8 Nicest Small Towns In Washington

The nicest small towns in Washington welcome you by handing you something to do together. In Leavenworth the whole town turns out for a festival nearly every month of the year. Lynden growers let visitors into the fields to pick raspberries each July. In Walla Walla the lavender farmers teach craft classes to anyone who shows up. La Conner celebrates Swinomish Days every August with the whole tribal community. You leave these eight towns having done something with the people who live there.

Leavenworth

Leavenworth is a true American success story. Once a timber town, Leavenworth was close to becoming a ghost town in the 1960s until a beautification program remade it as a Bavarian Swiss Alps-style destination. The gamble paid off, and the town now draws visitors with German-style attractions like the Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum, home to more than 9,000 nutcrackers, and restaurants like the Munchen Haus. Leavenworth sits in the Cascade Mountains, with backpacking trails just outside it, including the Icicle Gorge Trail, a 4.2-mile loop around Icicle Creek and the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. Leavenworth finds reasons to celebrate in just about every month of the year, hosting festivals like Maifest in May and Oktoberfest across three weekends in October.

Port Townsend

Port Townsend is trapped in time, with much of its Victorian architecture left unchanged, as the town was never connected to a larger rail system. It holds some of the oldest buildings in the state, including the Port Townsend Post Office and Customs House. Built in 1893 in the Richardson Romanesque style, it is the oldest federal post office in Washington. The town also keeps some of its military bunkers at Fort Worden Historical State Park, along with beaches and Taps at the Guardhouse, a food-and-drink stop inside the fort's old guardhouse. Visitors during March and April can book a trip with Puget Sound Express to go whale watching. This is one of the best times to see migrating Gray Whales.

Friday Harbor

Friday Harbor is one of the primary entry points to San Juan Island, just off the coast of Washington. This island was the site of a border dispute between the U.S. and the United Kingdom. That standoff left two military camps behind, both now part of San Juan Island National Historical Park: climb Mount Finlayson for the American Camp or Young Hill for the English Camp. With its position in the Salish Sea, Friday Harbor is known for whale sightings. The Whale Museum covers the many types of whales that live here and displays a young orca skeleton. Friday Harbor also hosts rotating exhibitions of visual art from around the world at the San Juan Islands Museum of Art.

Lynden

Lynden is one of several towns on this list that has a distinctly European vibe. In Lynden's case, that stems from its larger Dutch-immigrant population. Visitors often take photos next to the four-story Dutch windmill near a former car dealership, now called the Lynden Dutch Village. This rural community also grows one of the best raspberry crops in the state, which visitors can pick at Kamm Creek Farm or celebrate at the Northwest Raspberry Festival each July. Lynden preserves artifacts from throughout the village's history at the Lynden Heritage Museum, which also sells cute t-shirts featuring the Dutch windmill. Guests can learn all manner of art styles through classes at the Jansen Art Center, including ceramics, dance, painting, and textiles.

Winthrop

Despite being in the Pacific Northwest, Washington is also an Old West state, as evidenced by the town of Winthrop. The Shafer Historical Museum lays that history out, with exhibits of farming and mining equipment used by settlers who crossed the Great Plains to make a living here. In the town's Old Western downtown, visitors can grab lunch at the western-themed Rocking Horse Bakery or a drink at Three-Fingered Jack's Saloon. Winthrop acts as a gateway to several Washington parks, including the North Cascades National Park. This lesser-known park has more than 300 glaciers atop its jagged peaks. Another nearby park is Pearrygin Lake State Park, a popular swimming and fishing spot in the summer.

La Conner

Located in the Skagit Valley on the shores of the Swinomish Channel, La Conner is a small community that's easy to overlook, but it hides a few surprises. One is a Swinomish Indian totem pole carved with an unexpected face: President Franklin D. Roosevelt. This town allows one to take a slower pace, watching the boats going out into the channel from the 1957 walking Rainbow Bridge, or grabbing an ice cream cone from a water tower that's converted into the La Conner Ice Cream Tower. One can also see how the Pacific Northwest landscape has inspired quilting styles via the Pacific Northwest Quilt & Fiber Arts Museum. The Swinomish Indian Tribe stays active here, hosting the Swinomish Days festival each August.

Port Angeles

Port Angeles sits in one of the most ecologically diverse regions of Washington, in the Olympic Peninsula. After all, here one can spend time in windy mountain peaks, by Pacific beaches, and up in quiet rainforests, all within the same national park: Olympic National Park. Hikers can find true quietude in the Hoh Rainforest within the park, which contains the Square Inch of Silence, a spot so quiet that some airlines have voluntarily adjusted routes to help preserve the tranquility. Hurricane Ridge forms the park's mountainous peaks, which can be quite loud on windy days. Other than the park, Port Angeles offers the City Pier & Hollywood Beach, as well as the Black Ball Ferry Line for those taking a trip to Victoria, Canada.

Walla Walla

Walla Walla is a wine connoisseur's paradise. The fertile valley supports more than 130 wineries across 2,900 acres, including Echolands Winery and The Walls Vineyards. Wine grapes aren't the only crop that grows here. Just outside of town is a sea of purple at the Blue Mountain Lavender Farm. Here, visitors can smell the crops, purchase them, or take craft classes on using lavender for art projects. Walla Walla was also the site of the Whitman Mission, a Christian mission among the Cayuse people. Today, the Whitman Mission National Historic Site interprets both the mission's story and that of the Cayuse people. The Fort Walla Walla Museum digs deeper, with a Pioneer Village of 17 historic structures gathered from around the valley.

Where Washington's Quiet Corners Still Feel Distinct

Leavenworth pulled itself back from near-collapse by rebuilding as a Bavarian village, and Port Townsend kept much of its 1890s Victorian architecture only because the railroad never reached it. The rest each protected or reinvented one distinct thing, like the glaciers above Winthrop or the lavender rows outside Walla Walla. Friday Harbor may be the clearest case, turning an old U.S.-U.K. border standoff into a harbor where orcas surface in the Salish Sea.