Stanwood, the Mainland Side of the Camano Bridge

Stanwood sits in the far northwest corner of Snohomish County where the Stillaguamish River meets the salt water, on Highway 532 between I-5 and the bridge to Camano Island. It's the south end of my territory and the one town on this list that is not in Skagit, Island, or Whatcom County. It was incorporated in 1903, and for most of the last century it was actually two towns, Stanwood on the flats and East Stanwood in the depot district up by the railroad, which kept separate governments until the voters merged them in 1960. Locals still say which one they mean. Norwegian immigrants left their mark on the town, and the Stanwood Area Historical Society traces the Sons of Norway hall downtown back to 1914.

Downtown is 271st Street NW, where the city is in the middle of a real revitalization push it calls the Twin City Mile, running from City Hall Park on 270th to the Amtrak station on 271st, with the Stanwood Farmers Market on Fridays, Heritage Park and its skatepark, and Church Creek Park with its new hard-surface trail. Twin City Foods, the frozen-vegetable company, still keeps its headquarters on 269th Place NW.

The thing that makes Stanwood different from every other small town up here is the train. Amtrak Cascades stops at Stanwood station on Florence Way, at the end of the Twin City Mile, south to Everett and Seattle and north to Vancouver, two trains a day each direction on the June 2026 timetable. That is intercity rail, not commuter rail, and I'll say more about the difference below because it matters.

Highway 532 is the road: east to I-5, west over the bridge to Camano. I-5 south to Everett and Seattle is the daily drive for most of the working households here. Amtrak Cascades from Stanwood station is real and useful, but it runs on an intercity schedule, two trains a day each way on the June 2026 timetable, and Sound Transit's Sounder commuter trains do not come here. The Sounder N Line stops at Everett, Mukilteo, and Edmonds on its way to Seattle, and nowhere north of Everett. If someone tells you Stanwood has Sounder service, they're wrong, and I'd rather you hear it from me before you buy on that basis.

Island Transit runs fare-free buses from Camano through Stanwood to Skagit Station in Mount Vernon. Drive your commute at your hour before you commit; I-5 through Marysville and Everett has its own personality.

Mount Vernon is a small city with a county seat's list of services and two connector bus lines. Stanwood is a small town with a train station and an island attached. If your life points south to Everett or Seattle, Stanwood is closer to it and the Amtrak schedule can work for some. If your life points to Skagit County employers, Mount Vernon wins on geography. And if the point is the water without a ferry line, Camano is the answer and Stanwood is where you get groceries.

The Stanwood-Camano School District runs Stanwood High School and Lincoln Hill High School; Port Susan Middle School and Stanwood Middle School; Cedarhome, Stanwood, and Twin City elementary schools in Stanwood; and Elger Bay and Utsalady elementary schools on Camano. The middle and high schools are on the Stanwood side, so the secondary bus routes cross the bridge every day.

By the road from the middle of Stanwood, it is 29 miles to downtown Anacortes, 18 to the Burlington I-5 exit, 41 to downtown Bellingham, 53 to downtown Seattle. These are road miles from OpenStreetMap routing, measured September 2026, by road and not by ferry.