Maybe the Verb Matters: Olympic National Park Travel Tips

If you’re searching for Olympic National Park travel tips, here’s one you won’t find on most itineraries: leave a little room to wander.

“Mom, come look at this one!”

My daughter was kneeling beside the trail, camera in hand, completely captivated by a banana slug.

A banana slug.

If you’d asked me before our mother-daughter trip to Olympic National Park what I’d remember most, I probably would have said the sweeping mountain views or the towering old-growth forests. Instead, I came home with an entirely reasonable number of banana slug photos on my phone (32 of them)—and I wouldn’t trade them for anything.

Somewhere between photographing slugs, peering into tide pools, and floating on paddle boards across the crystal-clear waters of Lake Crescent, I realized something.

We hadn’t spent the week hiking.

We’d spent it…sauntering.

John Muir once suggested that we ought to stop saying we’re going hiking and instead say we’re going sauntering. He believed saunter implied wandering without rushing—allowing yourself to notice the beauty around you rather than focusing only on reaching a destination.

Before we left home, I had a list of famous places we could visit: Hurricane Ridge, the Hoh Rain Forest, Sol Duc Hot Springs, Cape Flattery, Marymere Falls.

Whether or not we adopt his vocabulary, I think he was onto something.

Instead…we skipped them all. Not because they aren’t worth seeing. They absolutely are, and we’ll visit them another time.

But somewhere along the way, we realized we weren’t trying to see it all. We were trying to experience where we were. And that changed everything.

We wandered beneath towering Sitka spruce and western hemlock, stopping every few minutes because one of us had spotted another fern, an interesting nurse log, or a shelf fungus worth admiring.

One morning we followed a forest trail to a secluded beach and spent far longer than planned exploring tide pools and marveling at orange and purple sea stars, tiny crabs, and anemones that swayed with each passing wave. The trail wasn’t the destination. Neither was the beach. The tiny discoveries along the way were the highlight.

Another afternoon we strapped on life vests and carried our paddle boards onto Lake Crescent with no particular agenda. We paddled a little, floated a lot, and occasionally trailed our feet through the icy blue-green water. I only fell in once. (Ha ha!) It was wonderfully unproductive.

The funny thing is, I never felt as though we’d missed anything. We came home talking about little moments instead of famous viewpoints.

I don’t think every National Park trip has to look like this. Sometimes you’re on a once-in-a-lifetime vacation, and it makes perfect sense to pack your itinerary.

But this trip reminded me that the verb matters.

Sometimes we hike.

Sometimes we meander, ramble, or even frolic. (Though my middle-aged knees reserve the right to object.)

Sometimes we borrow a phrase from the Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku and spend time “forest bathing”—simply being present among the trees.

Whatever verb you choose, I’d encourage you to leave a little margin in your next adventure. If you’re looking for Olympic National Park travel tips–or tips for any national park visit, really–my number one recommendation is to choose not to rush from viewpoint to viewpoint. Sit on a log. Explore the tide pools. Photograph the banana slug. Float on the lake a little longer than you planned.

Maybe the better question isn’t, “How many miles did you hike?”

Maybe it’s this:

What did you stop long enough to notice?

What’s something surprising you discovered because you slowed down to notice? I’d love to hear your answer in the comments.