Where to Stay in Seattle, Washington

What is Seattle known for?

Seattle is known first for the Space Needle, the slender tower that fixes its skyline against the water of Puget Sound. The Museum of Pop Culture and the Pacific Science Center share the same fairground-era campus below it. Down at the harbour, the Seattle Great Wheel and the Seattle Aquarium line the piers.

Art anchors the centre too. The Seattle Art Museum and the Frye Art Museum give the largest city in Washington a serious cultural core, backed by the evergreen forests that earned it the Emerald City name.

What are the main landmarks in Seattle?

Seattle's landmarks stack tower, waterfront, and museum into a compact skyline. The Space Needle dominates from the old fairground campus, joined there by the Museum of Pop Culture and the Pacific Science Center. Down at the piers stand the Seattle Great Wheel and the Seattle Aquarium.

Art fills the rest of the roster. The Seattle Art Museum, the Frye Art Museum, and the Museum of History & Industry hold the collections, while the Seattle Underground opens a buried layer of the city's earliest streets below the modern pavement. Kerry Park frames the classic view of it all from the hill above.

What is the history of Seattle?

Seattle was founded in 1851 by settlers who built their first landing on the shore of Puget Sound, at the edge of the deep-water harbour that would make the city. Timber and shipping drove the early economy, sending logs down to the wharves and out across the water. The port set the course.

A great fire levelled the young downtown near the end of the century, and the rebuilt streets rose a full storey above the old ones, leaving the Seattle Underground as a buried record of the first city. Prosperity followed the rebuild. The Museum of History & Industry now gathers the relics of that maritime and industrial past under one roof beside Lake Washington.

Decades later the Space Needle rose for a world's fair, planting the tower that still marks the skyline, while the Museum of Pop Culture and the Pacific Science Center filled out the same fairground campus. Across roughly 369 square kilometres the modern city climbed its hills between the two waters. That harbour setting, more than any single boom, shaped how the largest city in Washington grew.

Where is Seattle?

Seattle stands on a narrow isthmus in Washington, hemmed between the salt water of Puget Sound and the fresh water of Lake Washington. Across roughly 369 square kilometres its streets climb a run of steep hills that drop away to both shores. Water surrounds it on two sides.

That double waterfront, backed by distant mountains and evergreen forest, gives the Emerald City its setting and its name. Ferries cross the Sound from the western piers.

What is the climate of Seattle?

Seattle has a mild, marine climate shaped by the water on either side. Long grey winters bring steady rain and cloud off Puget Sound, keeping the surrounding forests deep green through the cool half of the year. Summers turn dry and pleasantly warm.

Snow stays rare at sea level. The wet, temperate air that gives the Emerald City its evergreen hills defines far more of the year than frost or heat ever do, a pattern typical of the Pacific Northwest coast. Cloud is the norm.

How do you get to Seattle?

Seattle is reached by a major international airport and by the interstate corridor that runs the length of western Washington. Most visitors arrive by air or road. A light-rail line then links the terminal straight to the downtown centre near the Seattle Art Museum, walkable between the hills and the water.

Ferries add a scenic approach across Puget Sound from the west. Getting around the compact core is simple once you land.