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DPChallenge Forums >> Out and About >> Seattle - July 2014
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01/19/2014 06:43:31 PM · #1
Planning ahead just a tad, but I have been invited to the Seattle area for a weekend in July (11-13) and figured I'd extend the trip and do some sightseeing. I can come early or stay late, rent a car or not ... all options are open at this point. So what do people suggest I see and do? Anybody able to do a mid-week GTG? I've been looking at various websites about Seattle and drooling over the scenery, so at least one visit to a mountain will probably be required :-). And I MAY be dragging Jutilda with me, so checking out the wine, chocolate, and, of course, coffee will be on the agenda, too.
01/20/2014 07:49:46 AM · #2
Bump.
01/20/2014 09:42:31 AM · #3
- Pikes Place Market: great place to visit, eat, get some coffee. Also a great place for some street photography if you enjoy that sort of thing
- Mt. Rainier: Will need a car and it is an all day adventure
- Deception Pass: Will need a car and another wonderful scenic place
- I also highly recommend riding the ferry. Does not matter which, I love riding the ferries there. A good one to catch is over to Bainbridge Island. Neat little town.
- Walk along the waterfront. Lots of stuff to see, places to eat, shops to spend money in. There is also a small aquarium you can visit.

If you need more places let me know.

Ronnie
01/20/2014 10:39:34 AM · #4
I should put some Seattle stuff in my portfolio. God knows I've been photographing enough of it. But anyway...here are some options.

Pike Place Market, the waterfront, and a ferry ride. Pioneer Square, too. The market is insanely crowded in the summer. Go during the week, go early, then leave and do something else. Ferries are cheaper than harbor tours and just as much fun. Eat Ellenos Yogurt and Beechers Cheese at the market. Yum. And Piroshkys.

Lake Union and the Center For a Wooden boats. If you like old boats, this is eye candy. Can be reached by bus from downtown. Never crowded, even during the wooden boat festival, which is right about that time. And float planes. If you have the money and the weather's clear, this can be really fun.

Queen Anne Hill and Kerry Park. The view of the Seattle skyline on all the postcards.

Seattle Center...Space Needle, EMP, Pacific Science Center, and Chihuly Garden. All expensive. Chihuly Garden and Pacific Science Center ( if you like butterflies) are worth going into. The others are interesting from the outside, but I wouldn't pay for, unless I had a thing for Jimi Hendrix or Nirvana.

Fisherman's Terminal, Ballard Locks, Discovery Park. The North Pacific fishing fleet is housed at the Fishermans Terminal, and you can walk right up to the boats and touch them. Discovery Park, besides being a beautiful place, has wild blackberries everywhere at that time of year. Good food in Ballard, right next door.

Gasworks Park, Fremont (don't miss the troll). On the North end of Lake Union. Gasworks Park is an old decommissioned...gas works. Fremont is funky and fun. If you get there, don't miss the Lenin statue.

There is also lots of nature right outside of town. I'm not the expert on that, though.

You need a car for the Fisherman's Terminal, etc, and for Gasworks/Fremont. If you're staying downtown, you can walk/bus to the rest. Actually, you can bus to Fremont as well. Many of the car rental companies have offices downtown, so you don't need a car for the whole time. Parking is very expensive downtown, so consider that if you're keeping a car overnight. If you have a Zipcard, there are zipcars all over downtown as well.

I could do a midweek GTG if it was before or after work.
01/20/2014 11:02:05 AM · #5
Ferry to Bainbridge Island on a clear day will give you great views of the Olympic Peninsula as well as Mt Rainier. Very inexpensive. Once you get to Bainbridge, walk up and through town, left on Madison and follow it up the hill to a pub called the Harbour Public House. Excellent fish and chips, and the deck offers a view over the little cove and even Seattle in the distance. Just a fun half-day trip.

Golden Gardens is a nice place to bring a picnic on the beach with a view of the OP. And by picnic I mean a Cuban sandwich from Paseo. GET A SANDWICH FROM PASEO. That's actually the first thing you should do. Snoqualmie Falls is also a nice day trip. I'll think of more.

Seattle in the summer might be the best place on the planet.
01/20/2014 11:19:01 AM · #6
Originally posted by bohemka:

Seattle in the summer might be the best place on the planet.


I hope so! I'm pretty excited about the trip, even if it is months away LOL.

Some of the stuff you guys suggested I had already looked into, but you never know from guidebook-type places how much is real and how much is hype. Sounds like much of what interested me is worth looking into.
01/20/2014 11:40:29 AM · #7
Snoqualmie Falls is nice. Coffee is everywhere and during my brief visit I was juiced 90% of the time! Of course you can't go to Settle without seeing the infamous Art Roflmao
01/20/2014 12:14:36 PM · #8
Reread your original post. The Theo chocolate factory is in Fremont. They give tours. Fremont Coffee Company is a block away from Theo.

Seattle Coffee Works is 1/2 block from Pike Place Market.

Stumptown and Victrola are both on Capitol Hill, and are a very good reason to venture up the hill.
01/20/2014 12:26:49 PM · #9
Based on this thread, I'm guessing Seattle must be a really boring town to need all that coffee to enjoy it. LOL

Or maybe it's just the rain that requires you to have that much coffee.
01/20/2014 12:31:31 PM · #10
They give you a punch card and until you've purchased enough coffee you can't leave...
01/20/2014 02:48:57 PM · #11
Originally posted by kleski:

They give you a punch card and until you've purchased enough coffee you can't leave...


I do have a wallet full of punch cards. Is that what they're for?

Seattle is the home of artisanal everything. Coffee is just the most famous manifestation of that.
01/20/2014 04:40:49 PM · #12
When I lived there, nearly every night I was out late at the Crocodile, or Graceland, or Chop Suey, or the Showbox, or the Moore, or the Paramount, or the Tractor, or Neumos, or the Comet (RIP), or Linda's, or...

Coffee was essential part of keeping me awake when I was supposed to be.
01/20/2014 07:36:59 PM · #13
Has anyone else been to the Seattle Underground (I think it's below the Pioneer Square area)? It's featured in the TV movie "The Night Strangler" with Darrin McGavin (1972).
01/20/2014 07:38:20 PM · #14
Originally posted by GeneralE:

Has anyone else been to the Seattle Underground (I think it's below the Pioneer Square area)? It's featured in the TV movie "The Night Strangler" with Darrin McGavin (1972).

Yes, there are tours available, and it's actually quite interesting.
01/20/2014 08:07:58 PM · #15
I'll be up for a GTG, that is if I'm still alive. Lots of activities going on in July for Seattle.
01/20/2014 08:46:42 PM · #16
The best place to photograph while in Seattle is of course, Portland. Those in Seattle won't mention it though. ;D

Mike
01/20/2014 09:40:17 PM · #17
Originally posted by bohemka:

Originally posted by GeneralE:

Has anyone else been to the Seattle Underground (I think it's below the Pioneer Square area)? It's featured in the TV movie "The Night Strangler" with Darrin McGavin (1972).

Yes, there are tours available, and it's actually quite interesting.


This. It's actually a lot of fun.
01/20/2014 09:52:44 PM · #18
I think I took the Underground tour in the 1980's ... reminded me a bit of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, except for real ... should check the tour site for photo restrictions -- it's pretty dark.
01/20/2014 10:00:59 PM · #19
Originally posted by Ann:

Originally posted by bohemka:

Originally posted by GeneralE:

Has anyone else been to the Seattle Underground (I think it's below the Pioneer Square area)? It's featured in the TV movie "The Night Strangler" with Darrin McGavin (1972).

Yes, there are tours available, and it's actually quite interesting.


This. It's actually a lot of fun.


OMG, that sounds like a hoot! The Seattle history on the website is wonderfully irreverent; I can only imagine the spiel on the tours.
01/21/2014 10:27:22 AM · #20
Looks like people have covered quite a few of the attractions already. I agree the Underground Tour would be a good thing to do early on to get a good quirky but as far as I know true history of the city- haven't done it in over twenty years myself. As some have said, ferry rides to anywhere are an inexpensive way to get a nice view of the area.

You will be getting here just one week into what we officially call summer and can expect great weather most likely. What is unique about Seattle is it's close proximity to mountains and ocean. Good hiking trails if not so mountainous but with nice views and varied terrain are right in the city with Discovery park. You have good real mountain trails forty minutes outside the city and great ones an hour away. Spectacular Mount Rainier is viewable from the city and great trails and meadows half way up its slopes are about three hours away. North Cascades National Park can be thought of as another Yosemite with a fraction of the people and is just a few hours to the north. Open ocean with trees to the water line, crashing waves and sea stacks is a few hours to the west (and a great reason to get in a ferry).

So there is plenty a cosmopolitan city has to offer, plus the great outdoors in a big way and you will be here at the perfect time of year for it all :)
01/21/2014 03:08:31 PM · #21
Don't care where we go, what we do … I'm in.

For architecture nuts, there's a bunch of great photogenic buildings here, many quite near Pioneer Square (where the Underground tour is). You've seen some of my photos of the interior of the new bus tunnel (SyFi like).

Waterfront's interesting. Seattle Center's interesting. Argosy runs boat tours of Elliot Bay and Lake Washington (Homes of the super rich and famous, anyone?). Gas Works is a hoot, and also has a nice uncharacteristic view of Seattle.

Plenty of scenic vistas of the city (car required).

Tour the Boeing factory - see jet liners being built - sorry no photos (Car required)

Day trips to Rainier … or St. Helens could be fantastic. (Car required)

There's a new indoor skydiving place south of town. Never been there but it ought to be an adrenalin booster.

I'm willing to drive - have room for me plus 3.

Message edited by author 2014-01-21 15:12:13.
01/21/2014 04:37:15 PM · #22
I'm not very active on DPC anymore but I might still be up for a meet up. Also Mary if you are going to be in the area for awhile my wife and I have a small quest house in Anacortes, the gateway to the San Juan Islands and some of the best ferry rides around, and have always been up for hosting people from DPC and also Warm Showers (a cross country bike group thing). You would need a car but it would give you a base for a few days of ferry rides, Deception Pass and North Cascade mountain visits. Feel free to email me if you are interested and we can see if dates work out. No matter what you will love the Pacific NW once you get out here.
01/22/2014 02:06:25 AM · #23
can't believe nobody's mentioned the gum wall.



Count me in for a GTG - I'd be stoked to hang out with MaryO and Jutilda! ...and even some of the local DPCers that I only ever see at GTGs.
01/22/2014 07:16:49 AM · #24
Originally posted by Art Roflmao:

can't believe nobody's mentioned the gum wall.



Count me in for a GTG - I'd be stoked to hang out with MaryO and Jutilda! ...and even some of the local DPCers that I only ever see at GTGs.


Yes, a gum wall (THE gum wall?) is a serious omission. It's not mentioned in any of the travel guides. Astonishing ;-)

A GTG is sounding like more and more fun. This trip is going to be epic!
01/22/2014 08:06:50 AM · #25
Ok, when you guys mention a gum wall, I definitely know I have to come now!!
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