs where cars are allowed, so that'd limit you to scenic lookouts, parking lots, and campgrounds.

In short, if you want to see the best that Mt Rainier has to offer, I agree that you should leave your dog at home. But if you're a "I either bring my dog or I don't go" kind of person - 1) we should be friends; 2) keep on reading! 😁

Since we had Benji with us, we did a scenic drive and enjoyed the park from viewpoints. The scenery was still lovely and we had a merry time! Here's the itinerary that we followed.

Before you go

Some of the roads are only open during the summer due to the snow. That means that you'd be even more limited if you visit outside of the summer months.

The Nisqually Entrance (the starting point of the itinerary linked above) is about a 2-hour drive from Seattle. We left Seattle at 7:30AM and got to the park around 9:30AM. There were already 5-6 cars ahead of us at the gate. By the time we left at 2PM, there were miles of cars waiting to get in. Don't be one of those people! Get up early and avoid the crowd!

The top 2 main attractions of the park are Paradise and Sunrise. If you follow the itinerary linked above, you will start at the west entrance, see both spots, and then exit the park through the north. Unfortunately, Stevens Canyon Road (which connects the west side of the park to the east) was closed when we visited, so we had to stop at Paradise and turn around. If you really want to see Sunrise, ask the park ranger at the Nisqually Entrance if the road is open before entering!

The National Park Service itinerary that we linked is already quite elaborate, so we'll just focus on the stops not covered in the itinerary.

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Westside Road

While dogs are allowed to walk along paved roads, it often felt a little unsafe due to the number of cars in the park. Westside Road is located only about a mile away from the Nisqually Entrance but it's very quiet. There were dramatic big trees, wild flowers, mini waterfalls and small creeks just along the side of the road. We were able to get out of the car, took a nice walk with Benji, and snapped a lot of photos without anyone around.

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Inspiration Point

Inspiration Point was our favorite stop! It ticked all the boxes for a good scenic lookout: panoramic view, tons of parking, large pullout (so Benji can take a walk!). Supposedly it's one of the more popular scenic stops, but there was barely anyone there on a very busy holiday weekend. The few people who were there were very amused by Benji posing for pictures. (I mean ... look at this good boi. You're welcome, world!)

Hungry Hungry Hippo

This stop is located along Stevens Canyon Road. If you follow the linked itinerary, it's shortly after Jackson Visitor Center / Paradise Inn. Here's the exact location on Google Maps.

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Elbe Town

Elbe is a tiny town located about 20 minutes west of the Nisqually Entrance. We're including it here because you'd drive right by it if you're coming from Seattle.

A little something about us - we loooove small, inconspicuous, accidentally Wes Anderson-esque buildings. We stumbled upon this itsy bitsy white church on the side of the road and had to make a stop.

Elbe Church was constructed in 1906 and is still functional to this day. I mean ... how cute is this place? Can you spot Benji in both pictures?

Right next door to the church is a historic train turned restaurant. It looked sooooo cute but the Yelp reviews were terrible, so we decided to skip it 🙈

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VASHON ISLAND

Vashon Island is just a short ferry ride away from Seattle, but it has a completely different vibe. There are no "real" stoplights on the island and things move at a much slower and more relaxed pace. We spent a lazy Sunday afternoon there and had a marvelous time!

Before you go

If you're driving, there are 3 different ferry routes to get to Vashon Island. The schedule can be found here.

- West Seattle (Fauntleroy Ferry Dock), this is the best way coming from Seattle

- Tacoma (Point Defiance Ferry Dock)

- Southworth (Port Orchard Ferry Dock)

There's also a "foot" ferry that is dog friendly (schedule can be found here), however we were told Uber and Lyft are extremely limited on the island, so only take this if you've prearranged transportation in Vashon Island.

From Vashon Island, take the north end ferry terminal to return to West Seattle or Southworth. We took the south end terminal by mistake, and got an unintentional tour of Tacoma and a 25-minute detour 😅

Lavender Hill Farm

Coming from the desert of Las Vegas, I was on a mission to live out my cottagecore dreams in the lush flower fields of the Pacific Northwest. Our original plan was to drive to Sequim and get the full lavender experience, however it was raining that day and we were worried about driving for 2 hours only to be stuck in the rain.

We decided to visit Lavender Hill Farm instead, since it was closer to Seattle and we could just drive back to the city if the weather didn't cooperate. It worked out beautifully and the rain stopped shortly after we arrived. Benji had a lot of fun running around the flower fields and sniffing the lavender!

There was no entry fee to the farm, you are free to walk around, enjoy the flowers, and take pictures. The staff was very welcoming to Benji and gave us a tour of the farm and explained the different varieties of lavender.

For $15 you can cut your own lavender bunch. We had a lot of fun doing this. Okay fine - my husband did all the cutting, Benji and I only acted as project managers, but that's part of the job too 😉

There's also a cute, dreamy little cottage that sells everything lavender scented: skincare products, sachets, etc. This is another way that you can support the farm if you don't feel like hand carrying a lavender bouquet onto the plane.

Benji made friends with Jack, the owner's dog. What an interesting life Jack must live, growing up on a lavender farm like that. I wonder what Benji and Jack talked about?

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Point Robinson Lighthouse

As previously mentioned, we have an affinity for Wes Anderson-esque buildings, and this mini lighthouse is as whimsical as it gets. We found out later that it was featured on the Accidentally Wes Anderson Instagram account.

Even if you don't care about itsy bitsy symmetrical buildings, it's still a nice park to visit. It has a large grassy area next to a sandy beach with dramatic views of Mt Rainier.

Note that this is an off-leash park, so be careful if your dog doesn't respond well to commands.

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That closes out our long weekend in Seattle. Thanks again for following Benji's adventures! We hope you had as much fun reading these posts as we did writing them! Until next time!

Okay byeeeeee! 👋🏻