Olympia is the capital of Washington State, a city of about 56,000 people at the southern tip of PUGET SOUND, an hour south of Seattle and an hour north of Portland. It is small for a capital, which is the whole character of it: the legislature sits on a hill above a working marina, the salt water comes to the end of the main street, and the forest starts about ten minutes out of town.
AND IF YOU WERE LOOKING FOR THE OTHER OLYMPIA, THIS IS NOT IT. Ancient Olympia in the Peloponnese, where the Olympic Games began and where the flame is still lit, is in GREECE. This post is about the American city in the Pacific Northwest, named after the Olympic Mountains visible across the water on a clear day. It is worth saying in the second paragraph rather than the last, because the Greek site is better known by a wide margin and a reader who has landed in the wrong hemisphere should find that out before reading a packing list for the wrong climate.
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What Is Here
THE WASHINGTON STATE CAPITOL HAS ONE OF THE TALLEST FREE-STANDING MASONRY DOMES IN THE WORLD, and that is the unexpected fact about a modest city. Finished in 1928, the Legislative Building's dome is self-supporting stone rather than a steel frame with cladding, a technique that was already going out of use when it was built. The campus around it is open, free and genuinely good: a Tivoli fountain, a sunken garden, cherry trees that come out in late March, and a view down to the water. Free guided tours run most days and the building closes to tours when the legislature is in session, which is January to March in most years.
BUDD INLET AND THE MARINA ARE WHERE THE CITY ACTUALLY LIVES. The second photograph is the marina, and the Percival Landing boardwalk runs along the waterfront past it, about a kilometre of public walkway with the fishing fleet and the pleasure boats tied up alongside. The OLYMPIA FARMERS MARKET at the north end is one of the larger ones in the state and runs Thursday to Sunday in season, Saturday and Sunday in the shoulder months, and closed for much of the winter, which is worth checking rather than assuming.
THE MOUNTAIN IS THE THIRD PHOTOGRAPH AND IT IS A HUNDRED KILOMETRES AWAY. MOUNT RAINIER at 4,392 metres is visible from the city on a clear day and locals say "the mountain is out" when it is, because it often is not. That frame also makes the practical point: Rainier is a day trip of about two hours each way to the Paradise entrance, and Olympia is a sensible and much cheaper base than the park gateways.
AND TWO THINGS HERE ARE PROPERLY UNUSUAL. The OLYMPIC MOUNTAINS and the Olympic Peninsula are reached from here, with the rainforest at Hoh and the beaches at Ruby and Rialto, and CAPITOL STATE FOREST on the city's own doorstep has mountain biking and walking across hundreds of kilometres of trail. Olympia also has a genuine claim on the history of American independent music, which is why Evergreen State College and the record shops on Fourth Avenue matter to a particular kind of visitor.
When to Go
July to September, and the gap between that and the rest of the year is wider here than almost anywhere in this library. Olympia's summers are dry, mild and genuinely beautiful, with long evenings and temperatures in the low twenties. The rest of the year is WET: this is the south Puget Sound, it gets well over a metre of rain a year, and November to March is a succession of grey days with drizzle rather than downpours.
THE RAIN IS NOT DRAMATIC AND THAT IS WHY PEOPLE UNDERPACK FOR IT. It is light, persistent and goes on for days, so the thing that fails is not a cheap poncho in a storm but any jacket that wets out after two hours. Winter temperatures hover a few degrees above freezing, so the problem is being damp and cool for a week rather than cold for an afternoon.
LATE MARCH IS THE ONE SPECIFIC DATE WORTH KNOWING, when the cherry trees on the Capitol campus flower, and SNOW IS RARE AND DISRUPTIVE when it comes, because a city that gets it once every few years does not own much equipment for it.
The FCDO publishes no advised-against areas anywhere in the United States and no country-level warning. Its guidance concentrates on the practical differences a British visitor meets: entry requirements and ESTA, the cost of healthcare without insurance, extreme weather including hurricanes on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts between June and November, and wildfire and heat risk in the west and south-west.
Getting There
Fly into Seattle-Tacoma and drive an hour south on Interstate 5. That is the normal approach. Olympia has a small regional airport with limited service, and the Amtrak Cascades and Coast Starlight both stop at Olympia-Lacey station, which is about ten minutes out of the centre and is a far more pleasant way to arrive from Seattle or Portland than the motorway.
THE DOWNTOWN AND THE CAPITOL CAMPUS ARE WALKABLE AND EVERYTHING ELSE IS NOT. Intercity Transit runs the local buses and is FARE FREE, which is unusual and genuinely useful. A car is what you need for Rainier, the Olympic Peninsula and Capitol State Forest, and nothing else.
The Olympia Packing List
Persistent light rain for half the year, mild temperatures that rarely reach extremes, a kilometre of exposed waterfront boardwalk, and forest and mountain trips from the door.
Our merino base layers are 100% Australian merino at 17.5 micron, and a long sleeve merino wool base layer for women is the right first layer for this specific climate, for a reason that is not about cold: in a mild wet winter you are damp rather than frozen, and wool keeps insulating when damp where cotton goes clammy and stays that way for the rest of the day. It also handles the summer version, where a dry twenty-two degrees in the afternoon becomes ten by the water at nine in the evening.
A Marmot PreCip Eco rain jacket, and in Olympia this is the single most important item on the list. A jacket that wets out after two hours is the commonest packing failure in the Pacific Northwest.
Baleaf waterproof hiking trousers, because the rain here is the kind that soaks jeans from the knee down over a long day and never dries.
Merrell Moab 3 waterproof hiking boots for the Olympic Peninsula and Capitol State Forest, where the trails are mud and root for most of the year.
A Columbia Fast Trek II fleece as the mid layer, which with the base layer and the shell is the whole system here.
Darn Tough merino hiking socks, because wet feet are the actual failure mode on a Pacific Northwest trail rather than cold ones.
Not linked and worth packing: AN UMBRELLA, which the registry carries no entry for and which locals genuinely do not use, preferring a hood; SUNSCREEN, with no registry entry, for the surprisingly strong July sun off the water; and A DRY BAG or waterproof phone pouch if the Olympic coast is in your plan.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
Essential Resources for Women in Olympia
Emergency numbers: 911 for police, ambulance and fire, free from any phone including a locked mobile. Calls are answered locally and dispatchers will stay on the line. For non-urgent police matters many cities also run a 311 information line.
OLYMPIA IS A SMALL, MILD AND EASY CITY AND THE HONEST NOTE IS ABOUT THE DOWNTOWN AT NIGHT. Like several west coast cities of its size, Olympia has a visible homelessness and street-drug problem concentrated in a few downtown blocks, and that is worth describing plainly rather than hinting at: the people affected are in a far worse position than any visitor and are not a threat to her, and the practical effect is that a couple of streets feel bleak after dark and some doorways are occupied. The Capitol campus, the waterfront boardwalk, the farmers market end and the restaurant blocks are busy and unremarkable. Use ordinary judgement about which street you walk down late, as in any city, and prefer the waterfront route back.
THE ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS ARE REAL AND BOTH ARE OFFSHORE OR UPHILL. This coast sits on the CASCADIA SUBDUCTION ZONE, and for a local earthquake THE SHAKING IS THE WARNING: no official alert arrives in time, and on the outer Olympic coast the instruction is to walk inland and uphill the moment the ground stops rather than to wait or go back for anything. Olympia itself is inland at the end of a long inlet, which reduces the tsunami exposure considerably, but the Pacific beaches are a day trip from here and they do not. And Mount Rainier is a volcano with a lahar hazard the USGS rates among the most serious in the country, which matters on a park visit rather than in the city.
This is the single biggest practical difference for a visitor: there is no public health system, an emergency room visit without insurance can run into thousands of dollars, and an ambulance is billed separately and is not free. Comprehensive travel insurance with a high medical limit is not optional in the United States, and you should carry your policy number and the insurer's 24 hour number somewhere you can reach them. Urgent care clinics handle anything short of an emergency far more cheaply and quickly than an emergency room, and are the right choice for a sprain, an infection or stitches.
US State Department travel advisory: there is none, and this is not an omission. The State Department issues travel advisories for other countries, not for the United States itself, so no US advisory for this destination exists to link. In its place, the Government of Canada advice for the United States gives an equivalent third-country assessment.
UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/usa, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits. The FCDO names no advised-against areas anywhere in the United States. The same advice also covers Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Main hospital or clinic: Providence St Peter Hospital is the main hospital, on the eastern side of the city with a full emergency department, and MultiCare Capital Medical Center also serves the area. For anything serious the regional trauma centre is HARBORVIEW MEDICAL CENTER in Seattle, about an hour north, which is the Level I trauma centre for the whole of Washington. Urgent care clinics handle minor problems far faster and far more cheaply than an emergency room. INSURE PROPERLY BEFORE YOU COME: there is no public health system and an emergency room visit can run to thousands of dollars.
Official health authority: the CDC travellers' health pages, the US federal health authority for visitors. is the US Centers for Disease Control travel health service
Embassy contact: the United States is the host country, so there is no US embassy to contact. Your own country's embassy is in Washington DC, with consulates in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, Miami and Boston. Find yours before you travel and save the number.
Official tourism authority: Brand USA, the national tourism marketing body. covers the country, and the Washington State Legislature publishes the Capitol tour times, which stop when the legislature is in session from January to March
Takeaways
This is Olympia, Washington, not ancient Olympia in Greece.
The Capitol dome is one of the tallest free-standing masonry domes in the world.
Over a metre of rain a year, almost all of it November to March, and it is drizzle rather than downpour.
The local buses are fare free.
Mount Rainier is two hours away and Olympia is a cheaper base than the park gateways.
The Capitol campus cherry trees flower in late March.
Solo women safety assessment: Olympia is among the easier solo destinations in this library: small, mild, walkable in its centre, with free local buses and a university town's tolerance. THE FCDO PUBLISHES NO ADVISED-AGAINST AREAS ANYWHERE IN THE UNITED STATES. The one thing to describe honestly is that a few downtown blocks carry a visible street homelessness and drug problem, which makes them bleak after dark without making them dangerous, and the people affected are worse off than any visitor and are not a threat to her; prefer the waterfront route back and use the judgement you would in any city. The rain is the thing that actually spoils trips here, and it is beaten by a shell that does not wet out rather than by a thicker coat. Two environmental facts are worth carrying without anxiety: on the outer Olympic coast, which is a day trip, the shaking IS the tsunami warning and the answer is inland and uphill immediately; and Mount Rainier is an active volcano, which matters inside the park. Medical care is excellent and expensive, so insure. 911 for everything.
Reading On
Olympia sits between two larger cities and at the gateway to two wildernesses. An hour north, the Seattle packing list covers the city most visitors fly into, and the Tacoma packing list the city in between, which carries the Mount Rainier lahar sirens in full. West, the Olympic National Park packing list covers the rainforest, the beaches and the 119 kilometres of road with no fuel. South, the Portland packing list covers the nearest Oregon city and the Cannon Beach packing list the Cascadia instruction on the Oregon coast, which applies identically here. For the rest of the Cascades, the Crater Lake packing list and the Bend packing list cover the drier side of the mountains. For the country as a whole, the USA travel guide for women carries the regions, the costs and the driving in full. For why wool rather than cotton when the problem is being damp for a week rather than cold for an afternoon, read the guide to merino wool base layers for women. Every destination we cover is indexed at the travel packing guide for women, and the base layers are at the Roman Trail collection.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
