Mountains, forests, and clear waters teeming with whales: Nature’s majesty is palpable in the Pacific Northwest. Drive your car onto the nearest ferry and island-hop for a sea-level view of the spectacular.

Day One: Neilton to Orcas Island (333 miles)

Just past the town of Neilton is the Quinault Research Natural Area. The forest here has never been clear-cut: It’s dense, rich in textures, full of something between peacefulness and menace, like the woods of fairy tales. On the way to Orcas Island via U.S. 101, breeze by Lake Quinault for a view of the local elk population. This road leads you through corridors of trees to the coast. Stop for a walk at Ruby Beach, which consists entirely of smooth pebbles in a palette of muted grays, pinks, and greens.

Farther north is the 18-mile spur that runs up into the Hoh River valley. At its end, take the magical three-quarter-mile hike through Olympic National Park. The park has some of the last temperate-zone rain forests in North America, and if there were nothing else on the peninsula, these alone would be worth the trip. Drenched by a dozen feet of rain each year, every square inch explodes with fractal, bright-green jungle life.

Another spur a few miles farther north will take you to Rialto Beach, where you can walk among the massive driftwood snags while spray-bannered breakers attack the beach. U.S. 101 then turns eastward, swerving between two lakes before emerging into a more developed area where traffic intermittently slows to a crawl.

Stop in Port Townsend. Ship captains built grand Victorian homes here in the 1800s, expecting the place to burgeon, but the railroad stopped at Tacoma, leaving Port Townsend to wither. Today, it feels the way Aspen did 35 years ago—just about to take off. From a cliff behind the docks, you can see the ferries and tankers plying the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and in the western background, the jagged white profile of the Olympic Range.

The car ferry across Puget Sound to Whidbey Island lets you savor the pleasures of ocean travel—embarkation, leaning on the rail in a strong wind—without exposing you to the usual liabilities of boredom and seasickness. After making the short drive from Keystone to Anacortes, take another ferry to Orcas Island. Stay and dine at the Rosario Resort (the duck is fantastic).

Day Two: Orcas Island to Seattle (117 miles)

Orcas’s roads can easily be covered in two hours. The best stretch winds up 2,400-foot Mount Constitution, from whose flat, rocky top unfolds an unforgettable view of Puget Sound against the backdrop of the Cascades and their Mount Fuji–like volcanoes.

Take the ferry from Orcas Island to nearby San Juan Island, the second largest of the group that collectively share its name. Unlike Orcas, San Juan is relatively flat. At one end is English Camp, at the other American Camp, two former strongholds in a comic-opera conflict called the Pig War (its only casualty was a farmer’s pig). The killer whales that congregate just offshore are one of San Juan’s principal attractions; Friday Harbor has a nice little whale museum where you will learn, among other things, that killer whales in captivity like to look at pictures of other killer whales. Across the island is Roche Harbor, once the site of the largest lime works west of the Mississippi. The lime kilns are crumbling now, but the nineteenth-century green-trimmed wooden Hotelde Haro (now part of the larger Roche Harbor Resort) is still open and offers an excellent, unprepossessing café, the Lime Kiln.

After a ferry ride from Friday Harbor back to Anacortes, retrace your route to Port Townsend. From there, take the southbound road along the east side of the peninsula, in the direction of Bremerton and Tacoma. Finally, rising steeply from the waterfront, Seattle is a sight of mesmerizing beauty, as fine as anything nature has shown you along this road.

Pit Stops

Orcas Island

Rosario Resort & Spa (360-376-2222; rosarioresort.com; doubles, $129–$229; entrées, $18–$32).

San Juan Island

Lime Kiln Café at Roche Harbor Resort (360-378-2155; rocheharbor.com; entrées, $7–$13).