Pacific Northwest: How Do I Get There?

Getting to the

Let's get into some of the specifics...

• Washington
• Oregon
• Alaska

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WASHINGTON

A flight from Los Angeles to Seattle is less than 2.5 hours. Since Seattle is a major hub for the Pacific Northwest, there shouldn't be too much trouble flying here regardless of which other hub across the United States you're coming from.

We've noticed that Alaska Airlines has partnered up with American Airlines to serve this region. So if you fly frequently with American, you may find that you're flying on Alaska like in our cases.

In terms of driving distances, it's about a 3-hour drive to go from Seattle right up to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It took us less than an hour driving east from Seattle to Snoqualmie Falls within the west base of the Cascades.

If you're visiting the central and southern parts of the state, you're either driving for about 2 or more hours or you can drive north for a couple hours or so from Portland (see next section). Note that it's about a 3- to 3.5-hour drive between Seattle and Portland, which is right on the border between Washington and Oregon.

As for going west to the Olympic Peninsula, we took one of the nearly hourly ferries across Puget Sound between Seattle and Bainbridge Island then drove a couple hours more towards Port Angeles. It's another couple of hours to get to the Washington Coast near Forks such as La Push, Ruby Beach, and Kalaloch.

If you're headed to the eastern part of the state, the driving distances are pretty long (Pullman and Spokane are over 280 miles east of Seattle) and you have to get through the Cascade Range. We haven't done this yet, but I've been told by local that it's about a five-hour drive from Seattle to Spokane. An alternative is to fly into Seattle and then connect onto a regional flight into say Spokane. I'm not sure if there are other regional flights to places like Pullman where Washington State University is.

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OREGON

Once in Portland, you can easily hire a car and be on your way. Portland is blessed with a pretty central location to some of the state's most scenic spots (including some in Washington just on the other side of the Columbia River).

It's less than an hour's drive east to the Columbia River Gorge, it's a two hour's drive north to Mt St Helens in Washington, it's roughly 2 hours west to the Oregon Coast near Cannon Beach, and it's about 2 hours south to Eugene (home of the University of Oregon and a great base to explore the state's central and south-central attractions like Crater Lake another 2-3 hours away or 150 miles).

Other regional carriers may connect from Portland to towns like Medford, which is an even more convenient base for Crater Lake. You could even use Medford as a base to drive further south into the northernmost reaches of California or west towards Bandon on the Oregon Coast. We didn't exercise this option since American and Alaska don't have direct flights from LAX to Medford, but United Airlines seems to have one.

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ALASKA

And short of knowing someone who lives there or forking over huge sums of money for private tours or for extra excursions offered by cruises, a regional flight to one or several of the towns plus renting a car is probably your best bet at waterfalling more than what's possible on a cruise. But even that's expensive as you can imagine for a more extended trip, regional flights to places like Juneau, Sitka, Ketchikan, Skagway, etc. can really add up since each leg costs a lot. Plus, you have to realize that the only way to get to these places would be by boat or air as terrain is too rugged to connect them with the rest of the highway network in both the US and Canada so your options are real limited.

On top of all this, we didn't even mention the real danger that bears can pose for there's a reason why many locals carry firearms when out in the bush. By entering their domain on a hike, you have to respect the fact that you're part of the food chain and take precautions accordingly. This is especially true for grizzly bears (brown bears), polar bears, and even black bears.

Since our only experience of Alaska was via a cookie-cutter cruise, we're going to have to come back without the restrictions of a cruise. So until that happens, we won't have more to say about this.

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