I said it once and I’ll say it again: there is no city in America—NOT A ONE—that is as closely surrounded by such an insane level of natural beauty as Seattle. It’s off the charts. This can be easy to forget from the concrete jungle that is downtown, but if you ever need reminding, all you need to do is head down to the docks and grab a ferry ticket.

That’s what we’re doing today. And we’re going all the way across the Puget Sound to beautiful Bainbridge Island.

The Ferry Across Puget Sound

Our story begins in the concrete jungle. The ferry to Bainbridge departs from Pier 52, which is just about smack-dab in the middle of downtown Seattle. I should tell you that this isn’t some fancy, over-priced tourist ferry. This ferry falls under the category of public transportation, which means that a round-trip ticket only costs $9.25. The bottom level carries cars, and the top levels are just for commuters who are traveling by foot. Ferries depart from Pier 52 bound for Bainbridge roughly every hour and a half—you can find the schedule here—and you can’t make any online reservations. You just have to show up. The maximum occupancy of these ferries is huge, so I don’t think it is a common occurrence that you wouldn’t make it onto the vessel if you showed up in time.

In our case, we showed up about 35 minutes early and just had to wait around. There was quite a crowd waiting with us by the time the boat actually arrived. After a conductor’s unintelligible explanation of procedures and logistics over the loudspeaker, we all flooded onto the boat, as a never-ending line of cars boarded the lower level in single file. There are a few transit iPhone pictures here showing what catching a ferry looks like.

Within minutes we were departing from Pier 52, we were enjoying a panoramic view of downtown Seattle. There was some definite moodiness in the sky that day, which is typical for Seattle, but the view was stunning all the same. One thing I did not expect was how far away the Space Needle is from downtown. In my previous article, I shared photos from Kerry Park that showed the Space Needle looking like a defining piece of the Seattle skyline. But seeing this city’s profile from across the water, I realized that Kerry Park presents a bit of a forced perspective. In reality… well, you’ll see for yourself in the gallery below.

As we approached the middle of the sprawling waterway, all eyes turned westward, away from the metropolis fading smaller and smaller behind us, and towards the Evergreen-dominated hills of Bainbridge Island, with the rugged mountains of Olympic National Park jutting up mysteriously in the background. The cold wind whistled around us fiercely and filled the white sails of the many sailboats out on the water. “Picturesque” didn’t really do it justice. This is an absolutely iconic scene. I was instantly having something akin to Deja Vu, thinking about children’s books I had read years ago portraying this same land/seascape, with Orcas surfacing majestically in the foreground. Remembering that there were Orcas swimming somewhere below us made the scene all the more spectacular. Here are some pictures from the crossing.

Bainbridge By Foot

I’ll start with a quick introduction to Bainbridge Island. The first thing I should probably tell you about Bainbridge is that it’s not just some tourist haven—it’s actually a commuter suburb of Seattle. Lots of people live here! In fact, there are more islands out here than just Bainbridge, and many of them fall into this same category. Bainbridge alone has a population of about 25,000. I actually had a friend in college who grew up here.

The walk into town from the ferry terminal spits you out in a particularly touristy stretch of Winslow Way, which actually does have some great food options, but it doesn’t take much walking to transcend this first layer and get into real Bainbridge. Honestly, I regretted not renting a car for this trip. It would have been incredible to just drive around! We couldn’t cover nearly as much ground on foot, but I think we still got some good exploring in. We had walked about 14 miles the previous day, so we were hurting, but we pushed on!

There are some gorgeous houses around Bainbridge, and although there was definitely some aesthetic variance, a clear theme emerged. It seems to me that the quintessential Bainbridge house has the brown cedar shake siding that you’ll see pictured below. In fact, many houses around Seattle are outfitted in this style as well. It’s like a signature!

There are tons of walking trails that go all over Bainbridge. We picked one of them up in the center of town and followed it off into the distance, past boat-filled Marinas, ocean overlooks, and through some of the tallest trees, I have ever seen in my life. The nature here is really special. Vibes for days. We also stumbled upon a little pumpkin patch at one point, which was a welcome sight in early September. Fall clearly starts a bit early here. I would imagine that Bainbridge Halloween would be a GREAT vibe.

Bainbridge Farmer’s Market

One of the few items I had written down as something to do in Bainbridge besides just walking around aimlessly was to visit their farmer’s market. Held every Saturday between 10am and 2pm, just outside of City Hall, this little event was every bit the local Washington crunch-fest that I hoped it would be. We got there a tad late, but there were still some photogenic stands left. And the vendors were all very sweet, making conversation with us as we window-shopped our way through the fresh produce, plants, and local honey. If I lived here, I would come shop here every Saturday. Here’s a link to their website if you are looking for more info.

Eagle Harbor Church Pea Patch

The one other place that I had on my list before arriving in Bainbridge—and it’s quite specific—was the Eagle Harbor Church Pea Patch. I can’t quite remember how I head of this place, but it’s basically just a big public garden behind a church near the main drag of Bainbridge. Seattle really brings its A-game when it comes to home gardens, and I knew there would be some cool stuff up this vein in Bainbridge if I did some sleuthing. This is what I came up with, and I found it to be so life-giving and cool that I think I might actually make seeking out these sorts of public gardens a “thing” in my travels moving forwards.

The garden itself—although not far from the “main drag”—is a bit difficult to find, as it’s tucked away behind a local church. But once you get here it’s hard to resist the urge to go in hang out a while. Maybe I’m just new to the world of urban gardens, but I was thoroughly impressed. If you ever find yourself in Bainbridge, here’s the address:

100-298 Finch Pl SW, Bainbridge Island, WA 98110

Enjoy 😘

The Ferry Ride Back

Mount Rainier + Drama At Sea!

From there it was time to catch the ferry back to Seattle. I definitely was not expecting anything different than what happened during the first leg of our journey, but the trip back turned out to be pretty interesting. The ride out to Bainbridge had been pretty overcast, but on the way back, as the sun sank lower in the sky, the clouds parted and off in the distance Mt. Rainier LIT UP. I ran to the southerly side of the boat when I saw it and took about 10,000 photos of it as the light and the angling changed with the passing of time and the motion of the boat. I was struggling to edit these in a way that would do this view any degree of justice, but here are a few decent shots…

In the midst of all this gorgeousness, a voice rang over the ferry’s loudspeaker. The captain told us that there had been a report of a fire onboard another boat nearby in the Puget Sound and that we were going to take a detour to stand by in case we could be of assistance. Immediately murmurs spread through the passengers. And then a second announcement was made, asking anybody who was a doctor to come forward. More murmurs. We all looked across the water, seeing if we could spot obvious signs of fire on any nearby vessels.

Next to us, a girl popped out through the crowd and excitedly asked her friends, “Guys, they’re looking for doctors—should we step up??” Apparently, this was a group of young doctors. After a short interaction, they did indeed decide to “step up,” promptly disappearing below deck. Meanwhile, the rest of us civilians scanned the water for signs of smoke, which we did eventually spot.

I did my best to snag a few pictures of the altercations that were to follow. It was very windy out there, which meant the visible smoke was pretty faint but I think you should be able to make it out in the photos below. A few other boats pulled up closer and were able to pull up alongside the burning vessel to take all of the trapped passengers. At one point a couple of aquatic police boats jetted out from the Seattle skyline, blowing horns and flashing lights, always with somebody doing the “Captain Morgan” at the helm of the boat. It was all very dramatic, but we ended the trip with a bang!

Back ashore, we filed out of the ferry station and re-entered Seattle’s concrete jungle. From there we headed back north towards Fremont and Ballard to get into our evening activities. It’s funny—after a ferry ride across this breathtaking stretch of water, it seems like Bainbridge should feel worlds away from “mainland” Seattle, but it doesn’t. As soon as you get out of Seattle’s ultra-urban zones and into its neighborhoods, it all feels very mellow and local. And like Bainbridge, there is almost no Seattle neighborhood (that I had experienced) that didn’t feel very connected to mother nature. Different vibes, same spirit… if that makes sense.

In the next article, we are going to take a deep dive into Seattle’s neighborhoods and some of the quirkier points of interest this city has to offer, but for now, I am going to leave you with some music. It was just a matter of time before I used this song as Track of the Day, and this feels like a fitting time. Please enjoy one of Seattle’s favorite musical exports: The Head & The Heart.