United States · Washington
Where to Stay in Kennewick, Washington
Kennewick lines the south bank of the Columbia River in Benton County, largest of the Tri-Cities of Washington State, and dates from 1904.
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Where to stay in Kennewick
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
The choice here runs along the water. Rooms near the south bank of the Columbia River put the Columbia River Exhibition of History, Science, and Technology within easy reach and give a visit the river frontage that brought it to Benton County rather than to anywhere else in the Tri-Cities. That is the short answer.
The bank is where the city faces outward, and a great deal of what visitors actually do happens on it or beside it. Inland, Kennewick changes character. Back from the Columbia River the street grid runs over some 75 square kilometres of level ground, where Neil F. Lampson Stadium and the James Moore House stand a long way apart and a car stops being optional.
You want that side for event nights. The other consideration is the shape of the Tri-Cities themselves, because the Yakima River joins the Columbia northwest of the city while the Snake River comes in on the far bank, so a room here works as a base for three towns instead of one. The Hanford Reach Interpretive Center is among the reasons visitors range beyond Kennewick itself.
About Kennewick
Three rivers meet within sight.
What is Kennewick known for?
Kennewick holds the south bank of the Columbia River in Benton County, southeast of the confluence of the Columbia and Yakima rivers and opposite the point where the Snake River comes in, and that meeting of waters is what the Tri-Cities are built around. The river carries the interest. Both the Columbia River Exhibition of History, Science, and Technology and the Hanford Reach Interpretive Center take their subject straight from it.
What are the main landmarks in Kennewick?
Four names carry the city. The Columbia River Exhibition of History, Science, and Technology is the largest of them and takes the river itself for its subject, while the Hanford Reach Interpretive Center is named for the Hanford Reach of the Columbia River. Sport supplies the third.
Neil F. Lampson Stadium is the venue that fills on fixture nights, and the James Moore House is the one older private building to make Kennewick's list.
What is the history of Kennewick?
The date to start from is 1904. Kennewick was established in that year on the south bank of the Columbia River in Benton County, at a place defined by water on two sides, since the Yakima River comes in just to the northwest and the Snake River joins the Columbia across from the town. The James Moore House survives from that older settlement.
Little else of the kind is on the register, and the city's landmark list has stayed short by comparison with the ground it covers. The rivers stayed central to everything. The Columbia River Exhibition of History, Science, and Technology was built around that exact subject, and the Hanford Reach Interpretive Center carries the name of the Hanford Reach, which is how the story of the wider area is told to anyone who comes.
Growth made this the largest of the three. Kennewick now covers some 75 square kilometres of Benton County and leads the Tri-Cities in size, with Neil F. Lampson Stadium the one sporting venue on a list otherwise made of river institutions and a single old house.
Where is Kennewick?
Water on one side, flat ground behind. Kennewick occupies some 75 square kilometres of Benton County on the south bank of the Columbia River, southeast of the point where the Yakima River joins it and directly across from the mouth of the Snake River. The Hanford Reach lies upriver.
The interior of Washington State runs away from the bank in every landward direction, which is why the river reads as the only real edge the city has.
What is the climate of Kennewick?
The Columbia River sets the local terms. Kennewick lies a long way inland from the coast of Washington State, well into Benton County, so the year swings more widely between its hot and its cold ends than anywhere out on the salt water manages. The river tempers its own bank.
Past that narrow strip the open country toward the Yakima River and the Snake River takes the full range of the seasons, and this far from any ocean the temperate band offers little shelter at either end of it.
How do you get to Kennewick?
Three towns share the approaches. Kennewick sits on the south bank of the Columbia River, and the crossings tie it to the rest of the Tri-Cities, with the Snake River confluence over on the far side and the Yakima River joining northwest of town. Benton County roads do the rest.
Anyone here for the Hanford Reach Interpretive Center or the Columbia River Exhibition of History, Science, and Technology will be driving, since the gaps between the three cities are wider than a map suggests.
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Updated August 2026