Olympic

2 of The Most Stunning Sunset Hikes in Olympic National Park. Plus 3 Rainforest Trails you Can't Miss! 

Somehow this trip earned us 1 Million views on Tiktok. Let me start by saying we did a TON of driving in this national park, More than we have ever done before! I think we put like 700 miles on our rental car in 5 days. We started our day in downtown Seattle, Washington at the one and only Springhill Suites. We slept in because it was nice to have a bed after sleeping in a tent for 2 nights at the Refuge Festival. We typically pick the same hotels for quality control reasons. We know the rooms are spacious with a separate living area. We know we can have free breakfast if we want it and most of all the parking situation is always cheap or affordable. 

We had to wait for the REI to open up so we could grab some dehydrated meals. Now, these dehydrated meals are very hit and miss. Like either they smack or someone needs to get smacked. No in-between! But they are always convent when you only have access to hot/boiling water. We had our pick of the litter at REI so we grabbed 2 breakfasts and 2 dinners each. We picked from a slew of brands to see which one had the best seasonings and flavor. Then we were off to get water, gas and a few road snacks which included this fire ass chicken bantu box meal from a random Japanese spot "Ichi Bento". 

Our journey was about 3-4 hours and we opted to take the ferry. We've never been on a car ferry before. Of course we had a lot of questions about how it worked and how much it costs and so on. We followed the GPS to the Edmonds ferry site and got in line. We pulled up to the booth and asked all our questions and CHILE, they charged us almost $40. FORTY DOLLARS, I was sick! I could not believe those prices for a 15 min ride. We said to each other "we aint takin the ferry back" and we meant that. When we pulled into the waiting area, there was room to leave your car, grab a snack from the booth and vending machines or even use the bathroom. Don't worry they make a big announcement to head back to your car about 4 mins before the line starts moving. there's 6-8 lines of cars and they call you one line at a time. Kam started to get impatient and worried that we wouldn't get on because of the amount of cars and we were the last line to board. I told him we wouldn't be here if we couldn't get on and I was right because we got on with no problems and lots of space to spare. We explored the ship by walking around and being confused about where to go. We took some pictures of the beautiful landscapes and went back to our car. Pretty underwhelming for almost FORTY bucks. They didn't even include popcorn! 

We drove through our favorite "90 day fiancé" town Sequim, Washington. They had a Costco, a blockbuster and a Jack in the Box. Idk what ole girl from "90 Day Fiance" was complaining about. At this point you probably already know how much we despise the national park campsite booking system. We completely washed our hands with it and swapped them out for a camping website called hipcamp.com! We booked a cool tree tent called Wandering Woodlands for two nights near Olympic National Park. When we arrived we took this video of us checking out the tent for the first time. It got 1.2M views on tiktok and I am so happy to help Roxanne get some attention for her business. After being at the site for 10 mins we were on the road to our first sunset hike. 

Third Beach Sunset Hike was about 3-4 miles round trip. It was such a cute and easy hike through lush forest to this beautiful beach. The sky was orange, yellow hue reflecting off the sand made the beach kind of an orangish color. We had tree covered hills to the right and rocky jagged rocks in the water to the left. We had this beach pretty much to ourselves with the exception of a few beach campers. See in Chicago, that's a totally different look than when you beach camp out in Washington. There was drift wood everywhere for us to climb, play and chill on while we watched the sky transition to night. We hiked back to the car and headed to bed for our first night in the tree tent. I loved looking up in the middle of the night to see the stars shine through the trees. It was so mesmerizing. I think that was my favorite part.

We woke up super early because our blogger friends Katie and Joe on the go posted a video of the Hoh rainforest line backed up for miles and it was only 7am. We got right up and dressed at around 5am. We arrived at the Hoh Rainforest at 6am and drove right in. Keep in mind we are doing this on a weekday, weekends at national Parks are swamped with people. We got to our parking spot and made our breakfast. I had apple cinnamon oatmeal and Kam had the peak refuel breakfast skillet. This man does not even like eggs so you know exactly what went to waste. My oatmeal was amazing. I just needed a little more sugar. 

The first trail we checked out was the Hoh River Trail. This one is 36 miles long so we only did like 4 miles before we turned around. The path was completely empty until we were about 1 mile from the trailhead. We then took a break in the parking lot, ate some snacks and took the super easy and gorgeous Hall of Mosses Trail. The trail was only 1 mile but pretty crowded. It was still early but I could feel the crowds vamping up. Plenty of touring groups on this trail too so everyone was fighting for the best photo spots. These are the moments vlogging can get irritating but everyone deserves them some nature so you can't get mad. In the end It was still quite easy to take some photos without people in the background. The last trail we did was the Spruce Nature Trail. It was also crowded and we didn't even do the whole thing. There were just too many people by this point around noon. We decided to head to the visitors center in Port Angeles for some shirts and magnets. If I were to do this again I would park, hike the hall of Mosses Trail, then do the Spruce Nature Trail eat in the parking lot then do the long Hoh River trail. Take the shorter routes first then do the longer routes in order to be both efficient and beat the growing crowds. Always remember that the earlier the better because people love nature. Especially during the summer. 

We drove about an hour or so to Port Angeles Visitors Center. They did not have any of the stuff we wanted so we were mad as hell that we drove so far. We also stopped at another visitors center at the rainforest beforehand. They were also sold out of everything! We drove back to the campsite to eat and break. Our next destination was a 2 hour drive to Shi Shi beach. A suggestion from our GoodTrip guide Matt. The drive was stunning and I could not believe the views and sites! It rained on and off during the drive but It really was not too bad. We arrived at the trailhead suited up with water, lights, jackets and extra batteries. We hiked about 2 miles to the beach and we had just missed the sun going behind the water. I was a little upset. It was because we could not find the entrance to the beach. We finally found it but it was too late. We still got to experience the beach and the beautiful rock formations in the water. We had to hike back and it was dark so we used our amazon headlamps to light the way. Kams died immediately but don't fear cause I keep that thing on me, we swapped the batteries out and we were good to go. The entire hike was in the dark and Kam was pissed. He hates the dark. We play music from our speaker so animals or whatever is lurking can hear us. We drove through the night to our tree tent and it rained so we asked the host to cover the tent with the rain fly. On the drive back my stomach was hurting real bad from the dairy in the chicken and dumplings meal I had earlier at the campsite. It was so good but I forgot my stomach does not do dairy. I will honestly get the Backpackers Pantry chicken and dumplings again cuz bay bee, it was gourmet!

I vowed not to drink a thing before bedtime so I would not have to leave the tent overnight. The night before I had to pee twice and while the tent is comfortable as hell, it's really complicated to get in and out of. Most of all the whole tent shakes and disrupts your partner. I know kam was mad as hell with my moving ass! I know I was because he got up twice and I could feel everything. The night was nice and warm and I did not have to use the bathroom. We got up around 7am to head back to Seattle for lunch and our hot tub boat appointment. After that we took an uneventful evening flight home on Delta Airlines. Actually Delta Airlines is anything but uneventful for a budget airline girl like myself. The terminals, planes, and service being luxurious, I will for sure fly Delta again.