Everything in this guide comes together here. Eleven chapters of places and stories and trivia and food and stays and drives and reels, turned into actual trip plans you can follow.
Three options depending on how much time you've got. Each one's complete on its own and tells you honestly what to skip if you're short on time. Read all three before you pick. You might find the four day version stretches to five with one little change. These are frameworks and you can bend them. The PNW rewards flexibility.
The Non-Negotiables, Every Trip
Book the Swan House first
Before flights, before anything. The house picks your dates. Everything else works around it.
Reserve Bella Italia before you leave home
bellaitaliapa.com. Dinner only, Tuesday through Sunday. Two weeks minimum for weekends, more in summer.
Buy your Olympic National Park pass
recreation.gov. Needed for La Push beaches, the Hoh, and several other stops. Do it ahead.
Download the soundtracks
Twilight and New Moon both, before you get on the plane. You need them for the drive into Forks. Non negotiable.
Pack for rain
Always, even in July. Especially in July. Layers and a waterproof shell and shoes that can get wet. The rain's part of the trip.
Screenshot Chapters 10 and 11
The trivia questions and the reel ideas. Cell service is spotty out there. Have them saved. Welp, you were warned haha.
The 2-Day Sprint
For when you don't have much time but you refuse to not go.
Seattle, in and out
2 nights at the Swan House
Swan House, La Push, Bella Italia, the drive, Forks itself. All the essentials.
Oregon filming locations, the Hoh, Rialto, Hurricane Ridge
Fly into Seattle, pick up the rental, get on the road by 10am. Take the ferry from Seattle to Kingston or Bainbridge if the timing works. The crossing is about 35 minutes and watching the Olympic Mountains come into view across Puget Sound is the moment the trip starts. Worth the wait over the inland drive.
Port Angeles by 1pm. Walk the downtown waterfront and find the bookstore area and walk the alley and browse the boutiques on 1st Street. Give yourself two hours minimum before dinner.
Bella Italia at 6 or 6:30. The mushroom ravioli. The Bella seat if you can get it. Take your time. This is the centerpiece of Day One.
After dinner, drive west on the 101 toward Forks. The evening version of the drive is moody and beautiful in the dark with the headlights catching the trees. About an hour. Soundtrack on for the last 20 miles.
Check into the Swan House. Let the yellow kitchen light be the first thing you see. Put the record player on. You probably don't have energy to cook tonight and that's fine. Tomorrow is the steak dinner. Get Bella's room if it's yours to claim. Sleep.
Waffle bar. Slow morning. The yellow kitchen in daylight for the first time. Film everything. Leave by 9am.
Thirty minutes of Forks. Chamber of Commerce and Bella's truck and the pin map and the official Twilight map. Drive past Forks High and find Dr. Cullen's parking spot and do a quick stop at Forks Outfitters for tonight's groceries.
La Push. Treaty Line sign on the way. Second Beach first, hike in and spend at least 90 minutes. Then First Beach for the afternoon. Walk the driftwood. Get the reels. Stay as long as the weather and your energy allow.
Back to the Swan House by 4pm. Cook the steak dinner in the yellow kitchen. Eat slowly. Then the first Twilight film in Bella's living room. In Forks. In the rain if the weather cooperates, which it probably will. Sleep in Bella's room one more time.
Drive back to Port Angeles and Seattle on the 101. Stop at Lake Crescent if you didn't on the way in. Sit by the water for twenty minutes. You'll be planning your return before you reach Seattle.
The 4-Day Sweet Spot
The one most people should do. Enough time to breathe and enough stops to feel complete.
Portland, out of Seattle
1 night Portland, 1 night Port Angeles, 2 nights Swan House
Everything essential plus the Oregon filming locations, Carver Cafe, Indian Beach, the prom location
The Hoh, Rialto, Sol Duc, Third Beach
Arrive Portland. Drive 30 miles north to St. Helens for the movie Swan House exterior. Walk the neighborhood. Drive the main street, which is also where they filmed Halloweentown.
Back to Portland. Dinner in the Northwest District near the Cullen House, the neighborhood has excellent restaurants. Walk to the Cullen House on Quimby after dinner when the light is low. Stand at the end of the driveway. Stay in Portland.
Carver Cafe in Damascus for breakfast. Alice's Cinnamon French Toast. Sign the guest book. Tell your table about the Stephenie Meyer cameo. Leave by 10am.
Kalama High School exterior for the Forks High parking lot on your way north.
The Shire Road on State Road 14 in Washougal, then east along the Columbia River Gorge to the View Point Inn area for the prom location. The Gorge drive is extraordinary and free and one of the best roads in the country.
Drive to the coast. Ecola State Park and Indian Beach at Cannon Beach. This is where the La Push scenes were filmed. Walk the beach. Get the sea stacks. Then drive north to Port Angeles. It's a long drive, about 4 hours from the coast. Stay in Port Angeles.
Slow start. Walk the waterfront. Find the bookstore area and the alley. Hurricane Ridge if you have energy and clear weather, 45 minutes up, worth every switchback.
Browse downtown. Find a boutique or two. Sit on the waterfront looking out at the strait.
Bella Italia. The reservation you made before you left home. The mushroom ravioli. The whole experience.
After dinner, drive the 101 west toward Forks in the dark. Soundtrack on and windows cracked. Check into the Swan House.
Waffle bar. Slow start. Film the house in morning light.
Forks. Chamber of Commerce and Bella's truck. The prop collection at the Rainforest Arts Center, make your reservation at the box office first thing. Forks High and Dr. Cullen's parking spot and Forks Outfitters for groceries.
La Push. Treaty Line sign. Second Beach in the afternoon light. First Beach for sunset if the weather gives you anything.
Back to the Swan House. Steak dinner in the yellow kitchen and the record player and trivia and the movie and Bella's room.
Waffle bar one more time. Drive back to Seattle via the 101. Stop at Lake Crescent, consider the Marymere Falls trail if you have time. Ferry back to Seattle if you want to end the way you started. Flight home.
The 7-Day Full Immersion
For the true Twihard. Every location and every experience and nothing left behind.
Portland, out of Seattle
2 nights Portland, 1 coast, 1 Port Angeles, 3 Swan House
Everything. Both Swan Houses, every filming location, the Hoh, all four beaches, three mornings in the yellow kitchen.
Nothing.
Fly into Portland. Afternoon in St. Helens for the movie Swan House and the main street. Back to Portland for dinner near the Cullen House. Evening walk to Quimby Street. Stay in Portland.
Carver Cafe breakfast. Kalama High School. The Shire Road. Columbia River Gorge and the prom location. Yale Union building for the ballet studio. Madison High School drive-by. Afternoon at Oxbow Regional Park for the "Say it out loud" forest. Dinner in Portland. Stay in Portland.
Morning drive to Cannon Beach. Ecola State Park and Indian Beach, spend real time here. Lunch in Cannon Beach, the town is beautiful and worth a slow afternoon. Drive north up the coast. Stay somewhere on the mouth of the Columbia: Astoria, Long Beach, or Ilwaco.
Drive north through coastal Washington. Cross the Hood Canal floating bridge, an engineering marvel and beautiful. Arrive Port Angeles early afternoon. Walk the waterfront. Hurricane Ridge in the late afternoon if the weather is clear, this is the day for it. Bella Italia for dinner. Stay in Port Angeles.
This is the day with no schedule. Leave Port Angeles around 10am. Lake Crescent, sit by the water and do the Marymere Falls trail. Sol Duc Valley overlook. Then the Hoh Rain Forest, drive the 18 miles in and do the Hall of Mosses trail. It's one mile and it'll change you.
Arrive Forks late afternoon. Chamber of Commerce and Bella's truck and the pin map. Forks Outfitters for groceries. Check into the Swan House. Steak dinner and the record player and the whole thing.
Leave the Swan House at 8am. Treaty Line sign. Second Beach early and stay long and check the tide pools. Third Beach if your group has the energy. Rialto in the afternoon, walk north toward Hole in the Wall at low tide. First Beach for sunset.
Back to the Swan House for a late dinner and movie night and trivia and Bella's room. This is the last full day. Make it a long one.
Slow waffle bar. Walk through the house one more time and let it settle. Film the final reel from Chapter 11 if you haven't yet.
Drive the 101 east toward Seattle. Stop at Lake Crescent one more time, you'll probably need to. Take the ferry from Kingston back to Seattle if timing allows. Stand on the deck and watch the Olympic Mountains get smaller as you cross. Let it be a goodbye moment. Flight home.
One Final Note
People come back from this trip different. Not dramatically and not in a way that's easy to explain at dinner. Just a little bit changed in the way only certain trips can do. The ones where the place and the story and the people you bring and the exact moment in your life you go all line up and do something permanent.
The yellow kitchen. That drive. The sea stacks in the fog. The mushroom ravioli. Sleeping in Bella's room while rain hit the windows in the actual town.
You'll know what it meant when you're home and somebody asks how the trip was and you open your mouth and realize you don't have a short version.
"It's an extraordinary thing to meet someone who you can bare your soul to and who will accept you for what you are."
Edward Cullen · Twilight