Assuming you're coming from the UK, I frankly think this is not a good idea. Realistically -

Land 1 PM

Out of immigration and customs – 2 PM (Could be longer - big queues sometimes at YVR)

Car obtained, on the road – 2:40 PM

Reach US border – 3:15 PM

Leave US border – 4 PM (Could be longer; UK citizens will need to go into the border station for passport formalities.)

Arrive Seattle area – 5:30 PM. Traffic will be encountered at north end of Seattle and will persist through Tacoma and the military bases just to the south. If there are 2 or more of you, the "high occupancy" (carpool) lanes will help here and there, but not through the urban cores.

Arrive Olympia – 7 PM (Sunset is 17:51, rain potentially earlier ;) )

Arrive Portland – 9 PM (UK body time: 5 AM)

Seeing that if you're coming from the UK you'll likely be awake at 3 AM local time, frankly I'd just plan on stopping someplace between the US border and Portland, getting some rest, then finishing the trip in the daylight the next morning.

Here's one suggestion: Follow the above route as far as the junction with Washington Hwy 526 just south of the city of Everett (around an hour south of the US border.)

Take SR (State route) 526 west, past the Boeing widebody plant, biggest building in the world, to the town of Mukilteo. Spend the night at the Silver Cloud Inn built on pilings directly over the waters of Puget Sound, with a view of the ferries coming and going from the dock next door, the very cute Mukilteo lighthouse a couple hundred yards from the hotel, and have a pint or six and really decent food at the Diamond Knot brewpub, right across from the ferry and lighthouse, a 3 min. walk from the hotel.

Edited to add: It looks like you're arriving on a Thursday evening, in which case this note from the Diamond Knot might be of interest to beer lovers for whom the initials "CAMRA" mean something.

Next morning, hit the road, this time traveling with the traffic, and you're in Portland well before lunchtime.

Edited to add: Or, since a visit to the Boeing plant was on the list, maybe sign up for the first tour of the day at the Future of Flight tour center, since "downtown" Mukilteo is all of 5-10 minutes away. Visiting the plant en route to Portland would save you some time on the return leg.

This way everything's done in daylight and you won't be a hazard to yourselves or others driving while jetlagged on dark and potentially wet freeways.

1st is on a thursday after customs you are going to be hitting Seattle around rushhour...though with 2 people they have HOV lanes you can use on I-5. But HOV doesnt stretch that far...so you are going into run into rush hour traffic in Tacoma and by the large military base in Washington (Lewis-McChord). This stretch between Tacoma-to just past the base gets gridlocked sometime between 4pm and 7pm every day...especially on Thursdays and Fridays.

two options....

(1) drive down to Seattle and stop to have dinner. There are few places you could stop at in Edmonds, Seattle (Universit District, ballard, Fremont) for dinner. Then leave to drive down around 7pm when the traffic will lighten up.

(2) uou drive down and spend the night in Seattle..explore a little in the morning then leave after lunch around 1pm and drive down to Portland.



On railroads...I know during December the do this...not sure how it runs in November....

There is a train line run by Amtrak...its the Seattle to Chicago run that leaves from Seattle then Everett then goes to Chicago through glacier....

The first part of this runs to Leavenworth by going through the casacades so you could do a day trip there or an overnight. If you do an overnight most of the hotels require two night stay on weekend so target staying a sun-thur night.


Near the main entrance to MT Rainier they have an old train that runs but i think its just the summer

There is a museum in Chehalis or Centralia that involes trains and they also have a train that runs.

HOV lanes only run from downtown Seattle (around 165) to near Tacoma around (around 137) There is HOV on the north side of Seattle as well.

That stretch of Tacoma to Olympia by the bases on a thursday will be difficult between 4-7pm. Especially on Thursday and Friday.

In there drive to Seattle they are going against the grain mostly but there are problem areas near Everett and when they get near the 520 merge near the University of Washignton area. There is a lull through downtown then it picks up again and stays heave from I-90 merge on south.

If they stayed overnight north of Seattle they will run into traffic into Seattle but it lets up going south of seattle.

In the afternoon/evenings the backup southbound actually starts closer to the Seattle city limit and persists through the I-90 junction. I've driven that route (Everett - N. Seattle) every work day for years, and can attest that if they hit the King County line at 5:30 on a Thursday the transit of Seattle will take at least 45 min. and could be an hour. Now some days it might be better, some worse, but with an 8-hour time change I just think it's madness. YMMV.

Starting in Mukilteo in the morning they'd have HOV or express lanes all the way to Fife. Traffic won't be an issue except in the 7:30 - 8:30 AM period, both on the mainline and express lanes through downtown Seattle (Ship Canal or Mercer > I-90.)

From the sounds of what the two of you like, I would highly vote against staying in the suburbs, especially in Portland. I haven't noticed enough of a price discrepancy here between staying downtown/in the city v. the suburbs.

Someone up in the thread recommended having a look around McMenamin's Kennedy School but there is a ton of superior beer here in town. I'd recommend a visit to Bailey's Taproom. A similar place to Bailey's would be Apex and Belmont Station is also really excellent. If you're looking for specific breweries, there's Upright, Hopworks, Gigantic, etc.

For a quick trip outside of Portland, Astoria is sort of fun (added bonus of Fort George Brewery) and the Gorge (along the Columbia River) is also really nice and is closer. Hood River for Double Mountain Brewery (and their pizza is delicious!) along with Stevenson for Walking Man Brewery are also great.

From my experience driving down from Univ of Washington in the traffic southbound at evening rush hour time is a crawl from just above that exit through 520 interchange and down to Mercer. Its likely gotten worse with 520 bridge now having tolls....thus more going to I-90 instead.

To my knowledge the express lanes on the north side of Seattle only operate one direction....into Seattle in the AM and exiting Seattle in the PM. There are not a reliable HOV lane on the north side of Seattle on I-5...only in the one direction express lanes.

Sorry, that's not right. There are diamond lanes on both sides of I-5 that begin/end at the north terminus of the express lanes (just north of the Northgate mall.) In the afternoons, the S/B merge from those diamond lanes into the left (non-diamond) mainline lane is the source of congestion that backs up often to the county line (NE 205th.) Those diamond lanes extend all the way to/from Everett.

In any event this is a bit arcane from the OP's point of view. My recommendation is to stop short of Seattle on the Thursday evening and continue to Portland the next day, in daylight and hopefully not during morning rush hours.

HOV lanes on 405 are better than on 5. A little more mileage but faster.

My two cents on the trip....there's more to the PNW than Seattle, Portland, Vancouver. In all honesty, if you go to one, you've gone to all 3. They're very similar cities. How many micro-breweries do you really want to see?:p

Port Angeles/Port Townsend is a little different as are the WA Pacific beaches. From Seattle it's about 2 hours to the ocean. And at that time of the year it's pretty deserted. Being alone on the beach in late fall is pretty cool, at least it is for me.

Mt. Rainier Park and Olympic National Park.

Interior BC towns like Nelson, Kelowna and Kamloops. They range from 4-8 hour drives. But the drives are very scenic.

If you want to just stick to cities, go to Victoria and Seattle OR Portland instead of Seattle AND Portland.

Thanks...I think! I will need to look at some maps to see just which routes you're arguing about!

We actually fly in to PHL on the 31st and overnight there. We fly PHL-YYZ-YVR, so will we, as you do in the US, clear Canadian immigration/customs in Toronto?

As we'll have already cleared US immigration/customs at PHL, will this make the border crossing any more straightforward?

The Mt Hood Railroad runs every weekend other than the weekend we'd be there, so that means there's no need (apart from the market) for us to be around Portland at the weekend, so we're back to the blank slate for the route. I think kevincrumbs is right about hotels in Portland - we haven't found anything yet that is both cheap and near to public transport.

Yes, you'll clear Canadian border formalities at YYZ. If you're arriving at YVR on a domestic flight, then things will be much quicker at the airport, and you could easily make it to Seattle before rush hour (or just in time if you're at all late.) Re-entering the US at the car crossing won't be any easier having previously gone through at PHL, and depending on your visa status it might complicate things. Check this web page regarding the Visa Waiver Program, ESTA and documentation requirements: http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/wi...hout_1990.html

Thanks for that - I hoped it would be the case that we cleared Canadian immigration at YYZ.

We have encountered some problems with our odd border crossing behaviour in the past (landed at PHL, flew to DTW and drove to Windsor), so I don't expect it'll be that straightforward this time (we'll be travelling on ESTAs).

If you are interested in military history at all, the USS Turner Joy, a Vietnam Era Destroyer is moored in Bremerton, Washington as a museum ship. I had a grand time taking the ferry across the bay from Seattle to go see it, it's one of the better museum ships in the US if you ask me.

I would advise against driving from Vancouver to Portland in one day, particularly since a good part of the trip will be in the dark. In my view, that would not be fun. I'd be more open to it if all or most could be done during the daylight hours.

I know you say that you are on a budget. However, you can fly one-way, nonstop from Vancouver to Portland for $210 each. There is a 3:20pm flight on Alaska/Horizon Airlines that arrives at 4:30pm. Now that is some real time saving. Just throwing it out for your consideration.

I personally go through I-405 instead of I-5 the entire time from Vancouver to Tacoma.. I would also say that 1.5 hr from Seattle to Olympia is not right.. There is a lot of traffic between Seattle and JBLM especially by the Tacoma Dome..

Just to be clear, I-405 is a 30-mile-long bypass of I-5 between Tukwila and Lynnwood, WA. It might save you some time, but it's only a small piece of the larger road trip.