Portland - Seattle - San Juan Islands - Vancouver

[rosiedozie]

If you had 8 days and a rental car, are these four stops too much to try and cram in? 

We've never done a multi-destination vacation before so I'm having a hard time envisioning it, but I also can't decide which to cut if it comes down to that.

[peppermint]

I just did a 5 day trip of Seattle and Vancouver and didn't feel like it was enough time. I can't imagine trying to fit in the 4 places you mentioned in 8 days, but it depends on what all you're trying to see/do. If it were me, I'd cut out Portland and focus on Seattle, Vancouver, and the San Juans - but even those 3 destinations in 8 days might be pushing it. I'm not an expert in that area, but what are you looking to do in each destination?

[atlas]

Well - 8 days with 4 stops is roughly two days per stop. Depending on how much time you want to spend driving rather than doing other things, I think that isn't enough. Vanc to Seattle is about 3-4 hours, Seattle to PDX is about 3. So the driving will take up a chunk of time. If you are going for the driving, then that would probably be fine. Extend the drive times and focus on only 1 day in each place, with one day travel between.

[rosiedozie]

Thanks for the feedback!

We certainly don't want to spend all of our time in transit, so we will have to cut something. Unfortunately I think the easiest one to ax is San Juan Islands.

We enjoy eating, drinking local beer (we're hipster-light) and sightseeing so we really don't want to cut Portland.

[rosiedozie]

I just looked it up and you can do 3-5 hour whale watching trips out of Vancouver - maybe that would be a good alternative.

[jaime183]

Too much for the San Juans for sure. The ferry ride/times makes it logistically annoying... you have to line up really early and the boats fill up.

If you were ok just seeing a little of each, you could squeeze the other 3 in... but I would think 2 cities would be good too

[jaime183]

Also, depending on the traffic, the border crossing can take a long time so that takes up a bunch of time too.

You could do Portland, Seattle and Victoria in that amount of time!

[ckinla]

I did 5 days in Seattle and 2 in Portland (well 2 half days after travel) and it wasn't nearly enough - so much to do! We were going to do Vancouver, but there just wasn't time.

[stever]

Too much, IMO. I'd do Seattle and Vancouver or Seattle and Portland.

[mich1]

I live in this area. For 8 days, I'd probably dump Vancouver and do that another trip on its own because you probably need 4-5 days there to do stuff.

The border crossings have been ugly recently.....I mean, really ugly. We get across with a NEXUS, but if you don't have one, it could be a 2-3 hour wait if you chose the wrong time. That is in both directions.