Town near Seattle to relax, hike, explore outside
 

My family (including boys aged 8 and 10) will be spending a week in Seattle in June. 4 days downtown, 1 in Victoria, and 3 days somewhere TBD. We'd like the last few days to be in the woods or on the water - somewhere away from the downtown area where we can relax, go on hikes and explore outdoors, maybe wander around a small town, etc. The catch - we want to be within a 1 hour drive of downtown. Any suggestions?

FYI - We'll be renting a house/cabin from vrbo where we decide to go, so it doesn't matter if there are hotels in the area.

Two suggestions. Both are about 2 hours from downtown, but very much worth it and very pretty drives or a ferry ride.

Whidbey Island is the first. When we lived up there we would drive up to WI and take the ferry home, so making a loop basically. This way you drive from the top down so no backtracking. Deception Pass is stunning and is a fantastic area to hike as well as wander the beach.

Second suggestions is the Leavenworth or Lake Wenatche areas. Leavenworth is about 2 hours from downtown and for hiking the area is heaven! Lots of houses/cabins for rent in this area. When we lived in the Seattle area, this was our playground with our kids, who were the age of your boys. We still go back as there is so much to do in the vicinity.

Well - near Seattle there's Whidbey Island and there are many good rentals near Langley, south end of the island. There's also Port Townsend, a lovely old town on the coast of the Olympic Peninsula. You can then explore the peninsula and the coast.

Both of those are somewhat more than an hour from Seattle but not much & both require a ferry to get to them. There's also many towns or vacation homes along the Hood Canal and those would be fun. I do think you'll need to extend your range to about 90 minutes of travel to get anywhere you'll want to be.

How about somewhere east on I-90 corridor... out North Bend, Snoqualmie Falls way? That's only an hour and quite pretty countryside.

There's also nice spots south on I-5, then east, like around Black Diamond, Enumclaw areas.

Leavenworth is a good idea. It's drier there. If you're thinking mossy, old growth forest, wet northwest - it's not that, but its great. My family likes the Winthrop area lots.

Suze - are you thinking of the area close to Mt. Rainier? When I think of Enumclaw/Black Diamond I think yucky rural sprawl.

One thing to know is that in June the high country won't be open yet: Mt. Rainier, higher elevation in the Olympics, the good trails in the Cascades. It will all be snowy and closed, especially this year. It's been cold and we had snow on the mountain passes yesterday! Given that you're here in June I'd go for Whidbey Island.

Yes, that entire valley down around the base of Mt. Rainier. Perhaps some of the towns could be called "yucky" I guess with strip shopping malls, fast food, etc. but the countryside and back roads are quite beautiful. Plus fits the 1 hour from Seattle, which most of the other suggestions don't.

I'll also toss out, how about Vashon Island? That's close to get to but has some fairly rural areas.

Bainbridge Island (via ferry), and neighboring Poulsbo, might qualify. Just beyond Poulsbo is Port Gamble, a cute former logging town with a museum and tons of old Victorian structures.

Keep in mind that the Hood Canal Bridge will be closed in June, so that can definitely impact plans for the Kitsap Peninsula.

You don't need to cross the HCB to reach Kitsap from Seattle...the bridge crosses from Kitsap County over to the Jefferson County side of the Olympic Peninsula.