These are our personal tips & travel opinions that we either discovered by ourselves or read about. The tips & opinions are by no means meant to say you have to follow them and they are pertinent to the time of year (July) that we went.

Generally speaking, we felt the restaurant food prices were higher compared to other tourist areas we've visited in the US. Seems like an average lunch was around $15 and dinner $20-25. Of course we could have economized more but we ate the same type of lunches or dinners we'd try while on vacation at other destinations.

Mt. Ranier is *the* place to hike. Stay somewhere close to the park and drive up to Paradise area and park there. From there you will have a bunch of hikes that start in that area. Some are very long and some are quite short. You need to be somewhat fit to do some of the hikes. There are numerous other hikes though.

Summer is a great time to go and see the wildflowers but it's also a busier time of the year. We didn't experience any driving or attraction delays on our trip. While summer is great, if there is a heat wave, you will feel it. We never saw any air conditioners anywhere in the area. Lots of fans at the ready though :)

Paradise, Mt. Ranier, is under renovation until 2007. You can still visit the visitor center and park in the area for hikes though.

National Park Inn was very convenient but the rooms and food were very much of a disappointment. I'd equate the rooms to a motel 6 standard and the food/service was very much lacking.

If you plan on hiking most of the day I'd advise taking hiking boots and regular hiking gear with backbacks, water, insect repellent, etc. Some of your hikes can go across patches of snow (even in July!) and you should definitily consider appropriate clothes and gear.

Seattle offers free bus service for a certain area downtown. You really need to check it out on their transit web site to get specifcs but you can save money if you're planning on spending the day in the downtown area where a lot of the tourist attractions are located. Downtown area, not so much touristy areas though, is extremely hilly!

The Fremont area in Seattle is a neat eclectic part of the city. Very casual, and laid back. Definitly worth a side trip to go there and visit some of the shops, walk the streets and visit a pub or two, maybe see the Stalin statue!

Driving from Seattle to Vancouver is a beautiful drive and worth it. It's easy crossing the border and you can tune in to local information (radio) stations to hear estimated wait times (usually just a few minutes).

Victoria Canada was such a suprise. Beautiful city. See more about it in our travel log.

Butchart Gardens just outside of Victoria is not to be missed in the summer. Bring lots of film/large memory card. Summertime they have fireworks in the evening but you don't have privledges to leave the gardens and return later like you do at other times of the year.

Vancouver was nice but it seemed like the architecture of many of the residential buildings have a post-Soviet 'look' but it appears many of them are just designed to look that way. A bit strange we thought.

Bike riding in Stanley park is super fun and bike rentals are easy to find. The bike trail is next to the walking/running trail and you only go one direction and the trail is basically level. So easy, so beautiful and so, so worth it even if you're a casual bike rider. Walk the park with someone you love if you don't bike.

Grouse Mountain lift ticket was $30 a head and I'm not sure we felt it was worth the time or not. Most of the time it can be cloudy and it hardly ever looks like the website shows it. There is stuff/shows to see at the top so if you really enjoy that kind of thing, go for it.

Try the maple cream beer at Granville Island Brewery (on Granville Island). Very creamy, very good and tastily different.

The aquabuses are easy jump on and take you to differnt parts of Vancouver or Granville Island. $2.50 a person, quick and easy and friendly folks.

Ferrys in general: We took the ferry from Vancouver to Victoria and then from Victoria to Port Angeles, Washington. We paid extra for reservations but I'm not sure you'd have to have it, I think we'd have gotten on just fine without reservations. The ferries offer lots of things you can purchase for the 1.5 hour ride and they're comfortable to find a spot to plop down and catch up on some reading, etc.

Questions/comments: comments@marklyn.us