Ferries from Port Townsend

Port Townsend is a Victorian seaport that expected to become the largest city on Puget Sound, lost that race in the 1890s, and consequently kept its nineteenth-century downtown intact. Its ferry runs 30 minutes across Admiralty Inlet to Whidbey Island.

The crossing

Port Townsend to Coupeville takes about 30 minutes, with 19 sailings in our timetable and 37 across the terminal in both directions. Operated by Washington State Ferries.

⚠ Vehicles must be reserved on this route

Unlike most Washington State Ferries crossings, a vehicle reservation here is required, not advisory. Foot passengers can turn up.

And a reservation does not defeat the tide: low water can alter or cancel sailings on this crossing. Build a margin into any onward plan on the Whidbey side.

The other end is not Coupeville village

The Whidbey terminal is at Keystone Harbor, about 10 minutes from Coupeville itself, inside Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve. The route was called Keystone–Port Townsend until 2010, which is why the older name persists locally.

The town

Downtown Port Townsend is a National Historic Landmark District — brick commercial blocks from the 1880s boom, built for a railway terminus that went to Tacoma instead. The terminal is at the foot of it, so foot passengers step off into the historic quarter rather than into a car park.

Fort Worden, north of town, is the other draw: a decommissioned coastal defence post now used as a state park and conference centre.

Where the road goes

Port Townsend sits at the northeastern tip of the Olympic Peninsula. Highway 101 and the Olympic National Park entrances are an hour or so west, and the Hood Canal Bridge route to Kitsap and Seattle runs south.