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Teach me how to [Seattle]
Taerak
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey all!
So I am visiting Seattle this September to attend a festival in Tacoma, flying in from Britain. I'll be grabbing 3 1/2 days (roughly), 1 before Tacoma and 2 1/2 after in Seattle. With accommodation booked, it's time to start looking how I'll spend the time
I've looked through some of the touristy guides for Seattle, and a lot of the conventional stuff comes up: the Space Needle, the Boeing factory, and Mt Rainier. I think I'll give the former two a pass (through sheer luck I've managed to see at least 4 space needles), and while I'd love to see Mt Rainier, it probably won't fit very well into the trip without making it stressful. What I normally do is try and look for sight and sounds the locals find interesting. So things like:
*Quirky places to eat & drink
*Anything art or design related - whether that's cool architecture & museums. I've got the Seattle Library on my list of go-to buildings, and looking for similar things.
*Meetups - tech, art, what have you! I'd love to be able to drop to one of these on one of the days, if just so I get to meet some people. In Bristol, I'm part of the local game developer hub and it'd be awesome to find something similar here.
(Basically, I might just very materialistic and everything I like is similar to this travel guide. I just have a lot less money to spend!)
Any suggestion would be very welcome. I'm looking forward to exploring every nook and cranny of the city!
So I am visiting Seattle this September to attend a festival in Tacoma, flying in from Britain. I'll be grabbing 3 1/2 days (roughly), 1 before Tacoma and 2 1/2 after in Seattle. With accommodation booked, it's time to start looking how I'll spend the time
I've looked through some of the touristy guides for Seattle, and a lot of the conventional stuff comes up: the Space Needle, the Boeing factory, and Mt Rainier. I think I'll give the former two a pass (through sheer luck I've managed to see at least 4 space needles), and while I'd love to see Mt Rainier, it probably won't fit very well into the trip without making it stressful. What I normally do is try and look for sight and sounds the locals find interesting. So things like:
*Quirky places to eat & drink
*Anything art or design related - whether that's cool architecture & museums. I've got the Seattle Library on my list of go-to buildings, and looking for similar things.
*Meetups - tech, art, what have you! I'd love to be able to drop to one of these on one of the days, if just so I get to meet some people. In Bristol, I'm part of the local game developer hub and it'd be awesome to find something similar here.
(Basically, I might just very materialistic and everything I like is similar to this travel guide. I just have a lot less money to spend!)
Any suggestion would be very welcome. I'm looking forward to exploring every nook and cranny of the city!
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Food:
Biscuit Bitch is a good easy bite to eat with multiple locations downtown, i suggest it for breakfast
Dick's is our open late walk up burger joint similar to in 'n out, get the delux
The Pink Door - if you can get in, drinks, italian food, trapeze and burlesque show
Pike Place Chowder - there's two main places to get chowder near the pier, Pikes Place and Ivar's. I prefer Pikes Place. But check out the whole market.
View:
The Columbia tower is the tallest building in Seattle, i think you can go to the observation deck on the 70th floor for like 10 bucks, but you can also go to the Starbucks on the 40somethingth floor for free and still get a great view
Alcohol-
literally everywhere, captiol hill has some of the biggest bar strips in the area, lots of craft beer places everywhere
Dispensary's:
if that's your thing, it's legal here, I like Herban Legends in the downtown area
Arch,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_goGR39m2k
If you do one touristy thing it should be the Underworld Tour.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Really, just walking around the various neighborhoods in Seattle is a treat and most, with the exception of Ballard, are accessible by light rail (all are accessible by bus if you're urban experienced).
Tacoma is a much sleepier town, but we have our own charms. I definitely reccomend checking out Dorky's downtown if the festival you're attending is in the area. It's a barcade near a few other breweries/tap rooms/restaurants.. Really, the whole downtown has expanded a good bit in the last few years, but it's not a booming metropolis by any means. You'll want to check out 6th avenue for the basic restaurant/shop/bar experience, and we have a pretty cool waterfront developing up north as well. But again, much sleepier and with more casual property crime.
@Mvrck any other ideas?
Downtown:
Cap Hill:
U District:
Ballard:
General good places to eat (If there's something more specific you want to go for like Sushi/Steaks/Indian etc let me know and I can get suggestions, these are mostly general "Americana"):
Honestly, I know I'm forgetting a dozen different things. I'll come back and update these lists but this is what I could think of off the top of my head.
I'll be staying in the International District, so it looks like most of the stuff is within easy walking distance. I assume that Seattle is more like New York than Dallas in terms of walking and public transport? Getting anywhere in Dallas, especially late at night was an utter nightmare because public transport shut down at 11:00 or so (this was pre-Uber/Lyft as well).
I've been told the rail link to the airport is quite reliable? I'm not sure how much time to budget for getting to/from the airport. I'd like to avoid taxis whenever possible, even though it's usually quicker.
Money won't be an issue generally, I am just not going to drop $50 bucks a day on drinks. (I don't even know if that's expensive or not, a single pint of craft in Bristol is about $7 these days and I'm done after 2-3.) I'm quite happy to pay for tickets and good eats, I just won't overdo anything.
I didn't even think about Sushi - anywhere in particular you'd recommend? If I need to book ahead, I wouldn't mind doing it now. @m!ttens also mentioned the glass gardens, so on the list it goes.
I've never had clam chowder before - didn't realise it was a local dish. Sounds like a good lunchtime treat. Everybody including my dad has been telling me to go to Pike's Place, so that's probably the first thing I'll do on the Friday morning!
I'm Dutch and never had the inclination to partake despite it being legal, but a lot of the people I'll be hanging out with are raving about their visit to Seattle for this reason, so I'll pass the info along. ;-)
I didn't spot the museum on the map, so this is a good shout. I'll probably make the donation, money's not so tight that I can't support the arts.
The underworld tour looks memorable - it's on the list!
This is really good to know. I've arranged to be picked up for my trip to Tacoma Gorge by somebody frequenting the fan group I started, and he's driving down from Vancouver. I really don't want to screw him over by forcing him to drive into the city, but I also don't know the route he'd be taking (probably around the city I assume?). Does anybody have any suggestions for this?
With all the suggestions coming in, it definitely looks like I need to make my way over to the Space Needle even if I don't go up there myself. I'm an urbanite, and Ballard looks cool - gotta figure out how it fits in the schedule, since I generally like to take my time with the things I do see. I also don't mind leaving things out and having an excuse to come back in the next ten years or so!
Unfortunately, I won't have any time to see Tacoma - the festival is at the Gorge, and we'll be camping out for two days before heading back. It's a shame, because I am into painting plein air, and Tacoma looks like a wonderful place to explore for a few days - I just don't drive myself, so I can't really make that work!
@Mvrck This is an amazing list. I now want to spend more time in Seattle to basically try everything! Thank you so much! Americana is definitely good, I just want to try what the locals do best!
One thing I would recommend is chowder at Duke's on Lake Union. Good iconic food on the beautiful lake and see the boats go by.
Ballard is slightly hard to get to from International district, but I find that locals exaggerate that. You can literally take one bus (route 40) from King Street Station (south downtown / west international district) to Ballard and it will drop you within an easy walk to Hiram Chittenden ("Ballard") locks. It's about 50 minutes on the bus.
As a tourist destination, the locks are... fine, I guess. There's a fish ladder so if you really want to watch salmon swim upstream you can do that, and the locks have a nice park and garden. It's a cute picnic spot. Though, to be totally honest, Seattle has a lot of beautiful parks and picnic spots. This city takes outdoor green space very seriously. You don't need to come to Ballard to have a picnic by the water.
The real reason to come to Ballard is for food and booze. After about 8pm on most nights (especially weekends when the weather's nice) this neighborhood lights up with 20-something, 30-something, and 40-something people going to one of the many fancy restaurants we have here or just bar-hopping and getting drunk. A number of the bars here have live music, whatever local band they could get to play on a given night.
Very close to Ballard are the neighborhoods Fremont and Wallingford, which have similar scenes. Fremont and Wallingford are shorter bus rides. If you're at all a booze drinker, consider dedicating at least one night to pub-crawling or bar-hopping Fremont and/or Ballard.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Nearby the Woodland Park Zoo is Greenlake, which is one of the nicest outdoor areas in the city. You could do Greenlake and the Zoo in one day, if you don't mind having a long day with a lot of walking.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
If you want to branch out from the downtown core, you're in a perfect spot to go to many many places via the bus (or light rail, I guess, but I never really use it).
In the ID, go to Maneki – it's over 100 years old, affordable, and incredibly delicious. They do sushi, but their hot meals are also all delicious and I usually get the unadon. If you need snacks or beverages to throw in your backpack, go to Uwajimaya which is just a big western Japanese grocery store with a food court and a book store (which, if you like nice office supplies, nerdy toys, or art books, it's dreamy). Try Dim Sum King for a quick bite to eat, Fuji Bakery for delicious Japanese-French pastry, and Oasis is a pretty great place for bubble tea/snow (the sour plum slush is the best).
You will also be right by the Pinball Museum, which is unlimited play with the price of a ticket.
The ID is right by Pioneer Square, which in addition to the underground tour, has Salume, which has delicious cured meats & sandwiches. There's usually a line for lunch, and the hours are limited, so plan accordingly. It's also right next to The Belfry, which certainly is not for everyone but if you love vintage taxidermy and various curiosities, it's a great (very small) store to have a quick peek in. Il Corvo is another excellent lunch place that has delicious daily rotating pastas, but it's the same deal with lines forming.
I would also recommend you be kind of careful about being out in Pioneer Square/on the bus corridor in the night time. It's is not the safest place in the city, and while you will almost certainly not come to harm, I personally wouldn't plan to spend a lot of nighttime hours in that area EXCEPT if you are here on the first Thursday of the month. That is when the art walk is, and there are a ton of galleries there. Free wine, excellent art, definitely do that if the timing works.
If you're going to Pike Place, I would wake up early and hit that in the morning, get a Piroshki and Daily Dozen donuts, tour around, then walk to the waterfront and get the water taxi over to Alki for a late lunch and a walk along the beach there. It's not really that good for sunsets since it faces East/toward downtown Seattle, but it's pretty.
I am a big proponent of Ballard as a place to waste a day – Go to the Sunday farmer's market, walk down Ballard avenue since it's just ten blocks of cute shops and delicious food/drinks. Go to the locks, go to Golden Gardens and watch the sun set. King's Hardware has great cocktails, decent burgers, and SKEE BALL. Full Tilt Ice Cream has delicious ice cream, sells beer, and has pinball. There's also Cafe Mox, which is a combo game store/gastropub that lets you check out board games from their library.
Fremont: The Sunday market there is ALSO great, plus you can also see the bridge troll, and generally walk around and eat and shop. Add-a-ball is a pinball bar, Theo's Chocolate has a factory tour that includes free samples.
For my non-downtown day, I would probably take the 40 from the International District to Fremont, do the chocolate factory tour, see the troll, get lunch and have a wander, then get back on the 40 and continue on to Ballard, get off at the Ballard Locks to see the salmon running and the ships passing through, then head up to Golden Gardens for sunset and go back to central Ballard for a nice dinner. In particular, I recommend Staple & Fancy (all of his restaurants are delicious, so even if you don't end up in Ballard, look him up and see if you can hit one), and/or the Walrus & Carpenter if you're into oysters. Those are both right by Mox, which I'm absolutely certain you could get other Seattleites from this forum to come out for an evening of gaming there if that was your cup of tea.