2 Best Sights in Aberdeen, The Olympic Peninsula and Washington Coast

This poignant little pocket park along the muddy banks of the Wishkah River pays homage to grunge legend and Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain, who grew up in a modest home two blocks away. A guitar sculpture, lyrics to “Something in the Way,” and other remembrances—like an empty instrument-stand sculpture identified as the musician's air guitar—mark the quiet spot that fans still seek out nearly 30 years after the rock star's death. Some leave messages on the park bench and picnic table as well as under the bridge.

Billowing white sails in the harbor mark the presence of this replica of the 1750s coastal freighter from Boston that in 1792, under the command of famous explorer Captain Robert Gray, was the first American vessel to reach the northwest American coast. The replica was famously converted into the multimasted HMS Interceptor sloop for the 2003 Disney movie Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. Its main base is the Grays Harbor Historic Seaport, but you'll find the vessel at local coastal towns up and down the West Coast. Two- and three-hour day-time cruises and twilight sunset cruises are offered. A second ship designed in 1988 to resemble early colonial packet ships, is also moored at the seaport.