The Pacific Northwest – Olympic Peninsula and Vancouver Island
The Pacific North West with Target Travel. This is a relatively short driving tour beginning in Seattle and covering the rugged Pacific Coast, Olympic National Park, and Vancouver Island. This is often booked by clients that have already enjoyed a California Road trip with us. Like our other trips, The Pacific North West with Target Travel will include a palet of many elements and different experiences to make this a trip you can boast about.
From Seattle looking west, you would see the jagged mountain tops of the Olympic Range. You start by driving south and then west to the coast. The first night’s stay would be at Moclips in a cliff-top hotel, looking down on the rugged coast with its beach littered with huge logs and pounded by the Pacific breakers. This is followed by a short hop to Lake Quinault in the temperate rainforest of the Olympic National Park, one of the country’s most ancient forests. This is followed by a stay at Lake Crescent in the northern part of the park. The park is a great place to explore with breathtaking mountain vistas; lakes; meadows of wildflowers and colourful ocean tide pools. A ferry ride will then take you across into Canada and to Victoria on the bottom tip of Vancouver Island. After this, you can round it off with a night or two in Vancouver.
As an add-on or as a separate trip, we highly recommend a luxury lodge, which we have sent a number of clients to and all have enjoyed their stay immensely. It is located on the rugged western Pacific Coast of Vancouver Island at Tofino and built on a rocky headland, with the sea on three sides. The lodge is made of wood, has a top-quality restaurant and all bedrooms have a view of the sea or beach through their huge floor-to-ceiling windows. This is a spectacular setting to unwind at. As an alternative and a shorter drive, we also have a fine isolated waterside lodge on the eastern side of Vancouver Island, for wildlife boat trips and fishing.
You will need to catch another ferry back across to the mainland, either to the north or south of Vancouver city. The north for Whistler, the south for the American Border, or either if you plan to stay in Vancouver City.
Most of our clients take this option and drive north on the Sea to Sky Highway (do see the train crash in the woods) and stay in Whistler for a few days, as the weather inland in the summer is usually nice and most hotel resorts have pools. Many of the ski lifts still operate offering the opportunity of downhill treks. Every other seat on most lifts has been converted to carry a mountain bike and this is a hugely popular pastime hurtling downhill. Two to three days here is a great finale.
The second option to re-cross the border back into America, there are a number of big shopping outlet villages in Seattle’s northern suburbs. An option I cannot recommend highly enough is a tour of the Boeing Aircraft factory in Everett to the north of Seattle. A fab few hours, and the size of the buildings is breathtaking, well worth trying to fit it in, must pre-book, very popular. See below for a link to my trip.
There is a third option if you have lots of time and that is to head for the Rockies from Vancouver or Whistler, but you need 10-14 days more for this.
There are non-stop flights to London from Vancouver or any of the west coast US cities. You must consider the big picture and the whole trip, for us to investigate the cost vs convenience of the flights. In most cases in and out of the same country is the cheapest option.
This is a rough framework to expand and contract into the best fit, please call to discuss The Pacific North West with Target Travel.
Tofino
Boeing factory tour
HOT LINK- sup page – The Boeing Factory Tour- May 2018