Touching down at Walla Walla Regional Airport in Walla Walla keeps you central, with vineyards, wheat country, and the Blue Mountains an easy drive away. Walla Walla is a small college town turned wine capital, with more than 120 wineries spread across the valley and a walkable Main Street of tasting rooms, bakeries, and old brick hotels. The feel is relaxed and a little polished, with farm stands and rolling wheat fields never more than a few minutes from the tasting bar.

Standout experiences around Walla Walla: - Taste through downtown tasting rooms, then drive the Southside and Airport districts for more - Walk the Whitman College campus and the galleries and shops along Main Street - Buy a bag of Walla Walla sweet onions, mild enough to eat like an apple - Tour Fort Walla Walla Museum and its pioneer village - Visit Whitman Mission National Historic Site west of town - Hike or bike the trails around Bennington Lake - Watch hot air balloons lift off during the Balloon Stampede each May - Drive into the Blue Mountains for cool pines and valley views

Walla Walla makes a comfortable base for the southeast corner of Washington. Milton-Freewater and its Rocks District vineyards are 15 minutes south across the Oregon line, Dayton and its old courthouse are a half hour northeast, and the Tri-Cities are about an hour west. Palouse Falls, a 200-foot waterfall dropping into a basalt canyon, is about an hour and a half north, and Pendleton, home of the famous Round-Up rodeo, is about an hour south. Come in fall for crush season and golden wheat, or in spring when the hills turn green.