TheAmericanTravelProject
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We visited Seattle (for the second time) in the Summer of 2014. We were flying back from a trip to Hawaii, and Seattle was our stopover point before flying home to the East Coast. You can read more about our trip itinerary here. We spent 4 nights in the city, and we kept ourselves very busy seeing the sights. Seattle is a fabulous city for a family trip. There is so much do to, and the kids absolutely loved it. My son is asking if we can go back next summer!
Generally when I am writing “Things to Do” in various places, I will only write about things we actually did or places we visited, unless otherwise noted. I prefer to read trip reports or reviews from a first-hand point of view, so that is also how I like to write them.
10 Things to Do in Seattle with Kids
1. Seattle Center
Seattle Center is like a practical one-stop shop for days of fun and entertainment while visiting Seattle. Our hotel was within easy walking distance of Seattle Center, so we were able to visit multiple times to go to different attractions. The most famous landmark in Seattle, the Space Needle, is the most obvious attraction here. However, there are so many other things to do within Seattle Center (see the rest of my list for the ones we did do).
While we were in town, there were 2 different events going on at Seattle Center that were of interest to us. One was a huge food and drink festival, and the other was a Nintendo event. We went to both, and they were lots of fun. It’s not every day that you can get your photo taken with Mario, Luigi, and Kirby and five minutes later eat a deep fried ball of mac and cheese while drinking wine. It seems like there are lots of events happening there, so check out the schedule here to see what is going on during your visit.
At the Nintendo Tour 2014 – Seattle Center
A Food Festival at the Seattle Center
Something we did NOT do in the Seattle Center, but that looked intriguing, was the Chihuly Gardens and Glass Museum. If it was an adults only trip, I would have done this for sure. But trying to keep my kids from bumping into priceless glass sculptures for hours is not my idea of a fun time.
As I have said before, we love a good science museum, and this one did not disappoint. There were lots of hands-on learning exhibits. Our family favorite was the butterfly exhibit, where you go into a room full of butterflies and they land all over you. It’s creepy and amazing at the same time to have an enormous (yet beautiful) butterfly crawling on your head. And hands, back, maybe even your face. If you’re lucky.
We were able to use our reciprocal museum benefit (that I wrote about here) from our Maryland Science Center annual pass, and we got in for free.
3. Underground Tour
A friend had suggested that we take this tour, otherwise I think that we would have overlooked it. I am so glad that he told us about it, because it was fantastic. We had a great tour guide, who gave us a history lesson about how Seattle was originally built on top of soggy land, covered in excrement, and then burned to the ground because of alcohol, fire, grease, and water (that’s my, mostly inaccurate, cliff notes version of the story she told). We then got to walk down under the sidewalks of current day Seattle to see what it was like a long time ago, before the new stuff was built right on top of the old stuff. It’s pretty freaky down there, and also extremely interesting. Even the kids were paying attention.
How do I know they were paying attention? Shortly after we got home from vacation, we had a grease fire in our kitchen. And my daughter said “don’t pour water on it mom, or our house will burn down just like Seattle did!” Hands-on learning at its finest.
Tip: There is a bar/cafe where the tour begins. We had a drink there & ordered some snacks for the kids while we were waiting for the tour to start. Because we had ordered something, we were given a card to present at the door which gave us ‘priority seating’ for the seated portion of the tour. Not really necessary, but an unexpected perk nonetheless.
We were told that this is the most photographed spot in all of Seattle. My first thought was…how would anyone take statistics on that? My second thought was….then I am NOT going to take a photo of it. But the peer pressure was too intense, and it’s a really cool photo. Pike Place Market is a Seattle institution. Yes, there are billions of tourists there & it can get very crowded. But the food choices are abundant (and the ones we tried were excellent). The flowers are so gorgeous and cheap. If I lived in Seattle I would always have fresh flowers at home. There are many vendors selling cherries (so good) & other fruit, lots of fresh fish (including the famous fish market), the original Starbucks, some incredible cheese, greek yogurt, and the best donuts ever….ok now I’m hungry.
The original Starbucks
Pike Place Fish Market
The best donuts ever! At Pike Place Market
5. The Seattle Gum Wall
This is one of those weird and disgusting things that you almost have to see, especially if your kids are old enough to be trusted not to actually eat any of the chewed up gum stuck all over the wall. You have to use your judgement on that one, because just the thought of that happening is enough to give me nightmares. My kids are old enough, plus they thought this was really cool. We had seen Bubblegum Alley in San Louis Obispo the summer prior, so we are pretty much gum wall experts at this point. In fact, we are considering starting one in our town (just don’t tell anyone it was us).
The Gum Wall in Seattle is located in Post Alley, right next to Pike Place Market. PS) Don’t forget to bring some gum to add your DNA to the wall. We bought some in the market before we went over to the wall.
6. Ride the Ducks
The last time we had visited Seattle, we rode the ferry to Bainbridge Island, which is a great way to get out on the water and enjoy some great views of Seattle. This time, since the kids were with us, we decided to try the Ride the Ducks tour instead. It was fun and interactive. The kids got “quackers”, which are whistles shaped like duck beaks that make quacking noises. Annoying, yes. But worth the annoyance because the kids really enjoyed it.
Our guide was funny and informative, so we got to learn some Seattle history as we drove around seeing the sights. Then we drove right into Lake Union, and our vehicle became a boat. The kids thought that was pretty cool. Lake Union is beautiful, and the houseboats are interesting. You can see the one from the movie ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ and lots of other ultra-expensive houseboats…and you can wonder, if you had that much money, would you buy a houseboat in Seattle or a beach house in Hawaii (my choice would be the latter).
Lake Union, Seattle
7. Alki Beach
We lucked out with some really nice and sunny weather while we were in Seattle, so we decided to go over to West Seattle to visit Alki Beach Park and eat at the seafood restaurant Salty’s. We used our Uber credit to get from downtown Seattle to Salty’s (we can each get a free Uber ride if you sign up using my link here). You can also take a water taxi to get to West Seattle from Downtown Seattle.
The meal at Salty’s was excellent. The seafood choices are great, and the views are spectacular. After we ate, we decided we wanted to walk over to Alki Beach Park to see what a beach in Seattle looks like. The walk was farther than we expected (2.2 miles along the waterfront), but it was really beautiful. The views of Seattle from the west side are gorgeous, and the silver lining was that we got some exercise. The path is wide and easy to walk, and there are places to rent bikes (and tons of bike riders).
By the time we got to Alki Beach, we were tired and sweaty. The kids’ expectations for this beach were obviously way too high (after having just gotten to Seattle following 2 weeks in Hawaii). They declared that this was the worst beach that they have ever been to. I tried explaining that it was more about the experience of getting there and seeing the views, but they weren’t buying it.
The beach was kind of dirty the day that we were there. It is way too cold to swim (we knew that ahead of time & had not planned on swimming), and there was lots of red seaweed looking stuff in the water, which made even putting our feet in the water a non-option. Oh well. At least it wasn’t raining.
Seattle Mariners Safeco Field
My son decided recently that he has a goal of going to all 30 ballparks, so we happily obliged him by going to a Seattle Mariners game while we were in town. We again lucked out with some great weather. We weren’t sure about our schedule ahead of time, so we bought tickets at the last minute on StubHub. It worked out perfectly. The stadium was nice, and my son can cross that one off of his list.
9. Walking Around Town & Window Shopping
We find that traveling with kids is easier if we take the time out to just let them wander and play, and Seattle was a great city for that kind of exploration. There are different areas to visit, and lots of interesting things to stumble upon. One day, we took the monorail from Seattle Center to Westlake Center. Westlake Center is essentially a mall with shops and restaurants. We enjoyed browsing around for a bit, especially the store Marbles: The Brain Store, which has awesome games to play with. Right outside of Westlake Center is a small park with things to climb on and a cool water walkway. There is also a See’s Candy store right there, so it’s a good place for a chocolate break.
The Waterfront is also a great place for walking and exploring. We visited Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, which has been around since 1899. We spent lots of time looking at all of the odd and fascinating things that they have in there (shrunken heads, mummies, taxidermy). It is part museum and part store, and full of quirks.
The waterfront area also has a giant ferris wheel, the Seattle Aquarium, and is the launching point for the ferries and many boat tours.
There are lots of huge sculptures throughout the city as part of the Olympic Sculpture Park. We enjoyed seeing them (and climbing on the ones that were accessible for climbing). Seattle also has many other park areas to explore as well, such as Kerry Park.
No visit to Seattle would be complete without a visit to the Space Needle. It is a major tourist attraction, but also one that is iconic and provides some amazing views. Ever since my son was very little, he would look at our photos of the Space Needle (taken on our first trip to Seattle, before the kids were born), and he’d say that he wanted to go to see it. We decided to not only visit the Space Needle, but to eat lunch in the revolving restaurant there. SkyCity Restaurant sits 500 feet up in the air, with views of Seattle all around. We made reservations a few days in advance, but I would suggest making them farther in advance if you have a specific day and time in mind. We were somewhat flexible, so we were able to just take whatever was available during our visit.
We were luckily seated at one of the tables right in front of the windows. I would recommend asking for a window seat, and even waiting if you have to. Especially with kids, because they give you sticky notes to put on the windows (you can see them in the photo above). People write questions and things on the notes and stick them to the window. As the restaurant revolves, the notes will pass your table. You take the note off & write your answer and put it back for the next people to do the same. The kids had so much fun doing this. We felt bad for the kids that were not seated at the window seats because you could tell that they wanted to participate, but it was impossible from where they were sitting.
The food was way better than I expected, and the prices were more reasonable as well. I had thought that it would be a tourist-trap sort of place, with boring overpriced food. I was totally wrong. The food was actually very good, and the menu was interesting. The food isn’t cheap, but you are getting a great meal, a fabulous view, and you get to visit the Observation Deck for free (as a paying restaurant customer).
We loved our 4 days in Seattle, and we hope to go back someday. There are so many things to do and never enough time to do them all!
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