Washington

Washington is the northwestern corner of the contiguous US, home to about 7.8 million residents across a landscape split dramatically by the Cascade Range. Olympia is the capital, though Seattle is by far the largest city and the economic engine of the entire Pacific Northwest. Washington became the 42nd state on November 11, 1889, and carries the nickname "The Evergreen State" for the dense Douglas fir, western red cedar, and western hemlock forests covering its western slopes.

The Cascades split Washington into two genuinely different climates: west of the range, Seattle and the Puget Sound lowlands see roughly 152 cloudy days and 38 inches of rain a year, while east of the Cascades, Spokane and the Columbia Basin are semi-arid with hot summers and cold winters. The Olympic Peninsula in the northwest intercepts Pacific storms directly, creating temperate rainforests that receive more than 140 inches of annual rainfall — among the wettest places in the entire contiguous US.

Washington's economy is anchored by one of the most remarkable corporate headquarters concentrations of any state: Amazon and Microsoft's global headquarters sit within the Seattle metro, alongside Boeing, Costco, and Starbucks. The state produces about 60% of all US apples, and its ports at Seattle and Tacoma form the fourth-largest container port complex in the country, reflecting Washington's position as the closest continental US state to Pacific trade routes.

Washington's mountains are dominated by a chain of massive Cascade volcanoes. Mount Rainier (14,411 ft), the state's highest point, is the most topographically prominent peak in the contiguous US, rising 13,211 feet above its surrounding terrain and holding more glacial ice — about a cubic mile — than any other mountain in the lower 48. It remains a dormant stratovolcano whose eventual eruption threatens future lahars across the Puyallup and White River valleys, while Mount St. Helens, to the south, still bears the scars of its catastrophic 1980 eruption that killed 57 people and blew off 1,300 feet of summit.

Olympic National Park and the North Cascades

Olympic National Park packs three distinct ecosystems into one park: temperate rainforest in the Hoh and Quinault valleys, alpine wilderness around Mount Olympus, and 73 miles of wild Pacific coastline — the Hoh Rain Forest is one of only four temperate rainforests anywhere in the world. North Cascades National Park, the least-visited and arguably most dramatic of Washington's parks, holds more than 300 glaciers among jagged peaks, with Ross Lake and Diablo Lake glowing an impossible turquoise from suspended glacial sediment.

Puget Sound and the San Juan Islands

The San Juan Islands, an archipelago of 172 named islands reached by ferry from Anacortes, offer some of the best orca whale watching in the country alongside old-growth forest and protected sea-kayaking waters — Lime Kiln Point State Park on San Juan Island is considered the best place in the lower 48 to see orcas from land. Snoqualmie Falls, 30 miles east of Seattle, plunges 270 feet over a basalt cliff — twice the height of Niagara — while Palouse Falls in the state's dry eastern channeled scablands, carved by catastrophic Ice Age floods, is Washington's official state waterfall at 198 feet.

Washington's population concentrates heavily in the Puget Sound lowlands, with Spokane serving as the dominant city east of the Cascades.

Seattle and Spokane

Seattle combines a dramatic natural setting — water on three sides with Mount Rainier visible to the southeast on clear days — with one of the most dynamic tech economies in the world, its distinct neighborhoods from Capitol Hill to Ballard to South Lake Union each carrying their own character. Spokane, the largest city in the Inland Northwest spanning eastern Washington, northern Idaho, and western Montana, sits where the Spokane River drops dramatically over basalt falls right in the heart of downtown.

Tacoma and Bellevue

Tacoma, immediately south of Seattle on Puget Sound, has revitalized its downtown around the Museum of Glass, home to a renowned Dale Chihuly collection, while its port remains the sixth-busiest container port in the country. Bellevue, across Lake Washington from Seattle, has become the most affluent large city in the state as the headquarters or major campus location for Microsoft, T-Mobile, and dozens of other tech companies.

The Economy

Technology dominates Washington's economy more than any other sector — Amazon and Microsoft alone employ well over 100,000 people in the Puget Sound region, and Google, Meta, and Salesforce all maintain major Seattle-area offices. Aerospace remains significant too, with Boeing, founded in Seattle in 1916, still assembling 737 MAX aircraft in Renton despite shifting some production to South Carolina. Agriculture is a genuine third pillar — eastern Washington produces roughly 60% of the entire US apple crop, alongside major hops, wine grape, and wheat production — and the state levies no personal income tax, relying instead on a business and occupation tax and high sales taxes.

The University of Washington in Seattle ranks among the top 20 research universities globally, particularly strong in medicine, computer science, and social work, with UW Medicine's academic medical complex — including Harborview Medical Center and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center — serving as the leading such institution in the entire Pacific Northwest. Washington State University in Pullman, the state's land-grant flagship, is strong in agriculture, veterinary medicine, and pharmacy, sitting amid the distinctive rolling wheat country of the Palouse, and its Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine in Spokane, opened in 2017, was built specifically to address the physician shortage in eastern Washington. Gonzaga University in Spokane is best known nationally for its law school and its remarkably successful basketball program.

At the high school level, Tesla STEM High School in Redmond, serving the Microsoft and Amazon employee communities, consistently ranks among the state's top ten schools for AP participation and college placement. Lakeside School in Seattle, the private school that produced both Bill Gates and Paul Allen, remains one of the ten most selective independent high schools in the entire country, and the International School in Bellevue offers a nationally recognized model of full Mandarin or Spanish immersion from kindergarten through the IB diploma.

Washington rewards both urban visitors and wilderness seekers, often within the same short trip.

Seattle and Mount Rainier

Seattle's essentials — the Space Needle's rotating glass floor, Pike Place Market's fish-throwing and original Starbucks, and the Museum of Pop Culture — can fill two full days on their own, and the ferry commute across Puget Sound offers spectacular Mount Rainier views on clear days. Mount Rainier National Park's Paradise area, the most-visited spot in the park, is famous for its late-July wildflower meadows, while Sunrise, the highest point reachable by paved road at 6,400 feet, gives the closest auto-accessible views of the summit and Emmons Glacier, the largest glacier in the lower 48 by area.

The Cascade Loop and Olympic Peninsula

The Cascade Loop Scenic Highway, Washington's designated 440-mile scenic route, runs from Everett over Stevens Pass through the faux-Bavarian village of Leavenworth, across the North Cascades Highway past the turquoise waters of Diablo Lake, widely considered one of the finest mountain drives in North America. The Olympic Peninsula loop contrasts the Hoh Rainforest's mossy old growth with Rialto Beach's sea stacks and driftwood-strewn shores, all within roughly 50 miles of the dry rainshadow zone near Sequim.

Family Weekends and Historic Towns

Port Townsend, a Victorian seaport whose 1880s architecture survived only because the railroad bypassed it for Tacoma, hosts the Centrum arts festival each summer and anchors Fort Worden State Park's former coastal defense installation. Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma is one of the finest mid-size zoos in the country, and Walla Walla, founded as an 1836 mission by Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, has reinvented itself as one of the finest wine-producing regions in the US with more than 100 wineries in its surrounding AVA.