PNW Road Trip: Driving from Vancouver to Seattle

The drive from Vancouver to Seattle is 141 miles and takes about 2.5 hours, though border delays can vary.

Granville Bridge

Leave downtown Vancouver by taking Granville Street south over Granville Bridge. Continue south on Highway 99 through the residential neighborhoods of greater Vancouver. Despite the frequent stoplights, traffic moves quickly outside of rush hours.

Follow Highway 99 south as it turns left on Park Drive and then south on Oak Street. Highway 99 crosses the Oak Street Bridge to become the Vancouver-Blaine Highway through the Richmond suburbs. Speeds slow at the Canada-U.S. border and cars are directed into waiting lanes to be questioned by border control agents. Once clear of customs, pass the massive white Peace Arch monument, which claims to be the first monument built and dedicated to world peace.

The route is now called I-5, a freeway that runs from the Canadian border to Tijuana, Mexico. Follow I-5 south through the town of Bellingham, Washington and the expansive Skagit Valley, home of a spring tulip festival. Freeway traffic may start to slow around Everett, an industrial hub 30 miles north of Seattle and home to some of Boeing’s largest airplane factories and runways.

Express lanes, which change direction depending on time of day, may be open about 8 miles north of downtown Seattle. They are often faster than the freeway, but offer fewer off-ramps. The multilane I-5 narrows as it enters downtown Seattle, where the freeway darts through tunnels and under buildings, with exits springing both left and right.

A barn in a field of pink tulips in Skagit Valley Washington.

Stopping in Bow

Leave I-5 at Bow Hill Road for a detour to the towns of Bow and Edison; both are located off scenic Chuckanut Drive/Highway 11 which connects to I-5 in Burlington. Each tiny town boasts bakeries, cheesemongers, and cafés. Ask for a local pint at the Edison Inn (5829 Cains Ct., Bow, 360/766-6266, 11:30am-11pm Sun.-Thurs., 11:30am-midnight Fri.-Sat.). Then follow Chuckanut Drive north to find fried oysters and a Samish Bay view at Taylor Shellfish Farms (2182 Chuckanut Dr., Bow, 360/766-6002, 9am-6pm daily Apr.-Sept., 9am-5pm daily Oct.-Mar.) before returning to I-5 at Burlington.

Allison Williams

About the Author

While growing up in Olympia, Washington, Allison Williams spent much of her childhood climbing trees and reading books at the top. Family vacations involved camping in the shadow of Mount Rainier or exploring the very dark, probably haunted tunnels of Port Townsend’s old forts.

Allison received her bachelor’s degree in biology and English from Duke University, with studies at Oxford University and an ethnobiology field school in Costa Rica. She worked as a writer and editor in New York City for eight years, including staff positions at Metro newspaper and Time Out New York. When the lure of the Northwest’s mountains, drizzle, and summer berry harvests became impossible to ignore, she relocated to Seattle. She has since realized two lifelong dreams: summiting Mount Rainier and poking sticks into the campfire without being disciplined.

Allison earned her MFA in creative writing at the University of Alaska Anchorage, where her fiction thesis won the Jason Wenger Award for Literary Excellence. Her journalistic work has been recognized with awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and a nomination from the City and Regional Magazine Association. As senior editor at Seattle Met magazine, she covers travel and the outdoors by hiking every trail and driving every road she can find on a map.

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Peace Arch at the US-Canada border with US and Canadian flags flying above. Pinterest graphic.