Seattle sits at the edge of a continent, looking out over Puget Sound toward the Olympic Mountains and back over its shoulder at the Cascades, with Mount Rainier filling the southern horizon on any clear day. It is a city of water and forest, of grey skies and very good coffee, and of a certain Pacific Northwest character — outdoor, independent, slightly damp — that distinguishes it clearly from the rest of the West Coast. Portland is its nearest cultural relative; San Francisco is a different country.
We’ve flown into Seattle twice to start bike rides and once to take a road trip by car up to Canada. On the first occasion we arrived in Seattle with only one bike – the other had inexplicably got lost. The airline promised it would arrive on the next flight from London, but it wasn’t a good start. In the meantime we took a Duck Tour (involving an amphibious vehicle). It was entertaining. It weaved through the downtown streets then out to the lake where the duck-bus took to water. We were shown various sights including floating houses with sunken living rooms and locations from the film “Sleepless in Seattle”. The Duck Captain kept us laughing. I remember the waterfront area of Seattle looking run down. Both the train and the monorail serving tourism in the city had closed and construction in the area was an eyesore. Improvements have now been made and a new Waterfront Park opened in 2025. We later visited the Southcentre Mall near the airport, got bike parts we wanted for the trip – the missing bike did show up later!
A Little Background
The area around Puget Sound was home to the Duwamish and Suquamish peoples long before European settlement. The first permanent American settlers arrived in 1851 at Alki Point, and the city that grew from that beginning was named for Chief Seattle (Si’ahl) of the Duwamish, one of the more gracious gestures in the history of American place-naming. The city burned almost entirely to the ground in 1889 — the Great Seattle Fire — and was rebuilt on a grid elevated several metres above the original street level, leaving an underground layer of the original city that still exists beneath the current downtown.
The Klondike Gold Rush of 1897 established Seattle as the primary outfitting point for prospectors heading north to Alaska, and the economic boom that followed gave the city its first real momentum. Boeing’s arrival in the early twentieth century defined the city’s industrial character for most of the next hundred years; Microsoft and then Amazon transformed it again from the 1980s onward. Seattle today is one of the most economically significant cities in the United States, though it wears this less ostentatiously than San Francisco.
What to See and Do
Pike Place Market is the oldest continuously operated farmers market in the United States, established in 1907 on a bluff above Elliott Bay. The fish-throwing is real and slightly theatrical, but the market itself — the produce stalls, the flower stands, the bakers, the craft vendors across three floors — is the genuine article. Go in the morning before the tourist crowds peak. The market’s lower levels (the “Down Under” section) contain an eccentric collection of small shops that reward exploration.
The Space Needle was built for the 1962 World’s Fair and remains Seattle’s defining landmark — 184 metres tall, with an observation deck (US$38 per adult) that gives a 360-degree view of the city, the Sound, and the surrounding mountains on a clear day. The view is genuinely excellent; the queues in summer are not. Book in advance. The adjacent Seattle Center also houses the Chihuly Garden and Glass (a museum dedicated to the glass art of Dale Chihuly — more impressive than it sounds; adult approximately US$36) and the Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP), which covers music, science fiction, horror, and popular culture with considerable enthusiasm.
Bainbridge Island Ferry — one of the better free things to do in Seattle is ride the Washington State Ferry from Colman Dock across Elliot Bay to Bainbridge Island and back. The round trip takes about an hour and gives views of the downtown skyline, the Sound, and the Olympics that no lookout point in the city can match. The ferry is part of the public transport network; foot passenger fares are a few dollars each way. Bainbridge itself is a pleasant small town worth an hour or two if you disembark.
Kerry Park on Queen Anne Hill gives the classic postcard view of the downtown skyline with Mount Rainier in the background — best in the early morning or at dusk. It is a small park on a residential street; free, no queues, and significantly more satisfying than the paid observation decks for the view it delivers.
The International District / Chinatown is one of Seattle’s most historically layered neighbourhoods — a compact area of Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, and Vietnamese communities that survived urban renewal attempts in the 1970s largely because its residents organised to stop them. The Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience (adult approximately US$20) is the best museum in the city and tells a history of the Pacific Northwest that the standard Seattle narrative usually overlooks.
Capitol Hill is the neighbourhood for eating, drinking, music, and the particular energy of a district that has been Seattle’s LGBTQ+ centre for decades and is now also its most gentrified one. The restaurants along Broadway and 15th Avenue cover most cuisines at reasonable prices; the coffee shops are excellent; the cocktail bars are better than they need to be.
Day trip: Mount Rainier — on a clear day, Rainier (4,392 metres) dominates the southern skyline. It is a two-hour drive from the city to the Paradise visitor area at 1,646 metres, where the views of the mountain and the wildflower meadows in summer are extraordinary. The park charges a US$30 vehicle entrance fee. Do not attempt this on an overcast day.
Getting There
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) is 24 kilometres south of the city, connected by the Link Light Rail directly to downtown (approximately 40 minutes, US$3). The light rail runs frequently and is the sensible option. Taxis and rideshares from the airport cost US$45–60 and are subject to traffic on I-5.
Amtrak’s Coast Starlight runs from Los Angeles to Seattle (approximately 35 hours) and the Cascades service connects Seattle to Portland (3.5 hours) and Vancouver, Canada (4 hours, subject to border crossing time).
Cost and Hours
Seattle has become an expensive city, driven by the technology industry. Mid-range hotels run US$200–350 per night downtown; eating out is broadly comparable to San Francisco. The best things in the city — Pike Place Market, the ferry, Kerry Park, the neighbourhoods — are free or nearly so. Allow three days minimum; four is comfortable for including a day trip to Rainier or the Olympic Peninsula.