Anderson Island lies just south of McNeil Island, which houses a state correctional facility and is off-limits to casual visitors. To the northwest, the Key Peninsula extends into the Sound, separated from Anderson by Drayton Passage. The Nisqually Reach defines the island's southwestern shore, while the south basin of Puget Sound spreads between Anderson and the mainland at Steilacoom.

The island's terrain is gently rolling, its highest points offering views across the water to the Olympic Mountains to the west, Mount Rainier to the east. Small roads wind through forest and past scattered homes, the development pattern loose and informal. There's no commercial center in any conventional sense, no main street of shops and restaurants. The island's services are minimal by design, the residents valuing the quiet that limited commerce brings.

The Steilacoom-Anderson Island ferry sets the pace of island life. The boat runs frequently enough for commuters to work on the mainland, but its schedule still requires planning that mainlanders don't think about. Miss the last ferry and you're staying the night; arrive early for a departure and you wait in the line that forms at the dock.

The ferry carries vehicles, making Anderson more accessible than islands served only by passenger boats. Visitors can bring cars and explore the winding roads that crisscross the island, or bring bicycles and pedal at a pace suited to the terrain. Eckenstam Johnson Road runs north-south as the main spine; smaller roads branch off toward beaches, parks, and the bed-and-breakfasts that provide the island's only commercial lodging.

No hotels operate on Anderson Island - the accommodation options are bed-and-breakfasts, their character matching the island's intimate scale. The places to stay are someone's home with rooms for guests, breakfast included, the hospitality personal rather than commercial. It's a model that suits an island too small for convention, too quiet for chain properties, too removed for casual tourism.

The appeal is precisely the absence of what larger places offer. No restaurants to choose among, no attractions demanding visits, no entertainment beyond what the landscape provides. Visitors come for the quiet, for the water views, for the experience of a place where the ferry schedule is the most pressing constraint. It's a retreat from connectivity, a temporary surrender to island time that the mainland makes increasingly rare.

Steilacoom, the mainland town where the ferry docks, claims to be Washington's first incorporated town, its history predating Seattle's. The connection is practical for Anderson Islanders - Steilacoom provides the services the island lacks - but also historical, both communities sharing the south Sound's maritime character. Ketron Island lies nearby, another small community accessible by boat.

The Key Peninsula stretches northwest, part of the larger Kitsap Peninsula that separates Puget Sound from Hood Canal. The geography creates a waterscape of passages and reaches, islands and peninsulas, the complexity visible from Anderson's shores. Boats are common - not just the ferry but the private craft that island residents use for fishing, recreation, and the kind of water access that comes with living surrounded by Sound.