My husband and I are going to be in the Northwest in June for 10 days. Here is our plan.

Fly to Vancouver- stay 3 nights
Train to Seattle- pick up rental car
Somewhere in Washington and Oregon - 2 nights
Garberville, CA - Benbow Inn - 1 night
Elk, CA - Griffin Inn - 1 night
Sausalito - 2 nights.

Everything is pretty much set, except for 2 nights between Vancouver and Garberville. I'd love some input on the following:

Should we decrease Vancouver to 2 nights and allow 3 nights between Vancouver and Garberville? If so, where should those 3 nights be? I don't mind staying at 3 diff. places along the way. Or, is 2 nights through this area enough and keep 3 in Vancouver?

Should we stay 1 night in Seattle?

Other suggestions?

Thanks!

You're the same poster I just asked all those questions of in another thread, right? This answers some of them so that's good.

Ok--the train to Seattle from Vancouver will get you in at 10 PM so you're going to have to stay in Seattle that night. So yes, I'd reduce the stay in Vancouver accordingly (you don't leave Vancouver until 6 PM so you have pretty much a full day there that day).

You could see a teeny bit of Seattle (the Market, basically) the next morning, then take off for Cannon Beach on the OR coast (about a 4 hour drive). You could stop at Mt St Helens on the way, or head out to the coast earlier at Olympia. You might have trouble finding a place that will allow a 1 night stay in Cannon Beach though--so you might need to stay elsewhere on the north coast.

Then, you'll have a LONG day full of gorgeous scenery (and wonderful places to stop and hike if you have time) from there to Gold Beach, near the CA border, where I'd highly recommend splurging for a night at Tu Tu Tun (I think they allow one night stays but I could be wrong--if not, try WildSpring in Port Orford). And you'll need a full day to see the redwoods and everything else between Gold Beach and Garberville (I loved the Benbow on my recent trip btw--a real throwback but cool. Definitely reserve a terrace room if your budget allows. And will you be there for their jazz festival?).

I wrote a travel blog about my recent road trip between Seattle and SF--email me if you're interested and I'll give you the link.

I'd plan on one night in Seattle (or two if you reduce Vancouver). I think you do need one night in Southern Oregon on the way. When my sister drove from Tacoma to San Francisco she stopped one night in Grant's Pass (La Quinta Inn) and stayed one night at Benbow Inn (which she enjoyed).

It really depends on what you want to see. What you've described sounds more like a roadtrip from Vancouver to San Francisco. Do you want time to explore the cities or have a more leisurely drive and just see stuff along the way?

NWWanderer- Yes same poster- Sorry! I didn't think the other one worked- computer glitch!

I think we may do the bus since it leaves a little earlier in the day- maybe one that gets into Seattle at 4:30.

This is our first time to the area, so I'd like to see a wide variety of things/places. This way if we return another time, we'll know where we want to spend more time . This time is more breadth than depth.

Ok per your other thread, you may not be willing to splurge for Tu Tu Tun (but if you can get in, you should), and WildSpring is also over your budget. You might consider Ireland's cottages in Gold Beach.

Finding a decent spot in Cannon Beach for $150 or less in summer can be tough--but I'd try Cannon Beach Hotel Lodgings first, if you're ok with not having an ocean view. They run a couple cute small hotels there.

Just a thought, NWTaveler...don't you think that veering off to Mt. St. Helens will add a lot of time to the trip? Seems to me that it's at least an hour one way, and the last time we went construction delays added to that. I think of Mt. St. Helens as a destination rather than a side trip.

Yep, going up and back from I-5 will add at least 3 hours to the travel time, and that's just with spending an hour up there, when you could easily spend 2 or 3, esp if you want to do a hike. But a person could feasibly continue to drive on a few more hours to Cannon Beach (after all, it would take a couple hours to drive back to Seattle anyway if you were doing it as a day trip).

It all depends on the OP's stamina level and interests.

Well it seems like an awful lot of driving time to me, so I would definitely try to avoid adding hours by back-tracking in your route. You arrive Vancouver, where do you fly home from? California?

Yes, we fly home from San Francisco. I don't mind driving to Mt. St. Helens if it's a must-see. We are from Colorado so beaches, however, so beaches are much more of a novelty for us than mountains (not taking anything away from St. Helens, I've never been there, of course).