Vancouver to Seattle: air, bus, or train
 

Flying to Vancouver for a few days mid/late June, then travel to Seattle/Bremerton for a few more days before flying home. We plan to rent cars in each city rather than rent YVR and drop off SEA since one-way rental is much more expensive than other options, including building air between the cities into our ticket.

Amtrak Cascades offers cheap 3.5-4 hour trips between the cities. If the route is scenic it will be well worth some of our limited time, but if not we'll probably fly. The only train is 6-10 pm; daytime Amtrak is all bus. We'll be traveling on the longest days of the year so we'd have some light more than half of the train journey.

Thanks for any advice about air vs. ground, and whether bus or/and train would be scenic.

Definitely the train rather than the bus. No question. And you'll have light until 10 PM if you're traveling around June 21.

But flying would obviously be quicker.

Our flight from YVR to SeaTac on Horizon Air was a quick 40 minutes or so. Just enough time for a beverage service before preparing to land. Of course pre-flight check in and immigration adds to the overall time, but it was an easy flight over.

Thanks for the advice.

I lean toward train, but would like to know whether the route is interesting/scenic?

We'd also have to find nearby in town car rental w/SEA return (and YVR to city rental on other end)-- airport rentals are often easier than city locations. But should be do-able.

Yes--the train follows the coastline for much of the route (and I mean *right* on the coastline) which is why it's more interesting than the bus which goes along I-5 further inland.

Thanks very much NWWanderer. Not sure yet what we'll do, but this is very helpful. I'm sure the whole trip will be wonderful.

I've done the train from Vancouver to Seattle and it was fantastic - beautiful scenery along the way. So much better than the bus, which I've also done, and far more comfortable and relaxing than a plane.