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Seattle is located at the intersection of I-5 and I-90 in western Washington State, on Puget Sound's Elliot Bay.  To the east are the Cascade Mountains.  Across the sound to the west are the Olympic Mountains.  Three hours to the south is Portland, Oregon.  Three hours to the north is the Canadian border and Vancouver, British Columbia.

The city has over half a million people, the region more than three million.  Microsoft millionaires and the high tech boom created a lot of money in the area, and the resulting upscale tastes are pretty apparent in a vibrant downtown and arts scene.  Boeing aircraft, medical/biomedical R&D, and shipping are big business here.  So is coffee.  In downtown Seattle, you're rarely more than 200 yards from some place that sells coffee, including one of at least three dozen Starbucks.

The city has a well-deserved liberal reputation.  The conservative suburbs would be considered moderate just about anywhere else.

It's a popular place to visit.  There's a lot to offer the typical single or family vacationer just in the city itself, but don't limit yourself to that.  Most visitors don't know what they're missing by not exploring the region further.

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Entertainment

Theatre -

Sports -

Festivals, Concerts and other Entertainment -

See also Media, Movies and Nightlife.

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Gay Life

Seattle is a very gay-friendly city.  The heart of the local gay community is located on Capitol Hill, just east across I-5 from downtown Seattle.  There are a number of specifically gay bars and other businesses up on Capitol Hill, but all in all, just about all the businesses up there are gay-friendly, and everyone seems to be quite open about it.  But even downtown I've seen openly gay couples, and most folks seem to be pretty indifferent to it.

See also Nightlife.

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Government

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Lodging

Some visitors to Seattle may be lucky enough to stay with me.  For the rest of you, I recommend the following hotels (all have parking, some at an extra charge):

2000 6th Ave. at Virginia

Seattle, WA

(206) 441-8300

Low cost with few amenities, but if you're looking for a basic hotel near the core of downtown Seattle, this place is hard to beat.  My preferred hotel when I visited Seattle as a tourist.  Three blocks from the downtown Seattle Monorail station, seven blocks from Pike Place Market, and across the street from me.

700 Fifth Ave. North

Seattle, WA

(206) 282-7700

Typical of Hampton Inns across the country.  Nice rooms.  A couple blocks from Seattle Center, the Space Needle and the Seattle Monorail station, which can take you to the heart of downtown (it takes 20-30 minutes to walk to the downtown station, depending on your pace).  Selection of neighborhood restaurants on far side of Seattle Center.

1400 Sixth Ave. at Pike Street

Seattle, WA

(206) 621-9000

Very nice hotel (it is a Sheraton, after all), in the heart of the core of downtown Seattle, and adjacent to the Washington State Convention Center.  I attended a conference here in 1995.  Three blocks from the downtown Seattle Monorail station, seven blocks from Pike Place Market, and about five blocks from me.

1900 Fifth Avenue

Seattle, WA

(206) 728-1000

Very nice hotel (although I attended a conference here in 2000, I haven't actually stayed here), in the core of downtown Seattle.  One block from the downtown Seattle Monorail station, six blocks from Pike Place Market, and one block from me.

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Media

Seattle Press -

Seattle Television -

Seattle Radio -

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Movies (connects to Seattle Citysearch)

Downtown -

Capitol Hill -

The U-District -

Queen Anne -

IMAX -

Film Festivals and Organizations -

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Nightlife

Gay Nightlife -

Here's a little-known fact.  The interior of the old Timberline gay bar location was used as the interior of "the Roadhouse" in the TV series Twin Peaks.

Straight Nightlife -

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Shopping

Downtown Seattle has a number of upscale shops and trendy brands in the retail core, mostly within a few blocks of Pacific Place and Westlake Center malls and Macy's (the old Bon Marché) and Nordstrom's department stores, all of which line Pine Street between 7th and 3rd Avenues.

Pike Place Market, between Pike and Virginia, west of 1st Avenue, is a working farmer's market, with a mix of fruit, vegetable and flower stands as well as many tourist-oriented shops.  This place is usually crowded with tourists in the summer.

Boutiques, art galleries and restaurants are common in Belltown, the neighborhood just north of the downtown retail core, and around Pioneer Square to the south.

Capitol Hill is routinely described as "funky" in the tourist books.  In addition to typical urban neighborhood shops, you'll find lots of boutiques, restaurants, gay/lesbian-oriented businesses, "vintage" (a.k.a. used) clothing, piercing/tattoo practitioners, and shops that cater to alternative types, punks, witches, womyn, coffee drinkers and hungry people.

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Sightseeing/Tourism

Some tourist information links of interest include the following:

I have a number of my own recommendations, too.

Seattle -

If you get the chance to go boating on Lake Washington, keep an eye out for the state's most famous resident - wave at Bill Gates when he's out mowing the lawn, and he'll usually wave back.

Region - 

See my state and province recommendations for sightseeing in the region:

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Transportation/Getting Around Town

If you fly to Seattle, you probably will fly into Sea-Tac Airport (they originally called it Tac-Sea Airport, but that confused the cab drivers), about 15 miles south of downtown Seattle and 20 miles north of Tacoma.  If you drive to Seattle, you will like be heading north or south on I-5 or west on I-90.  I-90 ends at I-5 just south of downtown.

Most people who visit Seattle stay downtown because the better known tourist sites are located there or are within walking distance.  If most or all of your visit will be in downtown Seattle, I strongly recommend that you DO NOT get a rental car.  Especially if you're staying with me, because my building does not have guest parking, so I don't even know where you would park it.

Downtown parking is a nuisance, and by the time you find a place to park your car, it may be further away from the site than your hotel parking lot.  Cabs are plentiful, and easy to get if you're at the Sheraton, Westin or Sixth Avenue Inn.  These will generally be cheaper than rental and parking fees.  Depending on traffic and where you are staying, a cab from Sea-Tac will cost you $25-35 dollars (one person), plus $1 airport fee (some cab companies), not counting tip.

For getting around downtown Seattle, bring good walking shoes.  Most tourist sites and stadiums are within 1 to 1 1/2 miles of the heart of downtown Seattle.  There is some elevation change around the downtown, and quite a bit if you head down to the waterfront or up to Capitol Hill, although nothing like you find in, say, San Francisco.  Still, you can get a bit of a workout.

If you do choose to drive in downtown Seattle (actually anywhere in Washington State), a piece of very good advice:  Pedestrians reign absolutely supreme.  You MUST yield right of way to pedestrians at all times - in fact, if you are turning, you're not supposed to even cross the crosswalk lines if there is a pedestrian within two lanes of the lane you're turning into.  Coming from Ohio, where pedestrians took their lives into their own hands every time they crossed any street, it took me awhile to accept the fact that the cars really were waiting for me.  The natives are so used to drivers yielding the right of way to them that they routinely step in front of moving cars, fully expecting those cars to stop.  And the cars do.  Those that don't typically have out of state plates (or drivers).  Law enforcement here does not look kindly on killing or injuring pedestrians.  You're not even allowed to give them a good scare.

(Busses are another matter.  They routinely barrel through intersections as their lights turn red, so check for oncoming busses before crossing at a WALK light.)

If you choose to hit the interstates, remember that Seattle has very long rush hours - so long, in fact, that we don't even call them "rush" hours.  Traffic can be quite slow, especially when it rains.  The good news is that most drivers here seem to be rather polite.  As for driving to the Eastside, I-90 (most Eastside sites) and Washington Highway 520 (Redmond-Microsoft, Kirkland, northern Bellevue) are your main options from downtown.  Highway 520 merges into the wrong side of I-5, and crossing four lanes of traffic to hit the downtown exit in such a short distance can be hard even outside of rush hour (but plenty of folks do try it anyway, bringing southbound I-5 to a crawl).  Because some of my suburban shopping is north of downtown, I often will take Highway 99 (Aurora Avenue) south into downtown as it exits onto 7th Avenue at Denny, leading directly to my apartment garage entrance.  Aurora Ave. has an old main drag feel to it, and traffic actually flows pretty smoothly, so I like it for a couple reasons.

There is plenty of public transportation.  For overall information, check out the King County Metro site.  Tourists are most likely to limit their use of public transportation to one of the following:

If you want to head to parts of Washington State west of Seattle, you can drive around Puget Sound by heading south to Tacoma and then heading northwest on Highway 16.  Or you can take a Washington State ferry from Seattle's downtown.

If you decide you need a car for a day, or even a few days, such as for sightseeing in the region, there are a lot of rental car offices in downtown Seattle.

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Visiting Mark

Planning to visit me?  Call first.  I travel a lot.

I have limited space.  It is effectively a one-bedroom apartment.  Yes, I have a second bedroom, but that's my work office, and it is pretty well packed.  I just don't have the space I had in the house.  I also live in a secure building.  It takes a badge to get into the elevator area (and the lobby after business hours), and I don't have a spare badge or key, so coming and going can be a bit of a nuisance.  I generally recommend the Sixth Avenue Inn for its cost and its proximity to me and downtown.

There is metered on-street parking for daytime visits.  Street parking is free after 6 PM and on Sundays and holidays.  Don't see a parking meter where you park?  Odds are, there is one.  Seattle is converting to pay stations that accept coins or credit cards in exchange for a ticket that you stick on the inside of your window.  Look for the tall green stations along each block that allows street parking.  And, yes, again these are free after 6 PM and on Sundays and holidays, although it can be hard to read that on the stations at night.

The parking garage in my building is open to the public, but it closes to the public at 8 PM on weekdays, and it is closed to the public on weekends and holidays.

There are several parking lots along 7th Ave. within just a couple blocks north of my apartment building, but these are never free.  The parking garage at Pacific Place (entrances on both 6th and 7th Avenues between Pine and Olive) is open 24 hours a day, but it's also not free.

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Weather

Seattle has a reputation for rain, but the fact of the matter is that Seattle (38.56 inches) gets about the same amount of rain every year as Dayton, Ohio, and less than some popular eastern cities like Philadelphia (41 inches), New York (43 inches), Atlanta (48 inches), Louisville (44 inches), and Washington, DC (39 inches).  Rain is quite seasonal here - almost half the annual rainfall comes during the three winter months.  Summers are rather dry, with less than an inch of rain being the norm in July.  Seattle rarely gets any snow, but the Cascade peaks can get several feet of snow in the winter (both the city and the mountains are located in King County).  High temperatures generally range from the mid-to-upper 70s in July to the lower 40s in the heart of winter.  Temperatures drop below freezing an average of 15 days a year.

Sea-Tac Airport Weather Averages (National Weather Service 30-year averages through 2002) --

Normal annual rainfall is 38.6 inches, 16.8 inches of which normally falls between November and January.

Being rather far north, summer sunlight lasts over 16 hours a day.  Of course, we pay for that in December when we have little more than 8 hours of daylight.

If you're thinking about visiting Seattle, come in the summertime.  Summers are wonderful here.

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