Seattle Guide

Welcome to Seattle, AKA the “Emerald City” for its abundance of evergreen trees. Greater Seattle, with a population of over 4 million people has tons to do. Here are my favorite recommendations, must-sees, and places with personal meaning. Feedback and ideas welcome. Contact me.
You can also view my map of my favorite restautants and shops in my Seattle Map.

Coming soon: hyperlinks to these places (for now just Google them), and integration into my Seattle Map.

World-Class Museums
  • MOHAI (Museum of History & Industry) - a really cool museum with a strong focus on Seattle’s industrial past, and how they literally reshaped the land.
  • MoPop (Museum of Pop Culture) - Seattle's best and most unique museum. Take half a day. If you run out of time, ask the staff for a free second day pass.
  • Museum of Flight. A world-class, MASSIVE flight museum. Long drive South of Seattle.

World-Class Experiences
  • Boeing Factory Tour - book well (months) in advance! A long drive north of Seattle.
  • Pike Place Market - very popular, very famous, very crowded. Weekdays are less crowded. 
    • Take your time to explore the TONS of cool hidden stores, from Metsker Maps on the main street; to the kitchen tool store in the Sanitary Market; the print store, magic shop and figurine store in the underground levels; and world spice down on Western Ave.
  • Seattle Underground Tour

World-Class Architecture
  • Seattle Public Library - Downtown Branch. Seattle is not known for its architecture, but this is a building worth walking though, all the way to the top level. 
  • Amazon Spheres - open to the public only on 1st & 3rd Sat of each month. Reservations open 15 days before

Great Inner-City and Suburban Strolls and Cycling
  • Discovery Park
  • Kerry Park - Amazing view of downtown Seattle from a hilltop.
  • Sunset Park - for sunsets. Duh! 
  • Burke Gilman Trail
  • Arboretum
  • Gas Works Park

Fun for adults
  • Pinball museum
  • Axe throwing
  • Underground history tour - Pioneer Square

Seattle Neighborhoods - great food, cool stores, and fun activities
  • Capitol Hill (AKA “Cap Hill”) - Seattle’s gayborhood. You can spend hours walking up and down paralell Pike St and Pine St, checking out the stores, restaurants, cafes, ice cream shops, and bars. Chophouse row is a cool little arcade in it.
  • Fremont
  • Ballard
  • Greenwood
  • University District (AKA “U District”)
  • International District (ID) / Chinatown
  • Seattle Center - includes Space Needle, MoPop, Chihuly Glass Museum (overpriced and small IMO), Seattle Children's Museum, Pacific Science Center, a playground, and a Monorail stop (the only other stop is downtown).

Fun with kids
  • Aquarium
  • PacSci (Pacific Science Center)
  • Woodland Park Zoo
  • Children’s Museums - Seattle, Everett, Bellevue
  • Ballard Locks, Fish Ladder, & Botanical Garden

Outside Seattle
  • World-class hiking
  • Defiance Point Zoo and NW Trek Zoo - South of Seattle, near Tacoma. 
  • Olympic Peninsula
  • Cascade mountains
  • Mount Rainier
  • Mount St Helens
  • Olympia - Washington State’s capital is in this lovely town, with a good farmers market, thriving restaurant scene (not as expensive as Seattle), an artsy feel, and its own great hiking.
  • Vancouver, BC - Canada is only a 2-3 hour drive, train or bus journey north of us!
  • Portland, Oregon

See
  • Henry paintings
  • Fremont Troll
  • Other Trolls
  • Lenin Statue

Other tips: 
  • If someone is picking you up or you’re taking a taxi, fly in and out of Paine Field instead of Seatac airport. Paine is very small and very low stress, but doesn’t have a light rail connection like Seatac does.
  • If flying into Seatac, the light rail gets you into downtown and north of Seattle pretty easily.
  • Areas to be careful because of significant homeless and addicted people include downtown, University District, and Capitol Hill.