How to Find The Glass Beach in Port Townsend Washington

Port Townsend in Washington State has a famous area known as Glass Beach and in this post I’ll be showing you how to find it and other things to know before you do.

Quick info:

• Name: Glass Beach Port Townsend
• Location: North Beach County Park (Washington)
• Cost to enter: Free
• Visitor ratings: 4.5 out of 5 stars
• Recommended? Yes. Having been to this place I can tell you that there isn’t a lot of sea glass here, but it worth exploring it once because you can still find it and the overall Port Townsend area is pretty awesome to explore.

Background:

Sea glass is a popular thing to collect and there’s numerous beaches across the US that have them. 2 of the most famous are:

1. Glass Beach California (Fort Bragg)
2. And the Glass Beach in Port Townsend

With regards to the latter, it takes a bit of a walk/time to find it and when you do, there really isn’t that much of it but the views and experience of exploring the area are still worth it. You can collect the sea glass here, whereas with the glass beach in California, you cannot.

Getting there:

1. Head to North Beach County Park 
2. Walk towards the beach
3. Head west for 2 miles along the beach
4. Around the 2 mile mark is when you’ll start seeing/finding the sea glass

Photos:

Let me just say that I’ve seen so many inaccurate photos of this place online. If you see people showing this place off like there’s a ton of sea glass, it’s just inaccurate or a completely different photo. This beach may have had a bunch of sea glass years ago, but it’s no longer the case.

Things to know:

• The sea glass isn’t the only attraction here worth seeing. There’s also incredibly beautiful rocks washed along the shore worth collecting too.
• I recommend you also go here when it’s low tide because there will be more sea glass available to find and a lot more room to walk on the shoreline.
• Be prepared to have to scavange a bit for the sea glass because there isn’t much of it there. As you may have seen from the photos above, there isn’t much and that was me trying to find as many as I could for about 20 minutes.
• In terms of colors, most of it will be white. I’ve found some light blue and green ones, but there are also rare amber colored ones too. After about 10 minutes of looking, I was able to collect a little bit of it. Once you’re done, you can continue west on the beach to reach an area called McCurdy Point (2 miles west of the parking lot) and possibly find more of it, but if you’re ready to go back, just backtrack on the beach to the parking lot.

Places to see:

I’m going to break this up into 2 parts. The first is things to do inside Port Townsend and the other will be things to do outside of it which are about 1-2 hours drive each way. First let me start with the nearby activities to this glass beach:

• Port Townsend is itself the main attraction so check that town out (good restaurants, boating, hotels, etc…)
• There’s 3 forts in the area worth seeing as well (Fort Worden, Fort Flager and Fort Townsend)
• There’s also a winery near Glass beach as well
• Fort Townsend ferry also takes you to other islands worth checking out and is a great way to get to Seattle from there
• There’s also numerous historical museums and parks (including the forts) worth checking out including lighthouses
• Another huge reason to visit the town itself is it’s sunsets. You’ll usually have an awesome view of it provided the weather is good.

And now for the places to see outside Port Townsend:

• Olympic National Park (located righ by Port Townsend and south/west of it, this is an amazing place for hikes and drives but you need to drive to Port Angeles to reach one of the main entrances first).
• Washington Coast (driving around the entire Washington Coast is itself a huge treat too and highly recommended).
• Cape Flattery (This is about 2 hours west of Port Townsend and has amazing views/things to see).

Overall the Glass Beach in Port Townsend is itself not that impressive in my opinion but like I said earlier it’s worth visiting because you can still find it and there’s just so much to see and do in the town itself so if you go, plan on a multiday trip here and/or the surrounding areas I recommended above. If you’re still looking to find more sea glass, Fort Bragg in California is your best bet for that, but do remember that you’re not allowed to take it with you.

Related:

• Best places to visit on the Oregon Coast
• Things to do in Eastern Oregon