But see having to memorize a pnemonic device to remember the order of the streets isn’t what I would call “easy to navigate”. Coming from Salt Lake City where everything was on a grid and the streets were coordinates like 300E 4500S makes Seattle seem like it was mapped out by a drunken mule with a poor sense of direction and named by throwing darts at a board :).
But it’s fun!!
One help is the hills and bodies of water. At the very least they can give you a sense of what direction you ought to be heading.
Well, now… we figured out fairly quickly that streets run east-west and avenues run north-south. If NE is before the name, it runs east-west and if after the name it runs north-south.
Mama’s in Belltown has the best Mexican I’ve found. I’m from So.Cal. so I’m really picky.
Kirkland is lovely; Redmond has Microsoft but I don’t hold that against the city ha ha Sammamish is quite nice but pricey. However, as has been said, prices are dropping, so who knows. Bothell is a quirky place and has some nice neighborhoods. Woodinville is a small town, as well. There are some nice neighborhoods in the unincorporated areas of Woodinville. It became a city in '93, so it’s going through growing pains, but it has its charm. Not to mention about 40 wineries, most of which are very small and have limited offerings, but some of the best wine in the world. drool I can think of several that I love but can’t really afford, they can be pricey for some of us, others don’t think twice. Chateau Ste. Michelle and Columbia are the two large wineries, both offering lovely reds and whites, and have nice gift shops.
If I think of anything else, I’ll post again.
It’s not Mexican, but you might want to check out Guanaco’s Tacos Pupuseria in the U-District. I know nothing about Salvadorean food, but this place is both yummy (IMO) and cheap, so it may be worth a visit.
I’m from LA and I would strongly disagree with this.
In LA if there is an accident, you can get off the freeway, go 1/2 a mile to one side or the other of the freeway and parallel it on a surface street.
That is somewhat more difficult when there is water on both sides of the freeway.
Seattle traffic truly sucks. Seattle and Portland share the same problem. Back in the 1950s and 1960 when the rest of the country was building freeways, they took the “If we don’t make it easy to get around, nobody will move here to our little corner of paradise” and they didn’t build many (any) freeways.
The problem is everybody moved there anyway, and now there is no money or land to build more freeways.
Seattle is a great town, but get a place that near work. Trust me on this.
Seattle proper is not too bad to get around in, because the streets are actually a grid. The Eastside is a nightmare, because the streets are named like a grid, but they actually meander all over the place. You can be on a minor street and have its name change four times in a mile because it wound around and had to be renamed at each turn to match the grid. The directions to our old house (not where we live now) went “After you get off I-90, at the roundabout, take the first W. Lake Sammamish Parkway, not the second W. Lake Sammamish Parkway. Turn left at 188th. Turn left at 43rd, which turns into 187th. Turn left at 42nd, which turns into 186th.”
I agree with Rick. I’m from L.A. (obviously) and after five years of living in Washington I’m still convinced that Seattle traffic is worse; and for the reasons Rick points out.
Another thing about motoring in Southern California is that the CHP seem to have a ‘Don’t be a jerk’ rule. They usually seemed to turn a blind eye to speeding, as long as everyone was moving about the same speed. The aggressive drivers who were being jerks tended to be the ones I saw being pulled over, rather than people who were ‘just keeping up with traffic’. Washington State Police seem much more ready to pull someone over just for speeding.
And people up here tend to drive five mph under the speed limit. Where I live they lower the speed limit along the beach to 20 mph; and believe me, it’s enforced. (Fortunately I haven’t been caught yet.) The speed limit there goes back up to 35 mph after Labor Day, but even now people drive 25 along the beach. On the freeway if there’s a State Police that has someone pulled over on the northbound side, people on the southbound side will hit the brakes. I thought L.A. gawker’s block was bad. It’s worse up here.
Eh. Just get a GPS and the navigation becomes a non-issue (mostly – mine does like to try to send me on an impossible route through Ballard coming off the freeway).
Ok, I’m sorry, but I think that is a big exaggeration. I’ve lived here for ten years. The only times I’ve ever seen the normal flow of traffic go below the speed limit is when it’s impeded by something (too much traffic, weather, accident, etc.). People don’t drive nearly as fast as they do in LA (yes, I have driven in LA), and traffic does get far more messed up than it should for silly things like a bit of rain, but it’s completely untrue that the normal speed is 5 mph under the speed limit.
Traffic can be bad, and as Rick said, there aren’t as many workable alternate routes as there are elsewhere. On the commutes I’ve driven, the average traffic volume over the course of a week is lower than I’ve experienced in LA, but when an “incident” like an accident or a disabled vehicle happens, it really screws things up and there’s no way around it.
In any case, if you find out where you’re working first and then choose somewhere reasonable to live, it shouldn’t be a major issue. My commute is about six miles, and I have three reasonable routes (the freeway and two surface street routes). It’s almost never a problem.
Up this way it’s certainly true. (Except Canadians. They’re either slow, or they’re rocketing.) I spend a lot of time on the road, and people up here are definitely slowpokes.
There are a couple of wrinkles to this, though. The downtown-ish area is actually about three separate grids at somewhat different angles. If you’re within one grid, you’re fine, but moving to a different grid changes the frame of reference.
And then the multitude of hills means that a lot of streets aren’t continuous (for example, E. Thomas west of Madison isn’t connected to E. Thomas east of Madison). The first time I followed a street that suddenly turned into a pedestrian stairway for one block before continuing as a street again was a bit of an eye-opener.
ETA: And yes, people often drive under the speed limit.
Ok, so since the housing issue is a bit up in the air, let’s talk about culture.
Museums? Zoo? Aquarium?
Best movie theater (have the 21 and over movie theaters with full restaurants made it out there)? Must see gem shows?
Should I not go downtown after 9pm?
Thanks!
A plug for my own neighborhood, if I may. I’ve lived on Capitol Hill since moving to Seattle in 1996, and I love it. It’s close to downtown and it has housing, little restaurants, grocery stores, and pretty much everything else you say you’re looking for (except affordable housing; we can live here only because we rent). No shortage of hip young professionals, though I hear a lot of them are living in Ballard these days.
Seattle has a zoo and an aquarium. Not my thing, but people seem to like them. The Seattle Art Museum and Seattle Asian Art Museum seem good, and I enjoy the Frye Museum of Art, which has the added benefit of being free. Coupla nice little museums on the University of Washington campus too.
Central Cinema serves food and has an over-21 screening, but the best movie theaters (imho) are Northwest Film Forum, SIFF Cinema, Grand Illusion, and the Landmark chain (about a half-dozen theaters with different names around the city). The Seattle International Film Festival, every May-June, is huge and excellent. I think Seattle is a great movie town.
Seattle’s Best Coffee, Tully’s, or Starbucks, I guess. There are great local joints.
Oh, I should comment on driving since everyone else has. So far I have refused to take any job where I would have to commute by car. Non-commute driving isn’t so terrible, though.
There’s also Gold Class Cinemas with food and cocktails, but the tickets are spendy (I think around $30). I haven’t ever been there.
I’ve never had a major problem downtown at night. There are occasional crime problems, but when I lived in Belltown, I walked all around downtown late at night and always felt safe. I’m sure you can find trouble if you go looking for it, of course. One thing I noticed is that the crime (and gatherings of shady characters) differed dramatically block by block. For example, there were some blocks of 3rd Ave that tended to attract people who seemed to be up to no good, while a block over on 4th was totally fine. But again, even walking through the questionable areas on 3rd, I just minded my own business and never had a problem at all. Also, I’d say that this is all relative – the “questionable” areas of downtown Seattle are really nothing compared to those in some other cities.
It has been over four years since I lived downtown, so things may have changed a bit. I would definitely say that downtown is not the “worst” part of town from a crime or safety perspective.
The Aquarium is nice but limited to mainly local fish so no dolphins or anything. The Zoos are nice, the museums are nice as well and tend to get in good attractions on a regular basis. There are a lot of smaller galleries in the Pioneer Square area as well.
For a fairly big city downtown is pretty safe, I’ve seen a few crazies around Pioneer Square later at night but I have rarely if ever felt in danger (even when I am in a bad state myself). There are a lot of worse areas of town than downtown Seattle. You see a lot more crime in White Center, Federal Way and Tacoma than Seattle proper.
There are some nice theaters, I’ve not really done any of the 21-over food and movie places but we have a few. Lots of good options theater wise though running from places to go see blockbusters, IMax, 3d, indie and revival houses.
I’ll be moving to Seattle or Portland over the next 3-5 years, maybe sooner. (It depends upon the economy). My first choice is Portland, but my company’s Portland office may not be viable for more employees when I’m ready to leave, so Seattle will be next on my list. I love the Seattle area, I was born in Auburn, (which I think is now a suburb of Seattle?), and lived there until I was in 5th grade when our family moved to Anchorage. I’ve visited many times over the years and don’t mind the rain at all (what do you think it does in Anchorage summers most of the time? :D).
Sorry for the blathering, I just wanted to say THANKS to all who are chiming in here, this is great information.
I’ve never spent any time in Portland; but I’ve driven through it a few times in the Summer, and it can get freakin’ HOT!
I have to say though, that when I visit my friend in Coos Bay I always admire her choice of locations.
I love Portland! I’d like to move there because that’s where my daughter’s family is (wish I could go NOW, my SIL is deploying to Afghanistan in less than a month), but if I had my druthers, I’d really rather live in Seattle since the rainy weather is more what I’m used to.
Either one is good though, Seattle is only about 3 or 4 hours away from where my daughter lives (maybe that’s a better thing, I LOVE my grandbaby, but escape might me nice too :D). At least according to mapquest it is, maybe someone can set me straight on that one?
Updates:
It looks like my current choices are actually Lacey, WA (outside Olympia) or Federal Way, WA, not Seattle proper.
I’m totally cool with living near where I work, provided the neighborhood isn’t outright shady. I’ve been doing the shady neighborhood thing for a while here in California and I’m tired of it. So, while our ideal neighborhood would be little houses next to little artsy shops next to little grocery stores, we won’t cry if we end up with something closer to urban sprawl.
Opinions?
Side question: The potential employer wants us to come up and visit, but we’re going to be squeezing every penny and likely borrowing from family just to drive us, the pets, and enough clothes to start the job. How weird is it to say “Thanks, but I’d just like to sign a contract now”? Will I totally creep them out?