Forks, Washington, the setting of the Twilight films.

7 Quirkiest Washington Towns To Visit In 2025

The Evergreen State hides oodles of oddities. Straddling its pine forests and topping its hemlock hills are towns with quirky attractions, especially those that occur on an annual basis. Though 2025 is more than half over, many such events are scheduled for the remaining months. From an "alien" clam bake in July to an inter-realm ren-faire in September to a lighted tractor parade in December, 2025, small-town Washington is set to finish on the quirkiest of notes. Learn the precise places and times to go.

Allyn

As a coastal state, Washington shucks and jives with seafood and seafood festivals. You might expect to find cookouts for clams, oysters, mussels, crabs, and salmon. But what about geoduck? Technically a clam but one that looks beamed from outerspace, the geoduck buries in sand, lives for almost two centuries, and squirts water from an appendage that can grow several feet long. People eat geoduck—mostly in Asia but also in Allyn, Washington, during the Allyn Days Salmon Bake and Geoduck Festival. It runs each summer and features the titular salmon bake, samples of geoduck (plus normal clams and oysters), an oyster shucking competition, and a mud run at low tide in the geoducks' domain. 2025's dates are Friday, July 18 to Sunday, July 20.

If you cannot visit Allyn till after the fest, you can still sample scrumptious seafood (geoduck notwithstanding) at The Boat House Restaurant and Bar. To find geoduck, head to neighboring Hoodsport, where the Fjord Oyster Bank offers geoduck chowder while supplies last.

Carnation

A "city" of just over 2,000 people, Carnation doubles, triples, and even quadruples its population for unique annual events. In late July, the Indigenous-owned musical festival TIMBER! draws thousands to 574-acre Tolt-MacDonald Park. In August, THING, "an eclectic and intimate all-ages music festival," brings several thousand to Remlinger Farms.

A view of a beer truck facade, seen at Remlinger Farms in Carnation, Washington. — Beer truck facade, seen at Remlinger Farms in Carnation, Washington.

And from May to January, the Camlann Medieval Village, a living history museum set in 1376, attracts countless ren-heads with faires, festivals, and feasts. Filling Camlann's 2025 calendar are St. James Feasts on July 26 and 27; Harvest Feasts on August 23 and 24; Michelmasse Feasts on September 27 and 28; All Hallows Feasts on October 25 and 26; and Yule Feasts on all Saturdays and Sundays in December. Yule dishes have included roste fyssh and fenberry pye.

Centralia

Besides the Camlann Medieval Village in Carnation, ren-heads attend the Centralia Fantasy Festival in Centralia. The 2025 edition is to run from July 12 to 13 at the Southwest Washington Fairgrounds. But if medieval food is not garlicky enough for you, stay until August for the Washington State Garlic Fest, which is also held at the Southwest Washington Fairgrounds but whose "garlicious" offerings include garlic pizza, garlic falafel, and garlic ice cream. If you can stay even longer, or else return in December, check out the Centralia Lighted Tractor Parade. This year-end celebration combines Christmas luminance with agricultural dominance across downtown Centralia.

Forks

Though Forks abounds with nearby natural wonders like the Hall of Mosses and the Kalaloch Tree of Life, a multimedia wonder fuels much of its tourism. After Googling the rainiest places in America in 2003, Stephenie Meyer chose Forks as the setting for her upcoming book Twilight. With Twilight now one of the most successful media franchises, tourists choose Forks to see fantasy fiction come to life—not with vampires and werewolves, but the Cullen House, Swan House, Forever Twilight in Forks Collection, plus other attractions they can visit independently or on designated tours.

The Forks Timber Museum in Forks, Washington. Image credit Chris Haden via Shutterstock

Forks's Twilight highlight, however, is the annual Forever Twilight in Forks Festival, dubbed the "biggest Twilight fandom celebration in the world." Its 2025 edition is set for September 11 to 14 and will celebrate the 20th anniversary of Twilight's publication. Scheduled guests include Twilight actors Kellan Lutz, Peter Facinelli, and Erik Odom. Even Stephenie Meyer attended the fest in 2015.

McCleary

Since 1959, McCleary, Washington, has hosted the McCleary Bear Festival. You probably think that this festival, like so many organizations, uses the bear as an abstract mascot—with cute cubs on advertisements, teddies awarded as prizes, and people dressed in fuzzy bear costumes. But to McCleary, a tiny logging town near the Capitol State Forest, the bear is a tree-damaging, money-losing reality. So the solution for nuisance bears, conceived back in 1959, was to eat them.

McCleary's inaugural bear meat cookoff evolved into a multi-day extravaganza featuring 100-plus pounds of bear stewed to feed thousands of people. Bear was obtained through the Fish and Wildlife Department, but that changed a few years ago when Washington banned spring black bear hunting. Thus, the festival's famous bear stew now contains beef. Though bear meat might return in later years, you must bear "bear" as an abstraction from July 11 to 13, 2025.

Woodland

True to its name, Woodland has wild events. Though Woodland Planters Days, which feature everything from a frog jump to bed races, already ran in June, you can still catch the Realms Unknown Festival from September 19 to 21, 2025. Yet another Washington fantasy fest, but one for all genres per an interdimensional theme, Realms Unknown breaches a "Veil" that separates alternate realities teeming with weird yet wonderful beings. You can play—or, rather, be—one of those beings during this "inter-realm gathering" set on 50 woodsy acres at the Lewis River Golf Course. Be ready for "experiential activities and unique entertainment."

Port Townsend

A small but im-port-ant city, Port Townsend's oddities tend to float rather than sink. See many of them at the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival, which is considered the largest event of its kind in America. Expected to port from September 5 to 7, 2025, are numerous wooden vessels, such as 1905-built Dorjun and 1913-built Adventures. Kookier but more versatile floaters compete in October for the Port Townsend Bay Kinetic Sculpture Race.

Main Street Plaza in Port Townsend, Washington. Image credit Gareth Janzen via Shutterstock

In addition to floating, the titular kinetic kompetitors must traverse sand, mud, and "hilly, silly" neighborhoods. The krazier the skulpture the better (organizers love the letter "K"). There is even a Mediocrity Award. Last up is the Strange Brewfest, a celebration of offbeat beers which, though it runs each January, deserves to be the first Port Townsend event you attend in 2026.

Prettiest Small Towns In WashingtonThe small towns are the real draw—places like Stehekin by Lake Chelan, Roslyn with its miner cottages, or Langley above Saratoga Passage.

If you thought you had missed Washington's quirkiest attractions, hopefully you now believe otherwise. Sure, the Evergreen State has evergreen oddities that you can see year-round, but its annual events are where the real magic happens—if only for a day or two. There is an exclusivity to such fleeting sights, which are by no means done for 2025. Over the next several months, visit Allyn, Carnation, Centralia, Forks, McCleary, Woodland, and Port Townsend to catch once-in-a-year and perhaps once-in-a-lifetime Washington oddities.

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