Olympia

Squaxin and other Coast Salish peoples lived along these shores long before anyone called it Olympia; the Treaty of Medicine Creek in 1854 and the Treaty of Olympia in 1856 forced them onto reservations. The settlement itself dates to 1850, and it got its name from territorial resident Colonel Isaac N. Ebey, who suggested “Olympia” simply because of the view of the Olympic Mountains to the northwest. It incorporated as a town on January 28, 1859.

Olympia became Washington’s capital while the territory was still a territory, and the arrangement never changed once statehood arrived in 1889. The legislature met in the Thurston County Courthouse starting in 1905 because the state hadn’t built anything better yet, and it took until 1928 to finish the permanent Legislative Building — construction ran from 1912 to 1928, designed by architects Walter Wilder and Harry White. That’s the dome from the hook above.

In 1967 the state chartered a different kind of institution six miles away: The Evergreen State College, which held its first classes on October 4, 1971 with 1,128 students and built its reputation on no grades, just written evaluations, and a 1,000-acre campus that runs down to tidal beach. The result was a music scene wildly out of proportion to the town’s size — Calvin Johnson founded K Records in 1982 out of his kitchen, Bikini Kill helped launch riot grrrl locally, and Kurt Cobain moved to Olympia not long after naming his band Nirvana. For a while, this small government town was also a genuinely important place in American punk.

The Washington State Legislative Building anchors a 143-acre Capitol Campus and is the building behind that record-setting dome. It took from 1912 to 1928 to build, in a style meant to look permanent from the day it opened, and free 50-minute guided tours run most days — weekdays on the hour from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., weekends at the half-hour from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Reservations are recommended and required for groups of 10 or more, though walk-ups are taken if there’s room.

Olympia Farmers Market, at 700 Capitol Way N, has run since 1975 and is one of the only vendor-owned-and-operated farmers markets in Washington — run by its own member-vendors rather than an outside management company. More than 120 vendors sell there, open Thursday through Sunday, April through October.

Ask for Olympia oysters if you see them on a menu. They're Washington's only native oyster, tiny at about 2–3 inches, and were nearly wiped out by Gold Rush-era overharvesting before recent restoration efforts in Puget Sound started bringing them back.

6 breweries within 10 miles of Olympia, 3 of them brewpubs with a kitchen.

Brewpub locations from Open Brewery DB (MIT)

No MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL or MLS team plays in Olympia, and even the closest thing to a hometown club, FC Olympia (USL League Two and USL W League), actually plays a few miles away in Lacey. For pro sports, this is a Seattle or Tacoma trip, not an Olympia one.

6 more Highway Heads places lie within about 180 miles of Olympia in a straight line — far enough that most are a night away rather than an afternoon.

• Space NeedleWashingtonabout 45 mi
• AstoriaOregonabout 75 mi
• Cannon BeachOregonabout 95 mi
• LeavenworthWashingtonabout 110 mi
• PortlandOregonabout 110 mi
• SalemOregonabout 150 mi

• World's Largest EggGiant statue / World's largestWinlockabout 38 miles away

  Cost to see it

  Free

  When you can see it

  Any time — outdoors, visible from the road

  Nearest road

  I-5

  Giant painted egg on a pedestal

  Read on the page we checked

These are things you can go and look at, not a recommendation of any of them. Oddities move, get sold and quietly disappear more than anything else we list, so check anything you are driving a long way for. One of these is named for a record. That is what the place calls itself — we have not checked the record itself. Some sit on private land and can only be seen from the road — please do not go onto anyone’s property. Every entry links the page we read it off.

Half a day covers the Capitol Campus and downtown; a full day lets you add Percival Landing and the farmers market without rushing either.

Washington's legislature meets seasonally — the Legislature's session-dates table lists regular sessions of 105 days in odd-numbered years and 60 days in even-numbered years, counted in calendar days. The Capitol Campus visiting-hours page says Legislative Building hours may differ when lawmakers are in session (its FAQ lists 7 a.m. to 6:15 p.m. then), so check the tour page and the visiting hours before planning around a session.

Best season is the same as the rest of western Washington: late June through September for dry weather. The Western Regional Climate Center describes winters west of the Cascades as mild, wet and cloudy, with precipitation frequently recorded on 20 to 25 days or more in December and January; for the Puget Sound lowlands it gives average January highs of 41° to 45°F and lows of 28° to 32°F.

Downtown parking is metered on-street, and the City of Olympia says meters are monitored Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., with no payment needed on weeknights after 5 p.m., on weekends or on City-recognized holidays. The Capitol Campus has its own paid visitor lots for tours, events and hearings, at $2^* per hour on weekdays and free on evenings, weekends and state holidays; its parking page notes that some lots are closed for a building demolition, so check it and the campus map before you go.

*Fees subject to change, please check capitol.wa.gov for updated information.

Washington State Legislative Building

Address

416 Sid Snyder Avenue SW, Olympia, WA 98504

Hours

Free 50-min tours: weekdays hourly 10am–3pm; weekends 11:30am, 12:30, 1:30, 2:30

Price

Free

Link

capitol.wa.gov/tours

We checked opening hours, fees and closures on 2026-09-21. These change without notice — confirm with capitol.wa.gov, olympiafarmersmarket.com and olympiawa.gov the week you travel.

Straight-line distance from Olympia, not drive time.

• Olympia Regional (OLM) — 5 miles
• Tacoma Narrows (TIW) — 22 miles
• Bremerton National (PWT) — 31 miles