10 Reasons to Visit the San Juan Islands

+ tourist town dramas

Sep 24, 2023

This summer, I spent five months sea kayak guiding in Washington’s beautiful San Juan Islands. I’ve paddled with orcas, hiked to island waterfalls, and developed a permanent salt layer on my skin.

Sometimes I forget how truly lucky I am to get to have these experiences. Work as a guide is hard, physical work with no breaks. Still looking back it’s been incredible, and I’m so happy to share these beautiful islands with you and provide some information to help you visit them yourself.

1) The Orcas

For a few days in late August this year, there were over 120 orcas in the San Juan Islands! The San Juans are frequented by the Southern Resident Killer Whales, who come through to hunt salmon, as well as several groups of Biggs Killer Whales, who go for seals.

Pictured above are T60 Biggs Orcas (same thing as Killer Whale). The only for sure way to whales in the San Juans is to book a whale watching tour— I shot these photos on a trip with Maya’s Legacy.

I was lucky enough to have some truly incredible experiences with orcas from a kayak this summer. Check it out in encounters with whales and the human in the orca, the wild in ourselves. The second piece is easily my favorite thing I’ve written all summer— I like to use this newsletter both as a travel resource and sort of an online dairy. The second piece is sort of the ideal of what I’d like all of my newsletters to read like.

2) The Bioluminescence

I hated running the bioluminescence tours, but also I didn’t. Eight till midnight is hard hours to work, especially on overnight trips where you’ve already been working since early morning and are dying to sit down and read alone.

It’s also the most incredible thing in the world. You paddle off into the sunset, and it’s a slow burn. The water is glassy and red and purple. Then as the light fades the stars start to simmer through the dusk and just when you can start to see the Big Dipper, you trail your fingers through the water and little blue sparkles fly off. It gets darker, and soon you can see blue light trailing off your boat, you can splash and send a wave of blue forward.

Scare a school of fish and watch them scatter beneath you— it’s amazing. My sister came to visit and I took her out (pictured above). Having seen the bioluminescence as many times as I have now, the coolest thing about it is hearing other people’s reaction. There is no feeling in the world like watching adults be as genuinely excited as children.

You can read more bioluminescence experiences from this summer in no points for trying.

3) The Campsites

The campsites in the San Juan Islands range from oceanside to cliffside, but what they don’t tell you is the San Juans are the perfect place to sleep under the stars.

The bugs are few and far between, and tucked away in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains, the San Juans rarely see rain overnight. I slept out just a few times this summer, and more often with friends than for work— when guiding I like the privacy a real tent affords.

Looking for brutally honest tent purchasing advice? Check out my new guide to tent buying, designed to help you pick the best tent for your needs (and to avoid becoming the owner of five different tents like me oops! basically, I’m a homeowner.)

4) The Mountain Views

Traditionally, people don’t think of the San Juan Islands as mountains. Geologically speaking (sort of, i read this on a sign in one of the parks somewhere, probably Moran), the islands are a partially-submerged mountain range, with the hilly tops being ancient mountain peaks, and the valleys submerged beneath the ocean floor.

The result is some really incredible views. My favorite is Mount Constitution in Moran State Park on Orcas Island (pictured above).

5) The Sunsets

There is something about an ocean-side sunset, and there’s something even more incredible about experiencing sunset from the water. I don’t think I’ll ever overnight sea kayak again without trying to get people on the water to watch the sunset with me.

6) Island Waterfalls

There’s no place in the world like an island waterfall. I’ve been lucky enough to experience a few of these incredible features, mostly in the Redonda Islands of British Columbia, but also on Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior.

This beautiful waterfall is Cascade Falls in Moran State Park. The whole place is incredible, it feels like the jungle.

7) The Chai Tea Lattes

When my sister visited, we checked out pretty much every Chai Tea Latte on the market. By far, the winner was Darvill’s Bookstore and Coffee Bar in Eastsound, Orcas Island. Literally the most delicious chai ever.

Also, the view is incredible.

8) Mount Baker Views

Paddling on the ocean while simultaneously being surrounded by mountains? Easily one of the coolest experiences out there. In the San Juans, you’ve got Mount Baker and the Cascades to the northeast, the Olympics to the south, and on clear days Rainier to the southeast and the Coast Mountains in British Columbia to the north.

9) The Sea Cliffs

Sea cliffs are one of my favorite features to paddle, superseded perhaps only by waterfalls directly into the sea, and sea caves themselves. The San Juans have plenty of beautiful sea cliffs, and if you can catch them at the lowest tides, you can spot sea urchins, sea stars, and all sorts of intertidal life.

10) The Wildlife

The San Juans are absolutely incredible for sea life, but the nature of islands lends to incredibly interesting land wildlife as well, for example the Piebald Deer pictured above. Piebaldism is similar to albinism in that it’s a genetic mutation, but it is slightly more common.

While on mainland deer with lighter coloring might stand out more easily to predators, there are no large land predators in the San Juans, making it more common for these deer to make it to adulthood. (Thanks @sweetsofmay, Orcas Island Naturalist expert!! for the explanation). Neat!

want more San Juan Islands? Check out the 25 best things to do in the San Juan Islands!

Another interesting (invasive) species on San Juan Island is the fox. I was hiking at sunset alone on the Cattle Point Bluffs when I spotted this guy walking toward me on the trail. I stepped off the trail and didn’t move, and he kept walking towards me. I diverted a little farther and stood and didn’t move, and on his way past me he paused and looked back, and I snapped this photo with a telephoto lens.

The “war” on foxes and photographers on the island is covered in this fascinating Seattle Times article, and I highly recommend giving it a read.

I’ve lived in a lot of small towns that are tourism-dependent, and one thing that is always fascinating is the way that local culture meets that tourism. I’ve found that often times the most vocal “locals” are often not local at all, rather transplants from the big city who’ve found their slice of paradise. It’s unfair to talk about increased tourism without acknowledging increased global population— sometimes I think that the crux of the tourist town issue is that we’re all just selfish, and it’s getting harder to coexist, and some people feel like they shouldn’t even have to try to.

I touch on the uglier side of tourist town life in the essay Life in a Northern Town, written about the two years I lived in Grand Marais, Minnesota.

Hello Stranger