Following a post-commissioning visit to her namesake city, Tacoma, Washington, the protected cruiser voyaged to Hawaii in April and May. She returned to San Francisco on 2 June and, a month later, sailed for Cape Horn. During the voyage, she participated in the search for merchant ship SS "Conemaugh", which had departed from Valparaíso, Chile, and vanished. After rounding the Horn and steaming up the Atlantic coast of South and North America, "Tacoma" entered New York Harbor on 5 November and remained there until joining the North Atlantic Fleet on New Year's Day 1905.