Washington State - Must See

I love the space needle, and smith tower downtown. Mt rainier is pretty, and a lot of the other suggestions are great. Spud on Alki is fantastic, I worked there in high school! Mt Vernon isn't all that special, the San Juans are nice. I'd definitely ride the ferry somewhere, maybe to Kingston or Whidbey island to visit the fort. Port Townsend is cute, so is leavenworth. Lake chelan is beautiful too. Emp is cool, and the science center. The children's museum is at Seattle center too. Point defiance zoo and aquarium are awesome!

I worked in WA State in the late 90's... and I loved the drive along the Columbia River out from Portland to the coast. It's beautiful... all kinds of waterfalls and cool places to get out and hike. We stayed in Astoria - which is a great little town on the coast. So beautiful.

Mt. Rainier is fantastic. We drove in for a day starting on the east side - drove up to the top, did short hikes along the way, and then drove down to Seattle on the way out.

Seattle is a great city as well... the market, aquarium, harbor are all interesting. The ferry out to Bainbridge Island is fun too.

We did a drive out along the Olympic Peninsula and stopped in a few fun towns, did a few short hikes, it's so beautiful.

Someday I'll bring my kids for sure (my BIL and his family live in Seattle so we are so excited to have family out there - all our kids are too little right now - but soon we'll be heading out for regular vacations!)

Salmon Le Sac............Over by Cle Elum. It is the prettiest canvas of land....The river is just majestic.......We go Camping. Like off the beaten path camping at that.....It is the best weekend we have all summer.

Now for the area's West of the Mt.'s........Old Issaquah is fun!

Leavenworth is quaint.

Alki....EAT AT SPUDS!!!! Best Fish in the City.....Milk Shakes to die for:)And the view is amazing.

The Fremont Farmers market if you want to do an off beat Tourist thing.....Fremont in and of itself is worth wandering.

And last but not least the best Scenic View around........Fort Ni-squally......It is in Tacoma........Attached to the same area as the Point Defiance Zoo...(not the BEST wildlife Zoo....But the BEST kid friendly attractions)....Anyways....You loop around some through the Park......And then it hits you.......Now yes there will be a giant Fort that you can tour and that is awesome....But look out through the trees.....Breath taking view of the Narrows, Gig Harbor and the water..........I recommend catching it around sunset.....Bring a camera:)

And the Arboretum(Tower) at Volunteer Park.......Best View of Seattle...Do not waste money doing the Space Needle.....When this is a much cooler angle and you see just as much.......Hopefully it is still open to the Public....but well worth the wander...Go during the Day though.....Things come out at night........Not always things you want to see:)

After thought...and added.........Vashon Island...........One word.....Brilliant!

There is a restaurant there that literally is farm to table when you order it.....or nearly....You can go out and help if you find it fancy.......

My only warning about traveling by train is it is an extremely time consuming mode of travel.

We lived their for 4.5 years and it was the best long term vacation we could have.

Some great places, We loved Mt. Rainer and Mt. St. Helens we would do both in one trip...Helens in more of a one time type of a trip. Depending on the time of the year you go it can be tricky to get around especially with flooding etc.

Snoqualmie fall is a great place to go, beautiful, nice drive, there is also the Rock slides close to I90 where you get off for the falls. My kids loved going there.

Lake Chelan is a wonderful place to visit.

The chittenden locks are neat, the needle we did once, fror me it is kinda a once and your good type of thing.

We never did wale watching...not much gaurantee there, The kitsap peninsula is nice... I loved driving through Whidby Island, lots of fun places to stop especially if you like a little historic stuff. plus you get a ferry ride out of the deal, we would drive on to the ferry and then drive up through the island and then take land across up north (cheaper).

We didn't do much north of whidby island but from what we heard their is a lot of nice stuff around Bellingham.

Washington is fabulous in the summer. Summer typically runs from July 12th through mid to end of September.

I had no idea there was a scenic train ride around Mt. Rainier. I would recommend driving up to the lodge and hiking around, though. It's beautiful.

Riding the ferries is a must. You would need to ride a car ferry when you visit the San Juan Islands for whale watching (summer months is when the whales are around), or you could catch a ferry to Bainbridge Island from downtown Seattle. Or you could take the ferry to Whidbey Island, drive up the island and over Deception Pass to get back to the "mainland." Deception Pass is pretty cool. If going to the San Juan Islands, you could pop up to Anacortes and catch the ferry.

Something on the Olympic Peninsula coast would be fun. (Forks or Claloch maybe?)

I love Seattle. We have a great zoo, aquarium, downtown area for history, children's museum, the Space Needle, etc. The Chittenden Locks (recommended in another post) are a couple of blocks away from my house and pretty cool. They have salmon ladders and a salmon-viewing room.) But Tad...Amuse also had great suggestions for Tacoma.

I'm not as familiar with the eastern part of the state. I love the Cle Elum area, though.

Mt. Vernon is okay. But I bet you could find some farms/ranches up that way that you could visit that would be even more fun. Look up skagit county farms and see if any allow visitors. Find some u-pick berry farm up that way.

If you're from Vegas, I'd also suggest a "public transportation day" in Seattle. Some combination of the bus, streetcar, lightrail, or monorail would be extra fun for a 6 and 7 year old. (If you pass through Portland, it's even better down there.) I know Vegas has a monorail, but it's difficult to knit together various modes of public transit in that city.

Get ready to keep saying to yourself "It's so green up here..."

Lived in Seattle 20 years, Mt. Vernon one year, now Arizona nearly 8 years, but spend our summers in WA...soon to be up there for nearly four months...its so beautiful up there in the summer!!! You're in for a real TREAT :) Everyone has given you wonderful advice so won't be redundant, however, just wanted to ADD that in Mt. Vernon, there is a neat Bed and Breakfast we have stayed at called "Whispering Firs Bed and Breakfast" overlooking the Skagit Valley...just beautiful...don't really know the prices because when we go there we stay with them and when they come here to AZ they stay with us so we TRADE...(it's a great trade), we're planning to go again in August :) Their number in case you're interested is: ###-###-####. Her name is Linda.

We just drove up to Seattle from southern California last month (26 hr drive) and we stayed 5 days in Puyallup at the Fairfield Inn off the 161/meridian and I just wanted to recommend it 100%!!!! It opened on Jan 1,2012 so it's practically brand new. It is super modern (this was very important to me) xtra clean and you have complimentary breakfast plus cookies/hot chocolate throughout the day. It has an indoor heated pool/jacuzzi and little gym. There's tons of shops/stores around. My husband's aunt works for the Marriot and she got us a discount letter, the double queen rooms that were originally $129/night we got for $69 w/the letter!!! So if you have anyone that can get you a letter then you've hit jackpot!!

Seattle has a wonderful Science Museum. The kids will love it!