America’s automobile culture tends to encourage doing everything fast. However, if you insist on taking your car to the San Juan Islands, you have no choice but to slow way down. That’s because you can only get there by ferry.
The San Juans are an archipelago of small islands located in the Puget Sound between the state of Washington and British Columbia (Wikipedia, 2025).
Getting there begins with learning about when the ferries run (WSDOT, 2025). They tend to book up pretty quickly, so you need to plan ahead in making reservations. And then you need to make sure that you reach the ferry terminal in time. Given the contingencies of traffic, that arguably means showing up early.
Then the waiting begins. You wait for the ferry to show up and start loading the cars and trucks. And once you are on board, it can take quite a while for the ferry to make its way to the island you are going to.
If you were driving to a place of similar distance you would likely get there much faster. And you would also be cocooned in your own little pod, where you can blast whatever music you want as loud as you want.
In contrast, being on a ferry is a fairly communal experience. But unlike airplane flights, there are no featured movies, so people tend to talk among themselves, work on puzzles together, or sit by a window and contemplate life.
If it is nice outside (a relative term in the often-rainy Pacific Northwest), passengers may hang out on the ferry’s decks and watch the scenery. Maybe they will even see some whales. Or wave back at people who greet them from shore.
It’s the kind of experience that can lead you to feel like your blood pressure has dropped substantially from your “normal,” rat-race pace. That said, the sheer slowness of the ferry can be frustrating to those whose life revolves around cars that go 0-60 in five seconds.
Of course, like any other mode of transportation, there are risks involved in riding a ferry across deep and cold waters. Except here the dangers — and safety procedures — are more communal in nature than in a car.
Living in the San Juans has limitations
If you live a typical American life you probably need to change your relationship with time to in order to enjoy a visit to the San Juan Islands. That’s doubly true for those who live there. The small-town vibe can be quite friendly but lacks some of the amenities of a metropolitan area.
So if you need to get to a big-box store or see a medical specialist, instead of making a quick trip to town you may need to spend a day venturing to the mainland.
That means more waiting, this time to get off the island. And if you don’t live on an island closest to the mainland, your ferry trip may include some stops at other islands along the way.
You may even need to spend the night on the mainland if you can’t get your schedule to align with available ferry times. And we haven’t even talked yet about winter storms that can mess with ferry schedules . . . and the cost of going back and forth. So I can see why relatively few people choose to live there full time even though the place is spectacularly beautiful.
I enjoy visiting the San Juan Islands partly because the place reminds me that I don’t need to move quite so quickly. And get everything that I want right now. And that taking time to stand on the deck of a ferry and watch the world go by can be as satisfying as zooming down the road.
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RE:SOURCES
- Wikipedia, 2025. “San Juan Islands.” Page last modified March 6.
- WSDOT; 2025. “Ferries & Terminals.” Page accessed April 27.
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