by Randall Tomaras

The Best 10 Days in Washington are September 1 – 10. It is your best chance of sun,  great outdoor temperatures, lower rates, and less traffic.

I live on the Olympic Peninsula which is considered one of the most beautiful areas in the world. Being a photographer I have people asking me all the time, if I were them, what would I see and do for a 10 day vacation. The Olympic Peninsula is a huge park. In fact most of it is titled The Olympic National Park. Because we have over a million acres of park, we are protected by over development and traffic. Several times I tried to measure it by driving a complete circle around the Peninsula. Came to the realization that it is impossible for a photographer to measure the distance because there are too many beautiful side roads to travel down, but some accountant once told me that it was 362 miles to drive around.

If you are trying to figure out time, don’t think that you can drive 60 miles an hour. First of all the roads are winding and you’ll be lucky to average 40. Trouble is the Olympic Peninsula is one of those places where you stop and smell the roses, the lavender, the ocean, the trees and fresh air. You’ll probably want to exercise your other senses too and maybe even your legs. If that is not your idea of a vacation, you might consider a vacation somewhere else. Unlike Las Vegas, everyone is proud to tell of their experiences on the Olympic Peninsula and we are a friendly lot with a lot of fun activities in additional to nature’s beauty.

To give you a true perspective of what we are like, let’s compare the Olympic Peninsula with New York City. New York City is 305 square miles with 8,000,000 + people. Olympic Peninsula with all four counties has 8,129 square miles with a population of 229,000. New York City has a population density of 26,230 people per square mile and the Olympic Peninsula has 28 people per square mile. Seattle is 4,271 people per square mile and King County 837.

I’d like to say you can see and do everything on the Olympic Peninsula in 10 days but you can’t. In addition to the world famous beauty of the area there are certain festivals or events you may want to partake in between September 1 – 10. The other thing to consider is where you are traveling from and is it by car, RV or Cruise Ship.  The sequence from Portland may be different from someone who is coming from Seattle, Vancouver, or Victoria. Since travel time is different, but festival days and locations are fixed, I am going to give you 4 different options.  To keep you at the festivals some of the options start you before the 10 best days and end early. What you choose is your choice; I’m just here to give you the options. Hey, you are even welcome to visit the other 355 days – that’s what I do. By the way the Olympic Peninsula alone is bigger than 6 states.

To see images of what you'd be missing - click the maps to the right   > > >