John's Beachcombing Museum — Attraction in Forks

Educational and fun! $5 entry for adults, absolutely worth it. Almost like walking into an "I Spy" book of beach finds—everything under the sun from whale bones and sea glass to hockey gloves and bowling balls. These were all found by John or donated by friends of the museum. There is a collection of messages found in bottles on the beach, some of which turned into correspondence when a reply was sent it's incredible touching to read them. Seeing hundreds of disposable lighters stacked up next to twelve plastic tommy pickles heads, all having fallen out of some container somewhere out there. It really puts into perspective effect mankind has on the world around us, & the power of the ocean to bring things around the world through shipping & trade along with the consequences. Gets you thinking about all the things that are still floating around down there, too. They also have a beautiful collection of glass orb buoys made in Japan a long time ago, and some for sale as well as driftwood, books, walking sticks, earrings made by Debbie, and crafts. The sculptures outside are very impressive! John & Debbie are great, talk with...

Worth visiting. My kids liked doing the scavenger hunt and playing with the sand box. The displays are thoughtfully crafted. The whale bones were especially interesting as well as some of the older items like a life boat radio from WW2. The displays of container spill items and the foam trash that has animal bites taken out of them are a good sobering reminder of the impact on the ocean of our consumerism The curator, John, seems like a really neat person who even travelled to Japan after the 2011 tsunami to return some items lost at sea to their owners. The woman there was a gracious and generous host. There is handmade jewelry from sea glass and authentic Japanese glass floats and other special treasures to take home for reasonable prices. This home grown museum is a gem on the...

Super cool place, and John is a really nice guy. I felt badly we bothered him in the off season, though. Google says the museum is open 10-5 all year, but he really only has it officially open in the Summer months: June through August. We happened to catch him there in September and he was nice enough to let us look around outside, but we didn't want to push for an inside tour since we were misinformed. If you are visiting the area September through May and want to check it out, you could try giving him a call ahead of time to see if he'd open it on appointment, but if you do that don't be flaky! (He told us he used to do by appointment tours, but had too many people not show up for their appointment and so he's not always willing to do...