Itinerary
Three Days on the North Peninsula
Come Thursday to Saturday and every door on this list opens on at least one of your days — a museum, a mill town, a garden and a lighthouse.
- Before you book
Why Thursday to Saturday
North Kitsap's best places keep awkward, non-overlapping weeks. The Suquamish Museum is currently Wednesday to Friday. The Port Gamble Historic Museum is Thursday to Sunday, May to late September. Heronswood is Wednesday to Sunday in season. Point No Point's lighthouse tower opens Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 4, April through September. A Thursday arrival and a Saturday departure is the window where all four are reachable. Any three days will make a good trip; these three make a complete one.
Map ↗ - Day 1 10:25 AM
Land in Kingston and go west
Coffee two minutes from the lanes, then about fifteen minutes on SR 104 to Port Gamble. The town is free to wander, the shell museum above the General Store is free to enter, and the Historic Museum — Thursday being one of its days — is free as well. Lunch at Butcher & Baker Provisions.
Map ↗ - Day 1 3:00 PM
Heronswood, before it closes at three
Fifteen acres and some eight thousand plant varieties, founded in 1987 and owned since 2012 by the Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribe. Last entry is 2:30, so this is a get-there-early-afternoon stop, not a late one. Admission $15, $10 for ages 7 to 17. Don't skip the S'Klallam Connections Garden.
Map ↗ - Day 1 6:00 PM
Dinner and a bed
Eat in Kingston — the Ale House, Los Tres Compadres, or Nirvana — and sleep at The Point Casino & Hotel ten minutes north, Clearwater at Suquamish, Port Gamble Guest Houses, or a vacation rental from the Chamber's list.
Map ↗ - Day 2 9:30 AM
South to the Suquamish Museum
Fifteen minutes south on Miller Bay Road NE. Friday is inside the museum's current Wednesday-to-Friday window, so this is the day for it. Ancient Shores – Changing Tides is built around a canoe some three hundred years old, last paddled in the 1989 Paddle to Seattle. Adults $8, elders and youth $6, families of four to six $18.
Map ↗ - Day 2 12:00 PM
Chief Seattle's grave and Old Man House
The grave is a five-minute walk from the museum, in the working cemetery beside St. Peter's — quiet, on the paths, as you would anywhere families still bury their dead. Old Man House Park is the shoreline where the great longhouse of D'Suq'Wub stood, returned to the Tribe in 2004.
Map ↗ - Day 2 2:30 PM
Poulsbo for the afternoon
Twenty minutes north. Front Street is a Norwegian-heritage shopping street with the mountains behind it; Sluys Bakery opens at 5 AM daily; the Maritime Museum is free and open daily. Western Washington University's SEA Discovery Center on Front Street opens Friday and Saturday, 11 to 4, and is free with a suggested couple of dollars — a small marine science centre and a good hour with children.
Map ↗ - Day 3 9:30 AM
North to Point No Point
Twenty minutes and ten miles from Kingston. Built in 1879, first lit in 1880, the oldest lighthouse on Puget Sound and a short square tower rather than the tall one people picture. Saturday is a tour day: volunteer docents open it noon to 4, April through September. Check parking first: the county's park page says the lot has reopened after storm repairs, while the county Parks FAQ still says the main lot "remains closed" and points to the Fish and Wildlife lot on Point No Point Road (Discover Pass, summer season). Kitsap Parks can settle it on (360) 337-5350.
Map ↗ - Day 3 12:30 PM
The village, then the preserve
Lunch at Hansville Grocery & Hansgrill on Twin Spits Road, the only kitchen up here. Then Foulweather Bluff Preserve — about a mile of walking round trip to nearly 3,800 feet of Nature Conservancy beach, best at low tide. No dogs at all, and parking is roadside for under ten cars.
Map ↗ - Day 3 4:00 PM
Last look, and the boat
Back through Kingston. A pint at Friends and Neighbors (doors at 2 PM on Saturdays), a last browse at Saltwater Bookshop, and down to the terminal. Check the Ferry page — a Saturday evening eastbound is a real queue in summer.
Map ↗
Before you head back
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