Seven Surprising Things About Seattle

We finally share travel tips about our former hometown!

Before becoming nomads, Michael and I lived in Seattle for more than twenty years. But a reader recently messaged to point out we’d barely written about the city in this newsletter.

Given our deep knowledge of the place, this seems like an oversight.

True, the city has changed a lot since we left at the end of 2017 — often, in negative ways. Is the city even worth visiting these days?

First, I’ll list some things that surprised Michael and I when we lived in Seattle — and also some things that have surprised upon our occasional return visits.

And then I’ll answer the question about whether the city is still worth seeing.

1) The city has three fantastic tourist attractions.

After traveling the world, I’ve been surprised by how many “famous” tourist attractions have left me disappointed or underwhelmed. A city is lucky to have one attraction that is knock-your-socks-off fantastic.

Seattle has three.

First, there’s the Pike Place Market, which dates to 1907 and is now one of the oldest continuously operating farmer’s markets in the U.S. But in the 1980s, it almost became just another mall.

Fortunately, the city resisted that urge toward gentrification, and the facility is now both a working public market, and labyrinthine facility of more than 500 stores, stalls, and restaurants. Shop, snack, and people-watch to your heart’s content!

You can’t miss the stunning views of the bay, but the world’s first Starbucks is a bit harder to find.

Seattle’s second great attraction is, yes, the famous Space Needle.

When it comes to observation towers, the Space Needle is fairly small — a mere 518 feet tall. That’s less than a third of, say, the CN Tower in Toronto, which is 1,982 feet. Photographs always make the Space Needle look much bigger than it is.

But come on: the Space Needle is iconic for good reason: it looks incredible.

Fun fact: the Space Needle was somehow designed and built in a mere 14 months, for the 1962 World’s Fair. But it received a serious upgrade in 2018, with new elevators, a larger restaurant, and a new observation deck which now includes glass floors.

It isn’t as big as it looks here. It’s still fantastic.

Finally, Seattle’s third great attraction is the Chihuly Garden and Glass — known locally as “the glass museum” (and not to be confused with another Chihuly-related glass museum thirty miles south in Tacoma).

Dale Chihuly may be the most famous “glassworks” artist who ever lived, and this is the world’s largest permanent collection of his work. The attraction includes both indoor and outdoor exhibits, but the highlight is almost certainly something called Mille Fiori, which translates to “a thousand flowers.”

A thousand flowers all made of glass, people! This is not to be missed.