Is there anything to do on Lummi Island?

Well, sort of or it depends on what you are looking for and what day it is.

Lummi Island is a quick 5 minute ferry ride from mainland Washington, although it does take a bit of effort to get to the ferry dock as it’s about 100 miles north of Seattle near Bellingham. The island is almost entirely residential, and once on the island, it takes about 30 minutes to drive all the roads.

There are not a lot of lodging options on the island, and the majority of the coastline is private, so I would recommend finding a place to stay that has coastal access. I found a charming Airbnb that had a small and underwhelming beach at high tide, which turned into a tide-pooling spectacle at low tide.

As far as activities, there’s not much to actually “do”, but it is a great place to relax and read a book. We were there mid-week, so even the one cafe was not open. I was intrigued by the Anna Morris Sculpture Woods, but that’s only open the first Saturday of the month, which we missed. Accessible on any day, are several preserves with trails and so we hiked through the forest at Baker Preserve to the viewpoint with lovely views over Orcas Island.

My initial reason for going to Lummi Island was to eat at The Willows Inn. Although they also have lodging options, I chose not to stay there. I’d been looking at going there for years and finally decided to go this year while focusing on closer to home travel.

Incidentally, this NY Times article was published just after I made my reservation and I decided not to cancel. The restaurant’s website does now have a section on Operating Responsibly to address the criticisms in the article and I’m hopeful that they are making real changes.

The Willows Inn has a very pleasant outdoor space for drinks before dinner.

We started with appetizers: grilled oysters, smoked salmon, and crab ceviche. And then my favorite part of the meal was a roasted onion with white mole, which is not much to look at, but tasted fabulous. Following that was one of the more interesting bread courses that I’ve eaten with sourdough bread, basil chutney, and cherry tomatoes.

Our main course was lettuce wraps with super tender roast lamb.

Dessert was melon with cucumber granita, ground cherries, dried plums, and roasted white chocolate. I’ve never had roasted white chocolate and I usually find white chocolate to be too sweet, but in this case it had a really nice nutty flavor.