Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Commercial Ave) and the San Juan ferry terminal. Bus 513 connects Anacortes with Mt
Vernon's Skagit station four times a day. Standard fare is $1.
OFF THE BEATEN TRACK
GUEMES ISLAND
Spend an hour skimming pebbles across the bay on Guemes Island (population
700) and you'll quickly realize things are a little different in this corner of the state.
Situated five minutes by ferry from Anacortes, this 3-sq-mile slice of bucolic bliss
is the San Juans' resident contrarian. Shunning tourist celebrity, Guemes has only
one store - the dependable
Anderson's
( 10am-7pm Mon-Thu, 8am-8pm Fri & Sat,
9am-7pm Sun)
- along with bevies of munching sheep and cows, and a tourist infra-
structure that begins and ends at the rustic and decidedly unresortlike
Guemes Is-
land Resort
( 360-293-6643;
www.guemesislandresort.com
; 4268 Guemes Island Rd; yurts/d cab-
ins from $88/190; )
right in the water.
Most travelers bound for the San Juan Islands don't even know Guemes exists (it
uses a different hard-to-find ferry dock in Anacortes). Indeed, part of its innate at-
traction is the fact that it isn't really an attraction at all. Guemes visitors can't
whale-watch or hunt for antiques like other San Juan vacationers; but theycango
crabbing, circumnavigate the island by kayak, contemplate life without an iPhone,
or sit on the deck outside Anderson's with a glass of Anacortes beer listening to
the local folk band serenade the sunset.
The 22-car
Guemes Island Ferry
(500 I Ave, Anacortes; half-hourly btwn 6:30am & 7pm,
hourly until 11pm)
costs $7 round-trip. The crossing from Anacortes takes seven
minutes.
TOP OF CHAPTER
Lower Skagit River Valley
Exiled Hollanders from Amsterdam and Utrecht have been known to do a double-take in
the Lower Skagit, a flat, fertile river delta backed by the imposing Cascade Mountains,
where hardworking second-, third- and fourth-generation farmers (many of them with
Dutch ancestry) grow daffodils, tulips and copious amounts of vegetables, including
100% of the nation's parsnips and Brussels sprouts.
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