The Ultimate Day Trip Guide To Bainbridge Island

Here’s how to spend a day trip to Bainbridge Island, a charming getaway just a forty minute ferry ride away from Seattle.

A scene plays: the Seattle skyline fades, stretches of forest jump into view, Mount Rainier blurs behind passing clouds. The setting shifts to water; sunlit waves slosh together, cutting caps of foam into streaks of white.

Zoom out. The backrest you lean against is bright teal, and the sequence you watch is framed in the mustard yellows of Wes Anderson films. But this isn’t a movie; this view is just part of the scenic Washington State Ferry route to Bainbridge Island, a swell of land in the Puget Sound.

Bainbridge Island Travel Guide

About Bainbridge Island

Bainbridge Island – 35 minutes from Seattle by ferry – is a small city loved for its charming economic centers (Winslow is the name to note) and firm sense of community. On a map, Bainbridge Island looks like a torn shred of paper, loosely margined with gravelly shores and needled trees. Scribbles of roads, tiny wineries, and rock art drawn in between. 

How To Get To Bainbridge Island

The ferry leaves from Seattle’s Colman Dock (Pier 52). It crosses back and forth, back and forth, carrying commuters on weekdays and day-trippers on weekends.

Stowage spaces crowd quickly with vehicles, but the boat is big – 460 feet long and sized to hold a max of 202 cars and 2,499 passengers [source].

Best Time To Visit

The Seattle-Bainbridge Island ferry route is the busiest in Washington State, with nearly five million annual riders (tourism peaks in summer, when sunlight rains on the Pacific Northwest). 

If you’re visiting car-free, allocate three hours on a Friday or Saturday to glimpse the best of Bainbridge Island on foot (and if you bring a car, bump that number to six hours).

What To Do On A Bainbridge Island Day Trip

In the early 1900s, steamers took visitors to Fletcher Bay, a slice of water curving into Bainbridge Island like a talon. Pleasant Beach was another place to be then, with summer guests hungering for the holiday pace of hotels, bowling lanes, and swimming pools [source]. 

A hundred years later, passengers still come to Bainbridge Island to relax. We disembark ten minutes from Winslow Way and walk uphill with quick, hurried steps. We move collectively for a while, with a force like a gust of wind. Then, we disperse at the Welcome To Bainbridge sign.

I pause here, by four metal baskets that stand feet taller than me. Strands of sunlight slant past the steel. The baskets are sculptures, tributes to four cultures – Suquamish, Japanese, Filipino, and Scandinavian – that shaped Bainbridge Island.

Across the street is a museum of art. When the walk sign sounds on, I cross over.

Visit The Bainbridge Island Museum Of Art

The Bainbridge Island Museum Of Art is one of the most conspicuous buildings on Winslow Way, with glass so clear, you can peer right at the sharp, zig-zag lines of a staircase rising to a second floor. And it’s here you’ll want to start. Walk around for an hour through the septet (or so) of galleries amplifying Puget Sound region artists, the room of cherry cabinets displaying limited edition books, and the upper-story balcony meeting the breeze. Seasonal exhibitions shift thrice a year, and in between, the museum feels like a draft-in-progress. 

Walk Along Winslow Way

Shops and restaurants and tasting rooms cluster on one short stretch of Winslow Way. Doors swing open. Chalkboard signs slide onto the sidewalk. The energy matches that of a quaint neighborhood.

Snap A Photo By The Waterfront

I detour to Charles Schmid Waterfront Trail (named after the environmentalist, not the serial killer). Red dotted lines mark two loops – west and east – on a map. I follow the west loop through residential streets and more residential streets. Trees (and distance) mask most of the docks. So, the best views are right at Waterfront Park and, later, on a little wooden footpath (under 0.2 miles) behind Pegasus Coffee, where boats moor in marinas and rock art playfully stands a stone’s throw from the water.

See The Rock Art

Ethan Currier sculpts most of the rock art you see on Bainbridge Island. He shapes granite – and sometimes, other types of rocks – in freeze-frames of movement [source]. One balances in a handstand. Another tugs at rusted chains. A giant Stone Man (you’ll spot him as you drive from Day to Miller Road) opts for a Vrikshasana yoga pose beneath a big, shaded tree. 

I check out the rock art behind Doc’s Marina Grill and picture each one as a goofy, comic-relief character in a family-friendly, stop-motion film.

Stop By Pegasus Coffee House

A few couples walk up to the wharf, taking sips of coffee from white takeaway cups. The coffee is from Pegasus, a warm cafe (one of the oldest in the area) with yellow beams and yellow lights. Inside, seats press near windows. Boxes from Macrina Bakery lay, almost out of view, in small stacks on the floor. Sender by Pinback plays overhead as a barista operates a La Marzocco coffee machine. 

I wait in line and spot a pickleball paddle with Pegasus Coffee branding on a merch shelf (random fact: pickleball was invented on Bainbridge Island in 1965) before ordering a seasonal latte and a cakey, vegan donut (the donuts are from Dude’s Donuts, a specialty bakery Pegasus acquired a few years ago). 

Learn About Bainbridge Island History

Outside, the ivy dripping down Pegasus Coffee House crawls to a stop. There, in a faded, red stretch of brick, is a sign that reads: “On March 25, 1942, this building became a registration center for every one of Japanese ancestry on Bainbridge Island.” 

The building that Pegasus fills today was once an old hardware store, designated as a civil control office in 1942. Japanese American residents reported to this building, registered their names, and were then relocated to Manzanar (a concentration camp).

Nidoto Nai Yoni. Let it not happen again. 

Those words stamp The Japanese American Exclusion Memorial. Getting to the memorial requires a car (or trust in Bainbridge Island’s bus schedule), but it’s worth visiting (and takes an hour or so to see). 

Start at the Story Wall, a wooden panel that marks the path Japanese Americans – forced to leave their homes, their jobs, their farms, and their community – walked on in March 1942. The wall is 276 feet long, each foot memorializing one of 276 residents excluded from Bainbridge Island because of their ancestry [source].

Nidoto Nai Yoni. Let it not happen again. 

Quotes and terra-cotta artwork line the story wall. Tsuru, origami cranes, drape edges. Silhouettes of a man and woman and child, hollowed out by tags, stand at the Departure Deck, set on the site of the Eagledale Ferry Dock, where Japanese Americans once departed from.

The memorial honors the resilience of Bainbridge Island’s Japanese American community and recognizes a history in which an executive order forced friends, classmates, and neighbors out of their own homes.  

Nidoto Nai Yoni. Let it not happen again. 

Day Hike On Bainbridge Island

Cedars and firs seam wild patches of Bainbridge Island. Mist drips past canopies, and leaves shine from dew. In The Grand Forest, a two(ish) mile trail loops past logs blanketed in moss and fungi caps curling out like petals. Hall’s Hill Labyrinth, a mosaic of stone, acts less like a hike and more like a leg-stretch-stop embedded in a thicket of trees off the side of a road. Then, there’s Bloedel Reserve Loop, a popular, well-maintained path tracing landscaped garden grounds (timed tickets are a prerequisite. Here’s a reservation link).

Sip Wine From Washington State

Evening settles in, shifting the mood from cute bakes and coffee to dinner and wine. I head to Eleven Winery (the tasting menu descriptions here feel like casual chats with friends who want to spill all their fave wine recos).

While wine tasting rooms are oft-located on vineyards, many of Bainbridge Island’s tasting rooms (Amelia Wynn Bistro, Eagle Harbor Wine Co, Fletcher Bay Winery, and Eleven Winery) reside along walkable Winslow Way. The vineyards, themselves, lie further inland (if you’re looking for a place to drive or bike out to, Bainbridge Vineyards is a popular option, and Perennial Vintners is my top rec).

Eat Local At The Bainbridge Island Farmers’ Market

On Saturdays, over forty vendors slide into Bainbridge Island Farmers’ Market, a wide frame of open-air stalls filled with hand-written produce signs, breads with crackly-crisp crusts, and farm-fresh veggies. The market is a short (foot-friendly) detour from Winslow Way and near the Bainbridge History Museum (a set of text-dense exhibits in a 1908 schoolhouse). 

The weekly farmers’ market is a cheery community event, a little swell of live music and local chatter in the Puget Sound.

Did you enjoy this day trip guide to Bainbridge Island? What are your favorite things to do on Bainbridge Island? Let us know in the comments below!