We didn’t really have any plans between Yellowstone and Vancouver. It was mostly going to be a couple of days of just driving and stopping wherever we fancied.
One place dropped onto my radar though, thanks to my friend Anirudh over at Beyond Our Horizons – the adorable little town of Leavenworth, not far outside of Seattle!
So after a jaunt through increasingly incredible scenery in Montana, to a terrifying snow storm on a mountain road into Idaho, to finding that the Walmart in Couer d’Alene wouldn’t allow us to sleep in the car park and having to shell out on a hotel in Spokane, we took a smaller road through little towns instead of the highway across Washington state.
It made for a much nicer drive, though there wasn’t much excitement to report. I will wind it back to a couple of Montana stops before I venture into our Leavenworth adventure, though.
Firstly: Bozeman.
I’ve said in a couple of posts before that Bozeman really took us by surprise, but haven’t actually followed it up to tell you why. I’m not sure why we stayed there, especially on our first night when it was pretty far out of our way. But we did, and we stayed in a little hostel that felt like a family and was full (FULL) of memes. It wasn’t the best hostel or anything, but it was bloody great!
Memes, memes everywhere!
The hostel was positioned right on the main street of Bozeman, which meant we could take a wander in the heart of the city, and that’s when we stumbled across a buzzing student town with absolutely tons of mouth-watering eateries and great looking pubs.
We were planning to be up early the next day to make the most of Yellowstone, so we didn’t partake in any drinking establishments (even though it was a Saturday night!), but we did choose a pizza place that had about a 20 minute wait. I hadn’t even taken my camera out – for the first time on the trip, I hadn’t expected any photo-worthy moments here, and of course I regretted it!
We’d been drawn in by the menu at Mackenzie River Pizza. It has some of the most interesting pizza toppings I’ve ever seen! Think pineapple is weird on pizza? How about oranges, sauerkraut or peanuts?! There are Thai, German and Caribbean themed pizzas. I wanted to try about ten of them, but what we did choose was delicious! (I had the Polynesian, which I kid you not, is bacon, pineapple and orange; Ash had the Rancher, which is good ol’ meat feast-y. And yes, four months on, we STILL remember what we had!!)
I apologise for the absolutely CRAP photos produced by my dinosaur-aged phone (I’m sure you’ll be glad to know I’ve upgraded. I now own a phone that’s only three years old!).
Food was partly why we decided to stay in Bozeman again the following night. Although we were off the main street this time, we had read about a fantastic fried chicken place (of all things – we’d hardly had any fast food on this trip, to be fair! Which is… impressive for the USA, right?).
Roost fully lived up to the hype! Even the standard fast food-style sides were really good!
The following day, we set off across Montana and stopped by Helena, where we somehow managed to get lost while trying to park, and stumbled across these fantastic pirates. I had one more place on my list in Montana, though: a ghost town.
I’d found some really cool ghost towns dotted around Montana, and after our disastrous experience at Calico in California I was keen to see a non-commercialised ghost town, but they were all a bit far out of our way. The easiest one to get to on our route was Elkhorn.
What we didn’t realise was that Elkhorn is down a dirt track.
A TEN MILE dirt track.
Ash was immediately put off, but I pushed on.
Then it started to snow. And then we got to the town, and just as I was getting excited (while the snow was getting worse and Ash was panicking that we were going to get stuck)… a dog ran out and started barking at us.
We had just driven down a dirt track without passing a single soul, and here was a DOG. Barking. What the–
We looked up at the buildings, and some of them looked lived in. And that’s when we saw a guy, chopping wood.
Which is exactly what you want to see when you’re miles out in literally the middle of nowhere, in the snow, in a GHOST TOWN WHERE PEOPLE SEEM TO BE LIVING.
It was like something out of a horror movie. Ordinarily, I would have been fascinated, and might have stopped to ask the guy about the place. Here, in back country America, where said guy looked like a classic redneck? We felt like we were either going to be shot, or worse, kidnapped to live out a psycho fantasy of a horror film brought to life.
Nope, we were outta there faster than you can say House Of 1,000 Corpses (after taking exactly three photos).
So, which was worse? An overly commercialised ghost town in the desert plastered in tacky Halloween decorations? Or a ghost town that is pretty much literally a ghost town, complete with a scary man and an axe? It’s hard to choose!
And so onto Leavenworth. I am well aware that I’m 800 words into a post about Leavenworth, and we haven’t even left Montana yet. In fact, we were quite sad to leave Montana behind, because even though the weather wasn’t great, you could tell that it’s a GORGEOUS state.
I’m afraid we had no experience of Idaho, other than the very scary snow storm where I was actually convinced we were going to crash on the mountain road. I was pretty shaken up by the time we rolled into Couer d’Alene, and think I may have cried when Walmart was plastered in “no overnight parking” signs. Thanks for nothing, Idaho. Damn you and your potatoes.
After a night in Spokane, we turned off the I-90 and followed the 2 towards Seattle, finally hitting Leavenworth.
So, Leavenworth. You guys. LEAVENWORTH.
CUTEST TOWN EVER OR WHAT?!
I knew before we even got out of the car that I was going to love it.
Weirdly, Leavenworth wasn’t born out of a German family or tradition in the area. The theme was purely a business idea to revitalise the town after the logging industry and railroads moved elsewhere. It seems a bit of a shame, but it doesn’t stop the town oozing authenticity. It doesn’t feel like a German Disneyland – it just feels like a Bavarian town!
And with buildings like these, it’s easy to forgive the town for just trying to survive.
Unlike Kimberley in BC, Canada, which has also adopted a very Bavarian theme that’s mostly contained in the very centre of town, this entire town has been transformed!
Ironically, we decided to have lunch in a DANISH bakery, but there were bagels hanging from the ceiling and everything looked too delicious to pass up.
Though it was hard to choose when there were places like this that were just adorable!
I narrowed down my photos to 36. Which is ridiculous for a relatively short wander around a single small town. No less than 6 of them have a bit “willkommen” sign, though I have resisted posting them all!!
However, what I loved was even the commercial signs were themed!
We also found a whole load of shops we loved – from stores selling really quirky homeware, to weird Disney things, and even a big comic book store with a Deadpool! I actually think I loved everything about this town.
Oh, and just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, a horse and carriage appeared just to complete the Leavenworth look!
Can you tell that I adored this little town? I’m so glad we made sure to include it on our itinerary, and it was a perfect end-of-road-trip stop before being reunited with Seattle!
Further north in Washington is a town called Winthrop, which has followed the success of the theme in Leavenworth by adopting an old Western theme! It looks really cool, and it’s not far from North Cascades National Park, which I also want to check out some time, so perhaps I’ll make it there one day!
Plus, since posting about this on Twitter, several people have commented to say it reminds them of various other Bavarian towns in the USA! My absolute favourite one so far is Helen in Georgia which looks ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE!! (Seriously, google it!)
Anyway, I will end this on yet another Willkommen sign… because of course!
Danke schon und bis zum nachsten Mal, Leavenworth!
What do you think of themed towns? Do you think they’re gimmicky or cute?!
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An Orcadian Abroad 
Still living vicariously through you and your travels!
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Aww thank you! I’m coming to the end of our America/Canada trip on here, but there will be more adventures soon! Even ones at home in Scotland. 🙂
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This is my home area! I’ve been to pretty much all the places you mentioned and you captured them beautifully. Leavenworth is such a cool little town.
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Aww thank you so much! Glad you like Leavenworth too – I kinda wondered what locals think of it!
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This *is* the cutest little town ever! I’d never even heard of it, and apparently I’m only a 5 hour drive away. I think this is going to have to be a summer road trip destination!
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I would never have heard of it if it wasn’t for my friend recommending it! Hope you make it there. 🙂
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Leavenworth isn’t too far from home from me and I’ve had the pleasure to stay in cabins and hotels there in virtually every season! It’s lovely to hear how much you enjoyed it! Also, how creepy is that ghost town?!? Can’t decide whether it should be on my list or not…maybe for a summertime visit when daylight hours are longer lol.
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Oooh cabins would be lovely in that area! And I know hahaha, it was really cool but I was so freaked out by the guy LOL. I’ve read about a few others in Montana if you wanna look them up – a couple of the best ones I’ve seen are Bannack and Garnet. Bannack was too far off our route unfortunately, and Garnet is down another dirt track, but looks amazing!
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Fun post! First, Leavenworth looks really cute. I used to live in Montana, and drove to Seattle a few times, but never knew about Leavenworth. Dang. Second, I’m just shocked that the Walmart had a “no overnighters” sign posted. I double-checked on Google Maps after I read that, and sure enough, both of Coeur d’Alene’s Walmarts are Supercenters. (We’ve heard that only the Supercenters will let people stay.) That is a serious bummer. The husband and I rely on those places every time we drive out west with our little travel trailer. We’ve got a couple that we always stay at – in Iowa and eastern Colorado. I hope that was just an anomaly and not a new direction the Walmart Supercenters are going in.
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I know, I was really surprised actually, considering we’d seen Walmarts near national parks that let you park overnight. I don’t see any reason why this one would have been any different. I think Ash asked, too. Apart from around LA, this was the only place we had problems with it. Montana is lovely by the way – must have been a great place to live!
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We did a road trip through the same states you did last year and drive RIGHT by this and never knew it existed! If I had known I would have planned to go check it out! So cool! And yes, this reminds me of one we saw in Colorado that was right before the ‘million dollar highway’
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Nooo! I hate it when that happens. Still, I just found out about Winthrop which is nearby there and sounds really cool, so there’s always more to see haha.
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Hey!…amazing pics..which camera did u use??
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Thanks! I use a Sony Alpha a5000. 🙂
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So the whole ghost town thing sounded so spooky, glad you decided to leave it! What a cool story though. As far as Leavenworth goes, I kind of like the idea of themed towns. I would seriously consider visiting.
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Haha, as we were leaving, I kept saying to Ash, “at least this’ll make a good story!” and he was like “I DON’T CARE” hahahah! Yeah, I do too as long as they don’t feel too fake. 🙂 This place was so adorable!
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So adorable and unexpected. Fredericksburg is a German town in Texas but it doesn’t really have German architecture like that!
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Ohh, it still looks nice though! Just not Bavarian. 🙂 There seems to be quite a few European-y towns scattered all over the USA! Maybe I should make a list, haha.
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Great pictures! What is so surprising is that there are some that remind me of home and I live in Arizona! That dirt track and ghost town are like a European version of the southwest. I love it.
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Ha, that’s an interesting comparison! There seems to be a bit of everything everywhere in the USA.
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Woooah this is really weird. I just heard about from my Austrian friend a week ago! It does look amaaaaazing. Did they have good beer halls too? If I can find a good hike near here, I’d totally stop by to look around afterwards.
I should probably admit, my Austrian friend hated it. He thought it seemed super fake and disneylandy BUT I guess it must feel like that if you gre up in a real Austrian village.
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Oh, that’s funny! That’s a shame he didn’t like it, I guess it’s very polished and curated, but it has so much charm and really doesn’t feel all that touristy (though it might be different in the height of summer!). There were a lot of big buildings advertising bier gartens and things, and it looked like a place at the end had a beer hall. We were just there late morning / lunch time though, so we didn’t really indulge in beer places! Plus I was too busy taking photos and looking at the cool shops, hahaha. It’s a beautiful area by the way, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some good hikes!
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Ok, I think you made the right call turning tail at the ghost town, you have so much more of the world to travel around (and write about). The one photo of the town and your story gave me chills up my spine!
Thank you for the shout out. Isn’t Leavenworth just the best? We absolutely loved the Bavarian town themed store signs (ie Starbucks, Bank of America, etc) too! Sadly my most (least) memorable moment from our visit was dipping a Pretzel stick confidently in Mad Dog 357 hot sauce and hiccuping for 45 mins straight. That and summer lazy river rafting on the Wenatchee on a sunny day. We miss WA so much, thank you for this post!
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Thank YOU for the recommendation!! Haha that’s hilarious, the river rafting sounds so lovely and relaxing though! Yeah, that ghost town was quite something. I feel like it would probably have been fine, but I didn’t really fancy risking anything!
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I would love to visit Leavenworth. I am a total fan of pieces of a country in another country. In addition, I love Germany. Therefore, it would be great to get a good dose of Germany in the US. The architecture is so nice!
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Ah, I think you would love it there! I’ve been told about another town called Helen in Georgia which looks adorable, too!!
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What a cute little slice of Germany in the US. I think it is gimmicky, but pleasantly so. I loved the sound of a pizza with peanuts (Ann I weird?) and that ghost town looked so cool!
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Pleasantly gimmicky, I like that! And haha, no you are not weird at all! I was really tempted by that one. There were too many to choose from!!!!
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There’s a town in Michigan called Frankenmuth that’s just like Leavenworth! I went there a few times as a kid, and loved the half-timbered houses and German food (being part-German myself). I think places like this are a great way to feel like you’ve gone abroad without paying for a plane ticket 🙂
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Ahhh, somebody else mentioned Frankenmuth to me too, it looks so cool!! Yeah, that’s a great point, it’s like a culture within a culture. 🙂
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Wow, these places look amazing! I’d love to discover and explore quaint and quirky little places like this. Elkhorn looks… interesting! I’d LOVE to go there!
Jenny in Neverland
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Haha! Elkhorn LOOKS amazing! I just wish there hadn’t been a guy with an axe there, hahahahaha.
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Okay, that really sounds like the start of a horror film :'(. The Bavarian town looks so adorable!
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Right?! It felt like one too! I wish we’d been able to get out and have a look around the abandoned buildings, but it was just so creepy lol. But yes, Leavenworth is adorable!
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I haven’t seen any mention of Leavenworth during the holidays! It’s amazing.
Great post! Enjoyed reading
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Thanks Katie! I loved Leavenworth so much!
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Great post. I hadn’t heard of Leavenworth before – I learned so much from your post. In Southern California, north of Santa Barbara, is the city of Solvang, a little Danish town. It’s cute and charming!
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Thanks! Lots of people have been telling me about Solvang! I kinda wish we had stopped there, it looks cute! Leavenworth was definitely worth a stop. 😀
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Being from America, it is great to see a post that highlights areas outside the cities. Rural areas offer unique food, culture and festivals. It is good to travel to these areas in America.
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