Hey guys and welcome back to yet another travel post! I am so excited to share some of my seattle trip with you! Don’t you just love to travel? I know I do and one of my goals for this year is to get out and see the world as much as possible. The only way I like to spend my birthday is going somewhere I have never been before which is exactly what I did this year.
Image courtesy of King County Metro Online
We did not have the best experience with booking flights for this trip and it was a first for us. Make sure to double and triple check the dates and times for your flights before you forget about them because if you accidentally click on the wrong date you could be in a world of hurt. Pro Tip: check the confirmation that is sent to your email directly after you book your flights to make sure everything looks okay. If you accidentally did book for the wrong date or time you can usually call the airline and rebook without additional fees. If they see that you booked 5 minutes before calling them they are usually more forgiving than if you booked two months prior.
Seattle was always on my bucket list of places to go and I am so glad that I was able to check it off that list this past winter. Even though it was cold and dreary it is still a beautiful city that has a lot to offer. We had a blast hopping from restaurant to restaurant and finding new places to explore. We had luck with the weather and it didn’t rain on us while we were out and about which was very appreciated. We decided to not rent a car and spent the weekend exploring the city on foot. Even though our feet were definitely tired at the end of the weekend we saw so much more of the city on foot and using public transportation was a breeze.
Which brings me to my next topic- Seattle has excellent public transportation for a west coast city. We took the link light rail from the airport to downtown Seattle in around 30 minutes and then jumped on the Streetcar to our hotel, The Pan Pacific.
Picture of Exhibit at Chihuly Garden and Glass
The Pan Pacific had excellent customer service and the room was well appointed. If you are first-time visitors to Seattle I would definitely recommend the hotel. I believe they even offered free parking if you had a rental but don’t quote me on that as we did not use parking at the hotel. When we arrived it was well before the usual check-in time of 3 PM but they switched us to a top floor suite anyway and I didn’t even call ahead of time. We mentioned that we had never been to Seattle before and that it was my birthday weekend and the concierge switched into high gear pointing out all the must-see things in Seattle and telling us where we shouldn’t go. He made us feel very welcomed and relaxed with the whole process of checking in and getting settled. We had a great view of Seattle with a partial view of the Space Needle which was awesome at night. Tip: Do not even think about touching any of the alcohol or treats in the mini fridge in your room. Charles did not read the signage before picking up one of the bottles which automatically charges your card on file. I did not really mind because it wasn’t outrageously priced but just keep that trick in mind if you ever stay at the Pan Pacific. There are signs that give you fair warning as well if you are curious.
We also made a stop at Seattle’s Chihuly Exhibit on one of our last days in the city. Dale Chihuly was born in Washington and as such the museum receives a large amount of his work. I would definitely recommend that you take the time to stop by. The Exhibit is directly across from The Space Needle which is also right by the main station for the Monorail which is very convenient if you do not want to walk back to the main area of downtown. You can see his work featured in some of the pictures in this post!
View from Seattle’s Great Wheel
Another thing that concerned me before going to the rainy city was the safety of downtown since this is mainly where we stayed during our trip. I have had friends in the past tell me that the homeless in downtown Seattle are extremely aggressive and one of my coworkers even told me one of them grabbed her skirt when passing by. I definitely had no intention of being grabbed at on my birthday weekend. If you have heard the same rumors I believe them to be false. We walked at least 5 miles every day that we were there and never once saw hoards of homeless. We probably saw a handful but that is typical of every large city and they did not bother us at all. They usually just smiled and said hello and kept on their way. We did have a couple ask us for change but we respectfully said no and then they left us alone. We even left a restaurant after 10 o’clock one night and we barely even saw a soul on our walk back to the hotel. I would say Seattle is a pretty safe city compared to all the major US cities I have traveled to. Would you agree? Did you feel safe walking around Seattle?
We also came across Amazon’s glass domes in downtown while we were walking back to our hotel. We tried to go in but unfortunately, they are only open to Amazon’s employees as it is actually where they work! What a cool place to work, right?! They do have an informational gallery at the bottom of the domes if are interested in learning about their construction and concept!
I am splitting this post in two. Next post will cover all the tasty places we went to eat! I will leave all links below unless they are otherwise in the post itself.
Happy travels,
Lizzy
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