I’m going to Seattle for a week next Saturday. What do you all recommend for activities?
Note: as much as I’d love to go hiking, the friends I am visiting are just about the kind of folks you hear stories of being melded with their couch. So not much walking for them, unfortunately.
Their have probably been prior threads on this. However, off the top of my head
Washington Park Arboretum. Always a treat, but especially this time of year. Easy trails in the woods and along the water. Great views.
A trip to Bremerton or Bainbridge Island on the Washington State Ferries. Best way to see the Sound.
Ballard Locks. Fun. Too early for the Salmon run, but very interesting if you like boats and engineering.
The Pike Place market (I guess). Doesn’t do too much for me, but it’s popular.
Snoqualmie Falls are pretty cool, if you want to get out of town. Good eating at the hotel restaurant there.
Catch a Mariners Game. Their ballpark is one of the best in MLB.
Museum of Flight, just South of Downtown. Self explanatory.
Space Needle. Enough said
Wander around Capital Hill, Queen Anne, or Madison Park neighborhoods.
I, too, recommend the Arboretum. Now would be a great time to stroll along Azalea Way, a loooong lawn surrounded with azaleas and rhodies, most of which will be in full bloom right now. Check out the Japanese Gardens there, too. And you can stroll along the backwaters of Lake Washington’s Union Bay there, as well. Or, you could rent a rowboat or canoe at the U of W’s Waterfront Activities Center and paddle them.
As Procrustus said, the walking is easy, but if even that is too much for the couch potatoes, just the drive through the Arboretum is really nice.
Snoqualmie Falls is great, especially after a good rain. It’s far enough out of the city to really feel like country but near enough that it makes an nice afternoon’s outing. While you’re in the area(ish) you can take a tour of Chateau St. Michelle and/or the Redhook Brewery, which is right across the street.
I also second the ferries. In addition to the Bremerton and Bainbridge runs, I recommend going to Vashon Island. You get the ferry in West Seattle at Fauntleroy. Vashon just a nice island to wander around. Visit Point Robinson for a little walk on the beach, maybe check out the Heron’s Nest Art Gallery and have lunch in the town of Vashon or Burton, just down the road.
When you are ready to leave, you might want to take the ferry over to Southworth, then wend your way over to Port Orchard and thence to Bremerton and take the ferry from there back to Seattle. It’s a lovely hour-long ride that I’m sure you will enjoy.
If you want to see nature without having to walk in it, Chuckanut drive is amazing. It’s maybe an hour and a half out of Seattle, but it makes for a great day. If you guys like oysters, even better. You can buy them direct from the farmers at about half the normal price. There are some really good restaurants too.
If you’re into things like the Space Needle, you may also want to check out the Science Center and Experience Music Project. They’re all quite close together.
Consider Ride the Ducks and maybe also the Underground Tour. They’re touristy as hell, but fun.
I’ll also second Redhook. It’s where I take all of our out of town guests. Make sure to take the tour - $1 gets you a 5 oz glass and 6 samples of beer to fill it with. Designate a driver. 
Oh, and as far as I’m concerned, the best pizza ever is at Sparta’s. There is no option for extra cheese because they simply can’t fit any more on there. Then they bake the cheese to a golden brown.
Do you like espresso? If so, Seattle is a good city to see how much of it you can drink before your heart explodes. They sure pull fabulous shots there.
I like ferry rides, and you can cross the sound to Bainbridge Island via ferry for a day trip and have fun exploring by car.
REI has its headquarters store there, so even if you’re not going hiking you can shop in this big, well-stocked store for some cool hiking goods.
Oh, and here’s a nifty webcam to help you scan the area ahead of time. You can see the aforementioned Bainbridge ferries actively crossing all day.
Here’s a thread from last year with some good suggestions. I like the Experience Music Project museum if you are into music.
Good to see I’m consistent
I’ll second Ride the Ducks and the Underground Tour - they’re both a fun way to spend an hour and a half, and the latter is very educational as to the early history of the town. EMP, as mentioned above, is also great - it’s best known for its music exhibits, but it also has a science fiction museum in the basement, which is currently running an exhibition of costumes from the original Star Wars trilogy.
If you’re willing to try some more exotic cuisine than the typical local grub, make your way to the International District (I.e. Chinatown) in the shadow of Safeco Field, where you can find Samurai Noodle, a hole-in-the-wall ramen restaurant that will make you forget that you ever thought ramen was just a cheap dish for broke college students. If you’re braver still, right around the corner is Boiling Point, a Taiwanese hotpot restaurant which usually has a wait just to get in and serves soups with such exotic ingredients as pork-stuffed fishballs, blood sausage, and tripe over portable gas burners that keep it boiling hot while you eat.
I would be remiss if I didn’t recommend heading down to Pike Place Market and spending an hour or so just wandering around even if you don’t intend on buying anything - it has buskers, people-watching bar none, beautiful views of the waterfront, the first Starbucks in the world, cafes featuring pretty much every cuisine imaginable (I recommend “Biscuit Bitch”, a restaurant inside a coffee house which serves psychobilly biscuits & gravy topped with such things as hot links, jalapenos, cream cheese, bacon, grits, overeasy eggs, Nutella, and everything else under the Sun) as well as craft booths, and several of the fresh fish & meat vendors there will ship their stuff overnight back to your hometown for an extra charge if you happen to espy a porterhouse too utterly amazing to pass up.
Probably just me, but I found Pike Market to be utter crap and a waste of time. Space Needle was cool, however.
Aw, I like the Market and now would be a very good time to visit. 99% of the seller’s stalls will be in use so you’ll get the full feel of the place but it won’t be jam-packed with tourists just yet. A few weeks from now…oy vey!
If you’d like a taste of the Market on a smaller scale, try one of the farmer’s markets listed here. They’re nice, easy strolls and you get to take some of the local color, as well.
Another nice ferry trip would be driving north to Everett and catching one over to Whidbey Island. Penn Cove oysters are grown there and you can find restaurants in Coupeville and other spots on the island that serve them. After lunch, you can continue north to Deception Pass, which is a beautiful and dramatic spot to take in the scenery. After you cross, it’s not hard to find your way to I-5 and head on back home. This is a full day trip, by the way.
Another option is to drive about halfway up Whidbey and catch another ferry over to Port Townsend, a wonderful town still full of Victorian charm. You could make this an overnight trip, if you wanted, and stay at one of the many B&B’s or a hotel. The Tides Inn, on the waterfront, is where part of An Officer and a Gentleman was filmed. Just on the edge of town is Fort Worden, where much of the rest of the movie was made.
Because the Whidbey to Port Townsend ferry route crosses more open water than the rest of the routes, it can be a bit wilder that the others. On the other hand, this and the one going to the San Juan Islands give you a greater chance to spot orca whales. If you are really lucky, you might even see one of the few grey whales that venture into Puget Sound this time of year.
The Port Townsend landing is shallow, so during minus tides they have to cancel the runs. We have minus tides on the 2nd and 3rd of May and I see on theferries’ official site that they’ve decided to cancel all runs on both days so they can do work on the dock on the Whidbey side, so if you decide to go, plan for another day. This is the only route that is affected by the tides, the way.
Thanks for all the suggestions. Combined with my friends ideas, this should be enough for a full and enjoyable trip.
Drive to Port Townsend. Take a ferry to one of the San Juan Islands. Drive up to Vancouver BC for the day.
Our conference had its event at the Museum of Flight, and it was awesome. A reporter from the trade press who spends most of his life at conferences said it was the best one he’d ever been to.
Another vote against Pike’s Market. I had enjoyed it the first time I went, but I went back during the conference, well out of tourist season, and was unimpressed. It’s not like you as a tourist can buy any fish there.
The Underground tour is good for the history but there is not a lot to see.
We had brunch for our anniversary at the top of the Space Needle. Something I’d only do once. However I’d take the ferry again.
At the Museum of Flight, there’s a large patio out back where you can watch the planes come and go at Boeing Field. Even if you don’t pay to see the museum, you can grab something at the cafeteria and hang out there. But, of course, you’ll want to see the museum as it’s pretty cool in there. There are also several biplanes nearby that you can pay to go up in. That would sure be a blast.
If you go to the Ballard Locks, you could stop at the Fisherman’s Terminal and walk the docks. According to this website, I see that the Rollo from Deadliest Catch is in port right now. There’s a good restaurant at the terminal, too. It’s been a few years but we’ve had a few nice meals there.
Just FYI, I went to the Space Needle, the EMP museum, the Pompeii exhibit at the PacSci center, took the ferry to Bremerton for the Puget Sound Navy Museum and the USS Turner Joy, The Museum of Flight, Pike Place Market, the Aquarium, the Underground Tour, the MOHAI and some of Lake Union in general.
And then on the second day…
and what did you think?
You could take the Bainbridge ferry, drive around the neighborhoods on the Kitsap Peninsula, see an Open House sign, go to the Open House, and put an offer on the place.
That’s what I did last time I went to Seattle, anyway 
I enjoyed my time there very much. It is really the opposite of Florida in every way.
I enjoyed my time there very much. It is really the opposite of Florida in every way. The friends I was visiting have a real problem with the liberal culture, calling the place “judgmental” and “passive-aggressive.” This gave me a wry laugh considering how much the kettle was calling the cauldron black. What they really have a problem with is that Seattle has expectations of behavior that require more effort than in Florida. And that is apparently “infringin’ on their rights.”
One thing I didn’t enjoy was that I didn’t get to just walk around the town. I especially wanted to do a circumnavigation of Lake Union. But my friend is just not physically capable of that level of effort so we relaxed at the MOHAI while waiting for our other friend.