As a person who lives in Washington -- specifically in Seattle, I must
say it really does come down to where you are. Seattle and the
immediate vicinity has a lot of WiFi access if you know where to look.
Libraries, independent coffee houses, hospitals, shopping malls,
amongst
other places. (And if you need just a bit of access, a fair number of
places in Seattle proper you can stand outside and pick up at least
one
signal that isn't secured.) However, once you get outside of the big
cities, it can be pretty hard to get internet access.