Do not get me wrong, I am a city girl. Being lucky enough to have parents who made the choice to call Seattle home, I have grown up used to having access to a great restaurant scene, farmer’s markets and festivals all over, and other great other opportunities that come with living in a large, and growing city.

However, what often goes overlooked by people unfamiliar with Seattle and its surrounding area is that if you leave the so called “I-5 corridor” (the stretch of Interstate 5 that connects the cities of Bellingham, Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia and Portland from north to south), the urban sprawl quickly fades away and becomes farm land, vineyards, and eventually heavy forests with mountains, lakes, and hiking trails. Having this in my backyard has bread me into what I guess you could call me an urban explorer or urban adventurer. Essentially someone who loves to mix with the bustle of the city, but also someone who craves escaping the morning rush hour in favor of less traveled country backroads.

Two of my favorite places in the world happen to be car trips away to where cell coverage is spotty, Wi-Fi can take its own sweet time to load, and where you are blanketed by trees and unpolluted oxygen. These two places are routine summer escapes for my family and I, an oasis’ I crave when surrounded by the concrete jungle of Washington, D.C. when I am at school. The best part is, these places couldn’t be more different.

Seabrook, WA

As you pull off onto Ocean Beach Road and you swipe on airplane mode now that you are free from the grips of cell coverage, you can feel the tension escape from your shoulders.

After 20 miles of winding through small coastal villages, you will reach Seabrook. Admittedly this town sticks out like a sore thumb in comparison with the towns driven through up until that point with its newly built houses and a plethora of bulldozers. The stark contrast in infrastructure aside, what I really come to the coast for is the setting.

The first breath of air, moist with a hint of salt is so refreshing. The air feels as if it is a different texture at the coast, it is palpable with sea mist which is such a difference in comparison to city air that is stale with smog and suffocating with muggy heat.

At the coast, there is no agenda, but my family’s day usually starts with a breakfast of waffles followed by a beach walk where the dog runs free, so enthralled with chasing birds that he doesn’t hear his name being called. Meanwhile, I glance down looking for whole sand dollars and discarded snail shells. Once we get back and wash up the dog, I snuggle in with a book and blanket or play a game as my parents and I patiently wait for a movie to finish downloading.

It’s as if your finger is holding down the repeat button as you fall into the same pattern day after day after day.

In the winter, there is something charming and almost exciting as you watch the heavy winter rain beat down on the pavement and make the trees heavy. Coupled with the clamor of the rain, the wind joins in as it whistles through the vents and makes it sound as if there is popcorn constantly being popped in the microwave. These dark days that seem to bleed into one another make the crisp, bright, sunny ones even more sumptuous.

Coming for long weekends where it never feels like you have had enough time is what makes this place such a retreat to come back to because you know that every time you step out of the car and your feet hit the sidewalk that is paved with scattered oyster shells, you are in for a delightful treat.

Black Butte Ranch, OR

While my family’s trips to this equally secluded place are not as frequent as the ones to the coast of Washington, this place could probably be in my family’s DNA by now. My mom started going here when she was a kid and I celebrated my first birthday there and we’ve gone every year since.

Although the tradition has flip flopped from being one on my mom’s side to one we do with the extended family on my dad’s side, we still have plenty of fantastic memories from our trips to this central Oregon ranch. From a giant hail storm when I was three or four, to the multiple times chipmunks have somehow gotten into my cousins’ house and the time we had music blasting outside while dancing, causing the police to give us a gentle reminder to quiet down.

Then there have been the attempted excursions, the expedition to find lava tubes that took three aunts, a grandmother and five kids 3 hours of circling forest service roads to ultimately find what was quite literally a hole in the ground, and the multiple versions of floating down the Deschutes River, all with some sort of comical error until finally, we have gotten the trip down pat.

Sure, there is the family drama that has littered the trips, but this place truly has a root running through my heart. Earlier this year it was unclear to me if the trip was going to happen and that uncertainty left me longing for this place. A longing for one more year in this place now that with each passing year, as our family dynamic changes more every year, it becomes more and more uncertain if the trip will happen.

What I found myself longing for the most, aside from family memories, was the setting of this place. Like going to the Washington coast, there is a hidden away aspect of this family get-a-way that makes it so special to the people who have been able to discover its amazing nature. Being outside all day in the dry mountain air that is perfumed from the towering pine trees and made warm by the late August sun leaves you with this blissful feeling of exhaustion at the end of the day that makes tucking into bed so amazing as you look forward to the next day of swimming, biking, hiking, paddle boarding, or golfing.

Before the night falls and reveals a deep indigo sky littered with stars that are mostly invisible due to city light pollution, watching the sunset over the lake and mountains is something that just leaves you in awe. Occasionally the usual pink and orange hues are enhanced by wildfire smoke leaving you even more stunned but also aware of the power of nature’s forces.

It is the moments of looking at the sunset that remind me how fortunate I am to have these summer vacations and traditions with my entire family and hope to continue these same traditions as I find a family of my own in the future. However, these moments also give me renewed appreciation for being able to live in the Pacific Northwest and the diversity of the geography around me.

The ability I have to live in a city, but to also travel just hours in a car to reach the green coast of Washington and the rugged terrain of Central Oregon is something you could not find in very many places in the world, and this is why the Pacific Northwest will always be my home.