15 Best Sights in Washington Cascade Mountains and Valleys, Washington

Set along the Thea Foss waterfront, this history museum in a turn-of-the-20th-century structure—with a dramatic modern glass facade—is easily reached from downtown via a walk along the promenade that flanks the harbor. Inside the enormous timber building, the museum examines the city's waterfront heritage, including the history of Tacoma's brisk shipping business, the city's role as a major ship-to-rail center, and the indigenous Puyallup people's close relationship with local waterways. Extensive exhibits cover boat-making, vintage scuba and diving gear, and fin and humpback whales. Photos and relics round out the displays, children's activities are offered regularly, and Tacoma Night Market takes place here once a month.

About 350 meticulously restored automobiles, from some of the world's earliest models to brassy muscle cars from the late '60s, are displayed in this sleek, striking museum on the south side of downtown. It's one of the most impressive car museums in the country, with engaging exhibits on Route 66, alternative-fuel cars, NASCAR, and other aspects of automobile culture and history. The cars here were collected by the late Harold LeMay, whose entire inventory of some 3,000 autos is recognized by Guinness World Records as the largest privately owned collection in the world. Highlights include a 1906 Cadillac Model M, a 1926 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, a 1930 Lincoln L Brougham, a 1953 Citroen 2CV, a 1963 Studebaker Avanti, and—a favorite with kids—the Flintmobile used in the 1994 Flintstones movie. The café serves diner classics, including banana splits. If you're an ardent car enthusiast, it's worth making the 20-minute drive south to the related LeMay Collections at Marymount ( www.lemaymarymount.org) in the Spanaway neighborhood of south Tacoma—an even bigger collection of cars is on display there.

The showpiece of this spectacular, 2-acre complex of delicate and creative art-glass installations is the 500-foot-long Chihuly Bridge of Glass, a tunnel of glorious color and light that stretches above Interstate 705. Cross it from downtown to reach this striking building, which rises above the Foss Waterway and next to a shallow reflecting pool dotted with modern-art sculptures. Inside, you can wander through quiet, light-filled galleries that present a fascinating array of rotating exhibits, take a seat in the conical-roofed Hot Shop amphitheater to watch glass-blowing artists, or try your own hand at arts and crafts in the studio. There's also a café and an outstanding gift shop.

Jutting into Commencement Bay, this 760-acre park surrounds Five Mile Drive with hilly picnicking fields and patches of forest. Hiking trails, bike paths, and numerous gardens draw crowds year-round, particularly during summer festivals such as the Taste of Tacoma, in late June. The park begins at the north end of Pearl Street as you drive toward the Point Defiance Ferry Terminal, where vehicles depart for Vashon Island just across the Sound, but you can also walk or bike here via a new pedestrian bridge that connects with the new Point Ruston waterfront development. The park's one-way road meanders past a lake and picnic area, a rose garden, a spectacular 22-acre rhododendron garden, and a Japanese garden, finally winding down to the water. Here you can explore the driftwood-strewn, pebbly sands of Owen Beach—it's a wonderful place for beachcombing and sailboat-watching. Kayak rentals and concessions are available in summer. Cruise slowly to take in the scenes—and watch out for joggers and bikers.

One of the Northwest's finest collections of regional and international animal species, this winding and hilly site includes tigers, elephants, tapirs, and gibbons in the Asian Forest Sanctuary, where paw-print trails lead between lookouts so even the smallest tots can spot animals. The impressive South Pacific and Pacific Seas aquariums are also fun to explore—they include a glass-walled, floor-to-ceiling shark tank (where eye-to-eye caged shark dives are offered). Other areas house such cold-weather creatures as beluga whales, Arctic foxes, polar bears, and penguins. Engaging zookeeper chats about different animals and up-close feedings are held throughout the day. The fantastic playground area has friendly farm animals running between the slides, and seasonal special events include a Halloween Zoo Boo trick-or-treat night and the famous nightly Zoolights holiday displays around Christmas.

Adorned in glass and steel, this modern masterpiece by architect Antoine Predock wraps around a beautiful garden and holds paintings, ceramics, sculptures, and other creations dating from the 18th century to the present, with an emphasis on Western U.S. artists, including many indigenous talents. On view is the largest permanent collection of glass works by Dale Chihuly, and the stunning, light-filled Benaroya Wing—designed by Olson Kundig and opened in 2019—displays hundreds of new works, included pieces by artists trained at the prestigious Pilchuck Glass School.

Washington's official history museum presents interactive exhibits and multimedia installations about the exploration and settlement of the state. Exhibits are wide-ranging and artfully designed, and feature Native American, Inuit, and pioneer artifacts, and mining, logging, and railroad relics. The upstairs gallery hosts rotating exhibits, and summer programs are staged in the outdoor amphitheater. During the winter holiday season, the Model Train Festival is one of the museum's top draws.

This restored Hudson's Bay Trading Post—a British outpost on the Nisqually Delta in the 1830s—was moved to Point Defiance in 1935. The compound has a trading post, granary, blacksmith's shop, bakery, and officers' quarters, as well as extensive gardens. Docents dress in 1850s attire and demonstrate pioneer skills like weaving and loading a rifle. Queen Victoria's birthday in May is a big event, and eerie candlelight tours are offered several days in October.

Housed in the former American Legion hall and across from Wright Park, the museum showcases rare and unpublished letters and documents by notables who have shaped history. Themes of the rotating exhibits have included the correspondence from the family of Presidents John and John Quincy Adams and Einstein's theory of relativity.

Developed on the site of a copper-smelting plant that in the 1990s was demolished and turned into a huge Superfund cleanup site, this thriving mixed-use development on the Commencement Bay waterfront began opening in phases in the late 2010s and now consists of condos, restaurants, shops, a culinary-oriented marketplace, an upscale hotel, and a multiplex cinema. Linear and paved Ruston Way path runs for 2 miles alongside the waterfront, connecting the neighborhood with the city's North End and, by way of a pedestrian bridge, nearly adjacent Point Defiance Park (and the ferry terminal to Vashon Island). The development includes Dune Peninsula, a new waterfront park with beautiful views of the harbor.

On Point Defiance Park's Five Mile Drive, the garden is a 22-acre expanse of more than 10,000 plants—some 700 species, including azaleas, blue poppies, and magnolias—that bloom in succession. It's one of the finest rhododendron collections in the world.

Comprising 71 acres of marshland, evergreen forest, and a shallow lake that break up the urban sprawl of west Tacoma, the center shelters 20 species of mammals and more than 100 species of birds. The lake has nesting pairs of wood ducks, rare elsewhere in western Washington, and the interpretive center is a fun place for kids to look at small creatures, take walks and nature quizzes, and dress up in animal costumes.

A mile-wide waterway is the boundary between the Tacoma hills and the rugged bluffs of the Kitsap Peninsula. From the twin bridges that span it, the view plunges hundreds of feet down to roiling green waters, which are often busy with barge traffic or obscured by fog. The original bridge, "Galloping Gertie," famously twisted itself to death and broke in half during a storm in 1940—it's now the world's largest man-made reef, and is a popular dive site. Its mint-green replacement and a sister bridge opened in 2007. Note: the $6 toll is for eastbound cars only; westbound it's free from Tacoma into Gig Harbor.

This imposing structure dates from 1911, when Tacoma was the western terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Built by Reed and Stem, architects of New York City's Grand Central Terminal, the copper-domed, beaux arts–style depot shows the influence of the Roman Pantheon and Italian baroque style. The station houses federal district courts, but its rotunda contains a gorgeous exhibit of glass sculptures by Dale Chihuly. Because it's a government facility, be prepared to walk through a metal detector and show photo ID.

The chief attraction in historic, 28-acre Wright Park is the 1908 glass-dome W.W. Seymour Botanical Conservatory, a Victorian-style greenhouse (one of only three such structures on the West Coast) filled with exotic flora.