Bainbridge Island is twenty minutes by walk-on ferry from downtown Seattle. The island has a perfectly good day’s worth of walking, a bookstore that’s as good as any in Seattle proper, and a Japanese-American memorial worth an hour. Here’s the right shape for a Saturday.
Catch the ferry at Coleman Dock as a walk-on. Round-trip is around ten dollars (the fee’s on the westbound only); the boat goes every 35 minutes most of the day. The crossing is the best deal in the city — twenty minutes on the water, downtown receding behind you, Mt. Baker on a clear day in the distance. Most people stand on the bow deck even when it’s raining.
The ferry lands at Winslow, which is the walkable part of the island. From the dock it’s a five-minute walk up to Winslow Way — the main street with shops, bookstores, a couple of coffee places, and Town & Country Market (a grocery store that takes its produce seriously, worth a wander). Eagle Harbor Book Co. is on the south side of the street; smaller than Powell’s, deeper than your average indie. The staff hand-write recommendations on Post-its and stick them to the shelf.
Walk south on Wyatt Way past the high school for fifteen minutes and you reach the Japanese-American Exclusion Memorial — a low wooden structure marking the site where 227 Bainbridge Japanese-American residents were forcibly removed in 1942 (the first such removal in the country). It is the most affecting public artwork on the island and most people don’t know it’s there. Worth the walk.
Catch a ferry back before sunset. The eastbound view of the city skyline lit up at dusk is the part of the trip everyone remembers, and the boat is less crowded than the morning crossing.