How I did Olympic National Park without a car (from Seattle and Port Angeles itinerary)

Hi there!

So it’s possible to do Olympic National Park without a car. If you want to do the cheap shuttle only, you might not get the full Olympic National Park experience.

That’s because Olympic National Park has distinct areas to it and the cheap shuttle only goes to one of them. You can still experience other areas of the park without a car, you will just need to do a tour.

Even if you want to do one day in Olympic National Park on your own, I do feel that it does require a bit of a time commitment.

I stayed overnight in Port Angeles for 2 nights to do one day in the Hurricane Ridge area of the national park, and then there’s the part of getting there and away that takes time too.

I arrived in Port Angeles from Seattle (I was on my way to Port Angeles upon stepping off a cruise ship!), and my next stop after Port Angeles was Victoria in Canada by ferry.

Port Angeles is the gateway town to the area of Olympic National Park that has a super cheap shuttle. That area is Hurricane Ridge, and so it’s called the Hurricane Ridge shuttle. It leaves from downtown Port Angeles.

So you can do Olympic National Park without a car from Seattle and Victoria… and by extension from Vancouver too! (Because you can get from Vancouver to Victoria without a car! I’ve done that too. That would also require a time commitment.)

Below I’ll let you know what my June 2025 visit to Olympic National Park was like without a car!

 

 

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Day 1: Arrival to Seattle and Port Angeles

• Seattle to Port Angeles by ferry and bus
• Port Angeles visitor center
• Olympic National Park visitor center by bus

 

So after visiting several Alaska cruise ports, my cruise ended in Seattle.

From the cruise ship, I basically went straight to Port Angeles. Although “straight” to Port Angeles just means that I didn’t stay overnight in Seattle. It wasn’t literally direct, as it was bus – ferry – bus to get there.

I took a bus from “near” Seattle cruise port (the further out Pier 91 Smith Cove cruise port) to downtown Seattle where the ferry terminal is. I had an orca public transit cash card, but if you don’t have that, have cash in exact change ready to pay the bus fare (I’ve gotten dollar bills from cruise ship guest services), or set your phone up in advance to pay that way. I used google maps public transit option to navigate by bus.

From downtown Seattle, I took a ferry to Bainbridge Island. Once again, I paid with my orca card. For the ferry ticket, you can pay by credit card.

Then, once at Bainbridge Island, I took a bus to Port Angeles. It’s the Route 123 Strait Shot. I was ready with cash in exact change for the bus fare, as the orca card doesn’t work here.

Although there was some waiting time in transit, overall the timing worked out quite well. Before doing this, the timings did make me nervous though. It’s like everything had to be on time and work out perfectly in order to make the timings I wanted to make. And it did work out. Even disembarking in Seattle from the cruise ship didn’t take that long which helped in being able to make the bus from the cruise port.

 

You can skip all the public transportation from Seattle to Port Angeles by doing a tour. There is a one day tour to Olympic National Park from Seattle.

 

So upon arrival at Port Angeles, my first stop was the Port Angeles visitor center which is right where the bus from Bainbridge Island arrives. It turns out that the visitor center will very kindly hold your luggage for you for a few hours! It was free, but I did buy a Port Angeles t-shirt there since I thought it was pretty great they did luggage storage.

Since I didn’t have any luggage, this meant that I could immediately go to the Olympic National Park visitor center near town! (Olympic National Park is big, and there are several national park visitor centers.) I didn’t really want to be lugging all my stuff around, although I suppose I could have.

I took the bus to get to the national park visitor center. I used google maps public transit option and it worked out well. It tells you where to go for the bus stop, the bus timings, and the bus route so you can follow along with GPS. In summer 2025, the bus around town is FREE! This includes going to the Olympic National Park visitor center near town.

The national park visitor center will give you an intro to the area. I recommend watching the film there so you can get a better appreciation for Olympic National Park. You can also buy your 7-day national park pass or annual national park pass here. There is no one-day pass. You’ll need a pass to take the Hurricane Ridge shuttle. You can also buy a 7-day pass online.

There are also 2 short trails that start from the visitor center. They are short so you might as well do them both! But if you only want to do one, do the Peabody Creek Loop. I thought it was a great intro to the part of Olympic National Park that I wouldn’t be visiting. It had me feeling like it was more of a rainforest atmosphere, which Hurricane Ridge is not.

If you want to experience the rainforest part of Olympic National Park without a car, the Hoh Rainforest tour is the one to do. This tour is from Port Angeles.

👆 You can do a short hike from the visitor center, including the Living Forest Trail.

 

👆 Another one of the short hikes you can do from the visitor center is the Peabody Creek loop trail. If you want to experience more of the rainforest in Olympic National Park, read the reviews for the Hoh Rainforest tour!

 

👆 You can also get your Olympic National Park entrance picture on your way to the visitor center!

 

After the visitor center, I took the bus back to downtown Port Angeles, consulting google maps.

I stayed in Port Angeles at an airbnb, and I took the bus to get there. I went to Subway and Safeway (grocery store) to pick up food. (Including picnic food for the next day in Olympic National Park!)

 

Watch the video for the visual on what it’s like to go from Seattle to Port Angeles by ferry and bus!

 

Day 2: Hurricane Ridge area of Olympic National Park!

• Downtown Port Angeles to Hurricane Ridge shuttle
• One day at Hurricane Ridge area for hiking!
  • High Ridge Trail to Sunrise Point (keep going on Klahhane Ridge Trail if you want to hike more)
  • Hurricane Hill Trail
• Hurricane Ridge to Port Angeles bus

 

It is GREAT that there is such a cheap option to get to a part of Olympic National Park without a car!

The Hurricane Ridge shuttle is the same type of bus as the bus that goes around town. It’s a standard public bus. In summer 2025, it’s $1 each way.

I was on the 9am bus from Port Angeles (arrival to Hurricane Ridge around 9:45am) and the 5:30pm bus from Hurricane Ridge (back to Port Angeles around 6:15pm). The bus timings are generally once an hour, but of course look at the current schedule.

 

👆 The Hurricane Ridge shuttle at the Hurricane Ridge parking lot.

 

I thought I had a pretty great day at Hurricane Ridge, so yes it’s possible for it to be worth it to take the Hurricane Ridge shuttle.

Although I will say it will certainly help if the clouds clear up a little so you can actually get views. If you don’t get views, well, I guess that’s part of the Olympic National Park experience. Or so you can tell yourself to make yourself feel better.

So the Hurricane Ridge shuttle from Port Angeles drops you off at the Hurricane Ridge “visitor center” parking lot. The visitor center currently is more of an informational board outside, since the physical building burned down a few years ago. Pick up a trail map or take a picture of it at the info board.

You can get views of the mountains from the parking lot, so no hiking is even necessary to get views. But I think hiking to get views is even better!

Basically there are 2 main hikes you can do from the Hurricane Ridge visitor center parking lot if you won’t be doing an all-day hike. The High Ridge Trail from one end of the parking lot, and the Hurricane Hill Trail on the other end.

If you only want to do one side, my pick is for the High Ridge Trail side. Since it’s a dirt trail, it feels more like a “real” hike, whereas the Hurricane Hill Trail is paved. Although I will also say Hurricane Hill is hard for me to suggest when it was entirely foggy the whole time I did it so I didn’t get any views. 🤪

So first I did the High Ridge Trail. You will get great views of the mountains even if you do a little of this trail. But I think the least you should do is hike to Sunrise Point. After Sunrise Point, I went further on the Klahhane Ridge Trail, basically until I turned around because I didn’t want to hike on the slushy snow that was on the trail. That snow was just for a section of the trail, and I did see other people down below on a snow-free trail which means they went across the snow, but I decided to turn around there.

 

👆 I hiked the High Ridge Trail which had lots of mountain views!

 

I feel it would have been a good day if I would have ended my Olympic National Park day there and returned to Port Angeles after that. In that case, I could have caught the 1pm time shuttle, and that would have been around 3 hours at Hurricane Ridge. And you could reasonably do less than that if you don’t do the extra hiking that I did after Sunrise Point.

But I did go to the other main trail too. That was the Hurricane Ridge Summit Trail.

This first requires walking along the same road that the cars drive for 1.5 miles to get to the Hurricane Hill trailhead. Along the way, there is a picnic area, so I stopped there for the picnic food I brought along.

After eating, I kept walking to get to the trailhead and started hiking the Hurricane Hill Trail. This is a paved path that is just up up up to the end… the summit! It was entirely foggy the whole time, so I literally saw no mountains. An Olympic National Park experience! 😛 But the views are supposed to be good if you do get a clearing.

 

👆 If you don’t have a car, you’ll need to walk the Hurricane Hill Road to get to the Hurricane Hill trailhead.

 

👆 There’s a picnic area along Hurricane Hill Road. Bring picnic food to surrounded by moss-covered trees! Actually my fingers started to get really cold and I used a hand warmer pouch to warm my hands up afterwards.

 

👆 A foggy Olympic National Park experience while hiking the Hurricane Hill Trail!

 

Then I headed back to the visitor center parking lot to wait for the bus.

Overall, I saw many deer and marmots in the Hurricane Ridge area. There were a bunch of marmots in the open field at the parking lot, so look for them! The deer I saw were along the High Ridge Trail trail, and also toward the edge of the parking lot near the shuttle pick-up. (I was waiting there when I saw the deer.)

 

👆 Hurricane Ridge wildlife: You might see deer!

 

👆 Spot the Olympic marmot!

 

If you’re going to do longer hiking (like the Klahhane Ridge Trail), then I highly recommend downloading the app called mapsme, and then further downloading the specific Olympic area map. Mapsme has saved me many times when google maps doesn’t have details of hiking trails.

 

Watch the video about the Hurricane Ridge shutttle!

 

Day 3: Port Angeles to Victoria

My way of leaving Port Angeles was by ferry to Canada!

I was in Victoria a few days before on a cruise ship visit, and I happened to walk past the ferry terminal building there. So I stopped in and asked if it was necessary to buy ferry tickets in advance for the Port Angeles to Victoria route that I’d be doing for the upcoming Saturday, and she said no if you are a foot passenger. (It’s also a car ferry.) So I just showed up to the Port Angeles ferry terminal the morning of and bought my ticket then. Of course, demand can change.

The Port Angeles – Victoria ferry company actually sells a day trip to Hurricane Ridge as a day trip package. So, this means it can be reasonable to do. Although you will have to decide for yourself if you think it’s worth it since it’s 3 hours at Hurricane Ridge and 6 hours of time in transit (travel time and waiting). As a US national park enthusiast, if it were my only chance to go to Olympic National Park, I would go!

Once I got to Victoria, I had a couple of nights there before starting a Vancouver Island road trip full of hikes! I left Vancouver Island by taking a ferry across to Vancouver!

 

What to wear to Hurricane Ridge

The best shoes for hiking in Olympic National Park are Merrell hiking shoes. These are sturdy waterproof shoes that will be the best no matter which trails you will be hiking.

If I was doing a hiking-only trip in Olympic National Park, I would have brought my Merrell hiking shoes.

But since I didn’t want to pack too many shoes (read: take up tons of room in luggage!), instead of my Merrell shoes, I opted to bring my Salomon trail running shoes on this trip so I could have trail-friendly shoes and walking-around-town-in-the-rain shoes. (I needed the walking-around-town-in-the-rain shoes for Alaska cruise ports.) I like train running shoes better for general walking compared to hiking shoes.

If there’s no rain and no hiking, I like my regular running shoes. (And I had packed those too.)

 

Take a look at the reviews for hiking shoes:

• Merrell for women
• Merrell for men

 

Finally, prepare for the cold! Hurricane Ridge is up high. And it can be windy. It’s best to wear layers so you can adjust. I think it’s best to prepare for rain too just in case. Preparing for the cold is also basically the same for Alaska and Olympic National Park. It’s all about layers. See my post about what to wear in Alaska.

 

Extend your no-car trip

More ideas for you!

• Things to do in Seattle without a car
• Things to do in Victoria without a car
• Things to do in Vancouver without a car

 

Seattle and Vancouver are gateways to Alaska by cruise ship! Visit the homepage for the beginner’s guide to Alaska cruises!

 

Happy visiting Olympic National Park without a car!