Exploring the Pacific Northwest: Craft Beer, Hiking, and a load of Doughnuts

Once again procrastination got the better of me. This shouldn’t come as a surprise at this point. However, a couple of weeks of religiously checking Skyscanner, I found some ridiculously cheap flights and that was all the justification I needed.

I’ve always wanted to head out to the Pacific Northwest, it just seems like an adventurer’s playground, and my friend Coral is lucky enough to live out there, and lovely enough to let me crash with her for the US portion of my trip.

But, first things first, I headed up to Vancouver for a couple of days to check out what I now know to be one of the coolest and friendliest cities that I’ve ever been to. I’d booked into the amazing Cambie in Gastown for 3 nights on Hostelworld, so I had a pretty decent starting point to visit wherever in the city (the train system is so good, even if I did only end up using it for the airport).

So, I had my city break head-on, my map with my doodles on in my hand, and I was away.  I figured the best way to get over any jetlag (and remaining colds and coughs) was to do an orientation walk around the city.

I headed down to the docks and got the water taxi across to Granville Island, which is about $6 return and takes all of 5 minutes. Granville Island is a section of Vancouver that has loads of artisan shops, First Nations galleries, crafty bits and bobs, and of course, the indoor market. I have never been so overwhelmed with choice, as a pescetarian it can sometimes be tricky to travel, but not here. Every cuisine you can think of is there, and the communal seating makes everything seem so much more friendly.

After eating my way around several stores, I was on to more important matters; beer. I’d already googled craft breweries before I left the UK, so I knew that Granville Island was one I definitely wanted to check out. So, I got a flight of beers and I wasn’t disappointed. In the most touristy fashion, I was amazed by the maple syrup-flavoured dark ale, the most Canadian thing I had on the whole trip.

Belly full of beer, it was time to walk it off, so I headed out towards Stanley Park, walking along English Bay before going back into town, knowing I’d be back the next day. This is because in my ultimate pre-trip wisdom, I’d decided to book a 5-hour bike tour on Viator before I left. Yep, I’ll say that again 5. Hours. I’m an idiot.

Despite this, Cycle City Tours were absolutely amazing. There were only two of us on the tour and we went everywhere that I could think of, and answered questions I didn’t even know I had. We had such incredible weather for it considering that it was February in BC. And, they gave us great recommendations for food, beer, coffee, all of which I ended up going to in the next day of a half (I ended up going to the Tap and Barrel in the Olympic Village twice – happy hour!).

So, as quick as it had begun, I was off out of Vancouver and down into the States. I was staying with my friend and her boyfriend near Olympia, just south of Seattle, and she was guiding me around the area for the next few days. I should mention now, that both Coral and Zach (her boyfriend) are super fit. Like half marathons and ultra triathlons fit. I can just about run 6km…

The first day I was there we all headed down to Portland on a food adventure. We started off at brunch at Besaw’s, and we could see by how busy it was that the food was gonna be good – and the butternut squash french toast (?!) didn’t disappoint. Contently full of enough sugar to kill me, we headed out to the Columbia employee store, where Zach had a limited time pass, and where ridiculous discounts ensued. After a couple of hours of running around the store, making sure no deal was missed, the food tour continued.

The next stop was Voodoo Doughnuts. Having been on Man VS Food and having a queue around the block, again we knew these were worth it. This massive selection box ended up lasting us the rest of the week. So worth it. And the final stop on the Portland food tour was Salt and Straw, an artisan ice cream parlour, again, with a queue out the door (what is it with Portland and queuing for weird food?). After tasting all the flavours I settled on a strawberry, balsamic and fresh honey scoop and a scoop of lavender, which is perhaps the weirdest flavour combination I’ve ever had but it was insanely good.

So, after slipping into a peaceful food coma, the next day we headed into Seattle to meet up with Coral’s sister, who I’ve also known for all my life. We hit up Pikes Place Market (flying fish in abundance), before heading into the city centre to feast on dumplings that were bigger than my head. Sufficiently re-food-coma’d, we headed out of the city to Lake Sammamish State Park for a quick walk, which was beautiful and muddy in equal measures.

The next day, both Coral and Zach were working so I got a ride into Seattle with Coral (at a crazy time in the morning!) and spent the day exploring. I headed out to Fremont (which was a much longer walk than I thought) to check out the Vintage Mall, which is an underground treasure trove and just keeps on going forever. After this, I wandered back through town checking off seeing the Space Needle and views of the Puget Sound, before heading off to my first American Brewery; Elysian.

Now, I picked up a leaflet with all their locations on it and had lined it up with the map that I got and it turns out, it wasn’t where they thought it was. After a quick chat with a friendly UPS man, I was settled in with a pint of Bifrost (all the beers have mythological names). However, the bar had no WiFi and no signal and I was waiting to meet back up with Coral, so after a few back and forths and ending up texting my sister back home to message Coral my location, we were set. All this for beer – no regrets.

So, after a couple of days in cities, the next few were getting back to nature. We took Coral’s husky, Torin, and headed up to Lena Lakes hiking trail for a bit of an adventure. The views were amazing. After being sufficiently healthy, we went back into Olympia for some beers and Tacos (brewery no.4 of the trip) and realised it was Mardi Gras. So that night we headed out to a drag show, which was so much fun before going to another microbrewery (no.5) and joining in a quiz halfway through – which we didn’t completely fail in.

For my final day in WA, we went up to Mount Rainier. This was one of the main things I wanted to do when I came over but I wasn’t sure if the weather would allow it. Sure enough, Coral’s regular snowshoeing route was cut off for icy roads, but Zach had told her about another one (see earlier comment about super fitness). As someone who had never snowshoed, the fact that the route started on a 2 mile uphill hike was hell. But, once I could breathe again, it was like being in Narnia which was really cool (also we’d already spied hot alcoholic drinks at the inn at the end of the trail).

So, it was time for me to head back up over the border and back to the airport. A 4-hour Bolt Bus booked via Omio back up and a beer later (Tap and Barrel strikes again), I get a text saying my flight is 4 hours delayed. So I did what anyone else would do – ordered another beer and chilled watching the Winter Olympics.

If you like your craft beer then the PNW is without a doubt a place that you should check out, there are hundreds of microbreweries around. Or, if you’re more of a wine person then Washington state has quite a few vineyards which I didn’t get around to visiting. But, if you’re a beer drinker, a wino or a foodie, definitely come check this part of the world out.