Orcas Island

"We road tripped from San Francisco, with plotted out stops in Portland and Seattle on the way. My mother-in-law lives on Orcas Island, so visiting has become an annual summer tradition for us. Being able to keep this summer ritual was a really welcome, normalizing moment. And, even on a holiday weekend when we aren't in the thick of a pandemic, Orcas is rarely that crowded. You can always find a place to be by yourself in nature—hiking or kayaking or swimming in one of the lakes. The Mountain Lake loop is a great hike, and you can go off a rope swing or swim out to a little island from there. Most of our favorite places to eat are also open in some form, including The Kitchen (healthy, super tasty Asian food), Hogstone's Wood Oven for pizza (currently offering pickup and delivery), and Buck Bay Shellfish Farm (open daily), where you can sit at outside tables and shuck oysters with a glass of wine. Lots of open space and a heavy dose of nature after months of sitting in our home made it the ideal spot for us."