Recently some other Pacific Northwest cruisers have reached out to me asking which cruising guides we used for our passage north last year. It can be tricky choosing cruising guides because the older ones tend to get out of date quickly, and some have spotty coverage or a different cruising style than ours.

Over the last 4 years of cruising we’ve found some good ones that work for us. Finding good educational books on sailing and boat maintenance is also tricky (there are so many!) so I’ve included a few recommendations on those too.

Cruising Guides

Waggoners

Waggoners is probably the most popular, complete, and frequently updated cruising guide in the PNW. For marina services in particular it’s usually the best source out there. We use it to figure out which marina has good drinking water, nice showers (sometimes free!), convenient laundry, or a nearby grocery store.
We use Waggoners a bit less for anchorages, especially on the Central and North coasts of BC – where the Douglass guide (see later) is more comprehensive.

Another caveat is since Waggoners is written by motorboaters, we find their passage / routing advice isn’t always useful.