Episode 56 – Affordable staycations in Washington state

Episode transcript:

[music intro]

Jenny

Welcome back to Fund Your Future with DRS. And on this podcast we like to talk a lot about pensions and government programs, but we also like to share money tips. And one of the things we wanted to talk about today was staycations in Washington, especially during those winter months when we’re all starting to think towards spring and summer and planning that next vacation.

It’s a great idea to plan a staycation here within Washington within our own backyard. You can either go for a couple of days or just kind of a day trip. So, Seth, obviously you’ve done a lot of traveling around Washington State. What’s kind of been your favorite place that you’ve visited or a highlight.

Seth

That it feels like trying to pick your favorite child. Though I was thinking about that, like, it’s okay to say you have a favorite aunt or uncle, but… So, I’m going to I’m going to pick a few places that I really have enjoyed visiting in Washington. So, the Columbia Gorge is a place that I go back to at least once a year.

I really like Stevenson and Carson in these small towns that have a unique history. Along that area, the favorite drive I may have ever taken in Washington is from Golden Dale to Lyle on Highway 142. You would never go out of your way to do this, but it’s the best view of Mount Adams I’ve ever seen in the state.

Because like it, you’re just driving through this Plainfield kind of flat area, and the mountain is just right there in front of you. Like the other mountains in the state, there’s all these foothills around. But Mount Adams it’s a little bit more on the east. It was just stunning. It was absolutely stunning. So, yeah, I’m sure we’ll talk about lots of other places, but I really love the Columbia Gorge.

Jenny

That’s great. I know in my research, I also found that a lot of people choose to do highway 14, which goes along the Columbia Gorge, and I haven’t spent too much time down there, you know, besides like going to a concert at the Gorge. But it is gorgeous down there. You can do all kinds of hiking and horseback riding. People go river rafting along the gorge, of course. Beacon Rock is one that I’ve heard of.

Seth

The state park?

Jenny

Yes, yes.

Seth

Yeah. That area is like the windsurfing capital of the world there in hood River on the Oregon side. Yeah, just beautiful. Also, a ton of breweries, places to eat. Yeah, lots of hiking on both sides of the gorge. On the Oregon side, there’s a lot more waterfalls, but there are lots of wildflowers. And then, yeah, you can go up into Trout Lake and the Mount Adams area again, really beautiful.

And then if you go a little bit farther, you can end up in, Golden Dale at the Tri-Cities or any number of places. But yeah, really beautiful drive. Both the Washington and Oregon side are a lot of fun.

Jenny

Nice.

Seth

What about you, Jenny? Where’s a place in Washington that you’ve visited that you’re like, oh, yeah, I should have done this before.

Jenny

I mean, I’ve lived in Washington most of my life, but it took me until I was an adult, like in my 20s to get out to Spokane. Yeah. And because I live in western Washington, you know, I hadn’t been to Spokane. I was out with a friend. We were actually driving up to Montana for a friend’s wedding. We stopped in Spokane, and it just felt so different.

It was surprising to be still in Washington and have it feel like somewhere in the Midwest, very warm. We were there in the summertime, and they’ve got the beautiful park along the river there. There’s the gondolas that you can take across the river. I know that one of the waterfalls in the river there is, I think they call it largest urban waterfall.

Seth

Oh yeah, that makes sense. I actually lived in Spokane for three years, and I’m a little bit ashamed to say I never took the gondola. I hadn’t even thought about that until you mentioned it. But yeah, that whole downtown area is wonderful. There’s also a lot of outdoor recreation that people don’t necessarily realize. We talked a little bit about this, I think, on our state parks episode, but Mount Spokane State Park and Riverside State Park are two really nice outdoor recreation areas.

I do think one thing you’re hitting on that is, like, wonderful about the idea of staycations in Washington is the ability to experience different climates within just a few hour drive. People don’t realize how much of Eastern Washington is desert like actual like classified as desert. Yeah, I know oftentimes now I spent most of my life living in Eastern Washington, but now being in western Washington, there are times in the winter where I just want to go see the sun.

And so, trying to find a place where you’re up a little bit higher or where it’s a little bit drier, it can be really nice. Yeah. So, one other thing that got me thinking about staycations was, we have some family that is from Alabama, and they’ve come up and visited a couple of times. And the first time they visited, they wanted to go on a whale watching tour, and we went with them and it was so fun. And once again, it made me realize, like, why haven’t I ever just considered doing this on a weekend or taking a day off?

And yeah, and doing that similarly, they visited once again recently and went out to the Olympic Peninsula and made the tour all around and went to the Hoh Rainforest and the Hall of Mosses, and for one of the family members, that was like a bucket list item for her was to go to. She likes to take lots of photography, and the light there in the shadows is just really, really cool.

And, you know, really anywhere on the Olympic Peninsula, La Push or Neah Bay or Lake Cushman or Lake Crescent, there’s so many wonderful – staircase – so many wonderful areas on the peninsula. One summer we just tried to go do a different hike in the peninsula every weekend. And that was a nice way to explore kind of locally, but see all the different things that the national park has to offer.

Jenny

That’s great. I mean, I love the Olympic Peninsula. I grew up out there. And so same sort of thing we would when we would have family that would come into town, we would kind of take them out towards, you know, Sequim is kind of known as like the lavender capital. They do a big lavender festival every year and then out towards the point in Neah Bay.

I love Lake Crescent. It’s so beautiful. It’s super cold, but it’s absolutely stunning. Gorgeous.

Seth

Yeah. That’s funny. You mentioned thinking about like what festivals are happening or what events or what are the things that kind of an area is known for. I know a lot of people in the Wenatchee or Chelan area, like the Apple Blossom time period, the kind of time when the those valleys are really beautiful and lots of wildflower flowers and things like that in the spring.

Another place that I visited in the state a few years ago is my wife, that I grew up an hour from an hour and a half and never visited was Stehekin. Are you familiar with Stehekin? The end of the… so Lake Chelan is one of the biggest lakes in the in the country. And there’s this community that you can only get to by boat or seaplane or hiking in, called Stehekin at the end of the lake.

And just a wonderful experience to be able to totally unplug and not have cell service and be on a river and go to like a really nice, pastry bakery shop. But yeah, so a lot of so many opportunities, I think, in the state, that maybe you’ve heard of and just haven’t taken the time to explore. And once again, people come from all over the world to visit these locations that are relatively easy for us to get to if we wanted to.

Jenny

Yeah, I love Lake Chelan. Same sort of thing. Like you get across the mountains into eastern Washington and it feels so different. But it’s fantastic in the summertime. I haven’t made my way out just to Stehekin yet, but one of these days.

Seth

Yeah, you should put on the list. It’s certainly worth doing. You know, another thing that I hadn’t done until relatively recently, is driving over the North Cascades Highway and going North Cascades National Park. It’s super beautiful. I was blown away because we went west to east the first time in kind of coming down off the pass into, like, the Twisp, Winthrop, Methow valley area.

Just gorgeous. Just absolutely gorgeous. And an area that I continually want to go back to. And one of the cool things there, I think, is that they have a lot of summer activities, but also have a lot of winter activities. And I think sometimes that’s when you get into the foothills of the mountains, on the Cascades, on either side, you know, like an area like North Bend as well, where there are opportunities both in the summer and the winter, that you it might make visiting there feel completely different, being six months apart.

Jenny

Yeah, yeah. With the Olympic Peninsula, I was going to mention that. Yeah, that’s a popular drive to do all the way around the Olympic Peninsula. You can take 101, you can do the coast. We will include some links in the description of this podcast, but you can also look at OlympicPeninsula.org for great resources on road trips and things that you can see out there.

Seth

Yeah, that’s the Peninsula is cool because you can be on a beach or you can be in the rainforest. You can be climbing a mountain. There are lots of different varieties… There’s also some really cute small towns like Port Townsend. One of my favorite places just kind of go, for a weekend and wander around.

Yeah, I really like Port Angeles and Sequim as well. Yeah, lots of lots of cool places. There’s lots of really great drives in Washington. I know, during Covid, that was one of the things my wife and I would do just like go drive for the day just to get out of the house. And just kind of see, different parts of the state.

Jenny

Yeah. Port Townsend is near and dear to my heart, too, because I actually grew up in the area.

Seth

Oh, really? Yeah. It’s a wonderful area. Like, Chimacum, there’s so many, little towns and shops. And I think that’s one of the things it takes just a little bit of time to do a little bit of research about what are the things that are unique about this area, doing a little bit of research on restaurants or roadside stands or, you know, whatever might be the attraction.

A couple of years ago, my wife and I did a road trip through the Columbia Gorge and it up highway 97 through Yakima, and there’s a restaurant I forgot to write down the name of it, but if you just search, James Beard Award winning restaurants in Yakima, there’s a tamale shop. It’s a family owned tamale shop that’s been around for decades. Yeah. One of the things that they’re famous for is the asparagus tamales. So, go during the asparagus season.

Jenny

Which is what, October?

Seth

No, it’s spring. So, I’m not sure when they actually harvest and then have the asparagus ready for the tamales, but I’ve had a number of friends and family members who have made the trip there. Just for the tamales, but yeah. Yeah, worth it just for a day trip. And that’s one of my favorite things to do, is look for restaurants in certain areas that have a, you know, a really great reputation or a new or doing something unique and being able to check that out as well.

Seth

I should have googled. I’m sure people will find it by the name of that if they’re if they’re interested in good tamales, or if they’re happened to be passing through the greater Yakima area.

Jenny

And one of the places I wanted to mention in terms of road trip areas is there’s, several highways that go around Mount Rainier. Yes. And it’s about 129 miles, I think total, which you can do in three hours. But I know a lot of people will take, you know, a couple days to do it. You stay at little hotels or do some camping along the way and go in all kinds of like little hikes.

There’s all kinds of waterfalls and trails. Although they said on their website they do recommend doing in the summertime because the, the full route around it is, closed (due) to snow in the wintertime. Yeah. So generally, May through October is a good time to do it.

Seth

Many of those kind of smaller mountain passes end up closed. And yeah, but the Chinook Pass drive, really wonderful. And that’s for a lot of people. If you’ve ever even been over White Pass, you know, that’s a road that stays open all year and has a lot of winter activities as well. But I think it’s cool sometimes to see parts of the state just from different angles, and sometimes, you know, being really close to Mount Rainier is a very different view than if you’re seeing it from much farther away.

So yeah, that’s yeah, there’s Chinook pass areas really, really beautiful drive in the summer. We went to Mount Saint Helens once in I want to say it was like late September and seeing the foliage and like a different color, like everything was like really red and bright. And it was, that was just a striking experience, not something that I intentionally planed to do in any way.

It was just like, “oh, let’s just go for a hike and it’s an hour or two away” and made me realize that, yeah, I should go to Mount Saint Helens more often, just not something that was really on my radar.

Jenny

Yeah, that’s a great one. And then people loved summit Mount Saint Helens as well. That’s a popular one for hiking. Yeah.

Seth

It’s actually you just need to get a permit. But it’s a relatively straightforward hike. I did it, a couple of years ago with my brothers and our spouses and partners, and I was surprised by the wide variety of people that were doing it. There were people in their 60s, 70s, 80s, maybe. There were kids that were probably under five.

Who were — I would say, they were prepared — like they had hiked before and been up mountains before. But yeah, that was a really cool experience. And the view, when you get up to the top and being able to see Mount Rainier in the distance, in Mount Adams in the distance, Mount Hood, just really cool experience. You don’t get to say very often that like you’re at the top of a volcano, right?

Yeah. You know, one of the places my wife and I took a road trip. Well, we had a goal to visit every county in Washington, every county courthouse. Nice. Which was just a fun way to try to explore the state. I’m trying to think, Walla Walla and out from there like Waitsburg and Asotin. I think that area is really well known for wine.

And so, people oftentimes will visit, that as well. But there’s also the Snake River and just a lot of beautiful outdoor areas, as well. And once again, kind of beautiful in different seasons. But yeah, the downtown Walla Walla, downtown Ellensburg as well. There are these, these smaller towns in eastern Washington that have really intentionally built up their downtown and made them very walkable, lots of different places and, shops and restaurants to check out, that are worth visiting.

I think a lot of times people will think of those places only just like as a place to fill up with gas, like you’re driving through town and just like making a little bit of a side trip to see what else is there is really fun and exciting.

Jenny

Yeah, I love that. Like just visiting the small little towns and going to a bakery. And usually they have like a farmer’s market on a Saturday going on.

Seth

Yeah. And it’s interesting, we’ve talked I think a little bit about this sometimes it’s fun just to do the opposite of where you’re at and going to a bigger city. And like you’re mentioning Spokane or going and staying in downtown Seattle or staying in an area where you’re less familiar with and just exploring. You know, when you’re trying to maybe save money on a big vacation, you still have the opportunity to stay in a hotel and kind of get away from home a little bit for a night or two, but you’re not doing like an extensive amount of traveling or you don’t have additional transportation costs, that you might if you’re flying somewhere or taking some other, longer trip.

Jenny

Yeah. And then that’s a great segue. We wanted to talk about affordable camping. Obviously, we have the episode about the Parks Department, but, you know, Washington State Park campsites usually cost around like $12 or, you know, up to $50 for like a full campsite for an RV. But then also even like the national parks, campsites can be anywhere around like 15 to $24.

So definitely very reasonable. And then also the Department of Natural Resources manages about 80 campgrounds within the state. So, lots of options for people to stay around Washington State for a very affordable rate or if you kind of plan ahead, you can look up, find something on Airbnb or VRBO or your local hotel chain.

Seth

Yeah, no, I appreciate that. There are opportunities if you want to plan something well in advance and there are different opportunities if you want to do something just spur of the moment. And kind of keeping those different opportunities available, I think some of that is just like personality type, like how much do you want to plan in advance and how much do you want to just get up and go?

But as you mentioned at the start of the episode, I think having those sorts of getaways or things to look forward to are just really helpful, kind of for our own mental health as well, to think about like, oh, I’m going to get to do something a little bit different. I’m kind of the unique nature of it. And I think it’s just one of the reasons we wanted to do this episode.

It’s just helpful to think about what are the options around you, that maybe somebody who was visiting the area would be really excited to do, and not something you’ve done ever, or in a really long time? You know, we both live in the greater Olympia area now, and I know when my wife and I moved here, we just did a lot of the tourist stuff that you would do if you were visiting the state Capitol, you know, getting a tour of the state building, seeing historical sites around the area.

And I think it can be easy to forget that those opportunities exist when you just live with them all the time. Yeah, but just getting that exposure can be a lot of fun. So yeah, think about what would you do if somebody was visiting you in your area?

Jenny

Yeah. Like you said, whale watching. I’ve never done whale watching in Washington state.

Seth

Yeah, it’s been on my list to do again. And I think I hope at some point soon we’ll get to do it again. But yeah, relatively simple thing. Like we haven’t even talked about like the all the islands in the, in Puget Sound. Like that was something that, hadn’t done until recently as well. And just yeah, taking a ferry, that’s when people visit just for a day.

That’s usually one thing I tell them in Western Washington, if you can just get out on a ferry, if it’s a nice day, just take the ferry. Sometimes [even] if it’s not a nice day. You get to see the state in a different way. And you can connect some loops, some driving loops in a different way.

Jenny

Yeah, yeah, that’d be great to take the ferry across and then drive around.

Seth

Yeah. So, I’ve done that sometimes just to take a different route to visit family, just like, well, just make this a little bit more of a fun experience than, versus a, what might feel like a chore for driving on the freeway.

Jenny

We did that a couple, years ago, actually. We drove up to Bremerton and parked our car at Bremerton and then took our bikes across the ferry to downtown Seattle and then drove our bikes through, kind of just like the along the waterfront in downtown Seattle, and met some friends there. But that was a great experience to just, like, be able to, like, not have to deal with the traffic going to Seattle, but an alternate route through Bremerton and on the west side of Puget Sound.

Seth

You made me just think downtown Bremerton is another area that’s super fun to explore, really good bakery. Mostly my travels are around food, which is probably, people can relate to that, but trying to find different places to go. Yeah. And you know, for us it’s an hour drive and you can kind of take a back way if you want and see some different sites.

I think sometimes fun just to look at a map and like, see a road that you haven’t ever been on before and say like, oh, where does that go? Or what’s out there?

Jenny

Great. Well, I hope this is giving our listeners some, inspiration for their vacation planning.

Seth

Yeah, I would certainly be interested if listeners have other ideas. We could have a follow up episode or talk more. If people want to write us. Reminder of what our email address is?

Jenny

Send an email to drs.podcasts@drs.wa.gov.

Seth

Yeah, we’re always looking for other ideas. This conversation made me think maybe we need to have somebody from Department of Ferries come on to talk about all the different ferry routes and the different places you can go in the state via a ferry, so that’d be great. All right. Thanks, Jenny.

[music outro]

Links:

Here are a few links related to the topics in this episode:
VisitSpokane.com
Stehekin, Wa
VisitRainier.com
OlympicPeninsula.org
Washington State Parks
Los Hernandez Tamales in Yakima

Disclaimer

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References to any specific product or entity do not constitute an endorsement or recommendation. The views expressed by guests are their own, and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Views and opinions expressed by DRS employees are those of the employees and do not necessarily reflect the view of DRS or any of its officials.