Spilling the Travel Tea: Seattle, Washington

I’ve been to Seattle a number of times over the years. When I was younger, I visited as a tourist. As an adult, I’ve mostly visited for business reasons. But I always make time to see something fun.

Bruun Idun, Lincoln Park

If you’re visiting for the first time, your list of “must dos” should include the Space Needle and Pike Place Market. Seattle has a wealth of attractions to choose from, but those two should be on every visitor’s list. You can’t get more classic Seattle than a morning watching the fresh catch come in while sipping a cappuccino from one of the over 1,500 coffee shops.

As for the rest of your list, here are some highlights:

• Chihuly Garden and Glass: for those who don’t know Chihuly, he’s a well-known blown glass artist, whose colorful and whimsical work always delights

• Olympic Sculpture Park: 9 acres of grass, walkways and sculptures along the harbor, so you can watch the boats going by while admiring the art. This is part of the Seattle Art Museum, which is a great rainy-day activity.

• Explore the Neighborhoods: Seattle has very distinct neighborhoods, and all of them have a cool, unique vibe and plenty of activities, shops, and restaurants to sample. Treat Seattle’s neighborhoods like a tasting menu, and sample all of them. You’re sure to find a couple of favorites.

• Enjoy Nature: The Seattle area is home to some truly incredible nature. Two National Parks, Mt. Rainier and Olympic, are nearby. There’s a wealth of parks in the city, including Washington Park Arboretum, which feels like you’ve left the city entirely.

• Museum of Pop Culture: I haven’t been, but this is one of those items on every “what to do in Seattle” list, so I felt a bit weird leaving it off.

• Seattle Underground: They built modern Seattle on top of the original city, and you can still take a tour of the 19th century streets.

• Go Troll hunting: If you haven’t heard of Thomas Dambo’s “Trail of a Thousand Trolls,” it’s a global art installation. Dambo builds giant trolls out of found materials and recycled wood. He’s created over 150 so far. 5 are in the Seattle area.

• Get on the water: There are tons of ways to do this, from ferrys to hot-tub-boats (yes, you read that right).

• Catch a game: This town goes crazy for its home teams. If sports are your thing, catch a Mariners (baseball), Seahawks (football), Sounders (men’s soccer), Reign (women’s soccer) or Kraken (hockey) game.

• Pioneer Square and Smith Tower: The neighborhood was once the city center, and it has this classic vibe that makes it fun to explore. There’s a handful of fun sites to see just by walking around, and you can the rest your feet at Smith Tower, built in 1914 and the tallest west of the Mississippi at the time. There’s a snazzy prohibition-themed cocktail bar at the top, and a 35th floor observatory.

• Chinatown-International District: The Chinatown gate is gorgeous, and when you step through you feel transported to another land.

  Also home to one of my favorite memories: when I was 16 my parents and I had dinner here. We were the only non-asian people in the restaurant, and the only ones speaking English. The food was incredible, but for some reason every dish was loaded with broccoli. I complained about my mom telling me to ‘eat my vegetable’s before I’d had a chance to do so, no nagging required, so my mom looked at all that broccoli and made me a deal: if I ate all the broccoli on the table (which she thought impossible), she wouldn’t say a word for the rest of the trip.

  Well, I was sixteen. Challenge accepted.

  So now I have a reputation for loving broccoli, but my mom kept her word. She didn’t say a word about what I was eating for the rest of the trip.

Well, now that I’ve gotten sufficiently off-topic, I think I’m going to close off that list. It’s by no means comprehensive; Seattle is jam-packed with things to do. One of the reasons I love going back is because at this point, I feel like I’ve hit the major tourist ‘must dos’ and now I can kick back and enjoy Seattle’s eclectic neighborhoods, discovering new restaurants and parks and small businesses (bookstores and coffee shops galore!), and aim to do just one more ‘touristy’ activity each time I go. A museum here, a boat ride there, maybe hit up one of the islands.

A few more notes about visiting Seattle:

• Yes, this is the birthplace of Starbucks. And if you rely on Starbucks to keep you caffeinated (and therefore alive), like me, visiting the original store is a fun side quest. However, I never buy Starbucks coffee in Seattle. This is one of the few places in the United States that knows great coffee. I mean, truly fantastic coffee. World-class coffee. There are more than 1500 coffee shops, and all of them make better coffee than Starbucks. So, sure. Stop by the original Starbucks and buy a token drink so you can say you did. Then treat your tastebuds to the good stuff.

• The Link light rail: These trains are clean and easy to use. It can take longer than driving, depending on where you’re coming from, so I recommend having a book to read, but it can be a good way to see a long stretch of Seattle, too. This is probably one of the best public transportation systems in the United States, but it’s still growing, and therefore a bit limited on stops. It hits all the major neighborhood centers, and should work out fine for the average tourist, but I’ve been glad to have access to a car (or people with cars) in my recent visits.

• If you’re a book lover, you’re in luck. The Seattle Central Library is huge and an architectural marvel, and there are secondhand bookstores galore. There’s a great one near the University that my cousin introduced me to, Magus Books.

I’ve always enjoyed visiting Seattle because of its greenery, artistic expression, and coastal vibes. One thing is certain: you’ll never be bored on a trip to the Emerald City.