The Pacific Northwest states of WASHINGTON and OREGON , while similar in climate, topography and   generally liberal politics, are quite different in their attitude toward expansion and progress. Since the 1990s, Washington has been home to high-tech businesses, sprawling growth, bustling military bases and notorious freeway gridlock, while Oregon remains lower-scaled in both design and temperament, thanks in no small measure to its stringent land-use laws and "urban-growth boundaries" surrounding its larger cities.

 Significantly cooler than California to the south, both are split by the great north-south spine of the Cascade Mountains , with their western sides more appealing by far. Throughout these hilly western regions, the ocean rains have created a verdant landscape, thick with woodlands that on the Olympic Peninsula become localized rainforests. This fertile land is where the population is most heavily concentrated, although the principal cities are not along the exposed coast itself, which remains - in Oregon at least - remarkably pristine, scattered with remote, rugged beaches. Both Seattle and Portland lie roughly fifty miles from the Pacific Ocean along the I-5 Interstate, running from Canada to California. Seattle, the commercial and cultural capital of the Northwest, is a major national port perched on the edge of the beautiful, island-strewn Puget Sound , with a busy network of local and long-distance ferries among the container traffic. Portland lies adjacent to the rich farmlands of the Willamette Valley, long the historic heartland of Oregon.

  Across the Cascades, the east is far drier and less hospitable, peppered with desert and scrubland, much of which is prone to drought and periodic wildfires, which have become increasingly common in recent years. Of the towns, only Spokane is of any appreciable size, though the booming resort town of Bend is a far more appealing destination, as its Cascade-straddling location makes it a useful base for sampling the mountains, desert and, especially the beautiful Columbia River Gorge . Of outstanding interest also is the scarred territory between Seattle and Portland around Mount St Helens , which erupted with devastating effect in 1980