Planning a family trip to Seattle...

[dbishopbliss]

Its been a while since I've posted. The family wants to visit Seattle. My condition is that I get to go out to Bottlehead HQ one day.

Generally, we like to use services like HomeAway, VRBO, etc for accomodations. However, I don't really know much about the Seattle area. Can you someone recommend an area to use as "home base" for our stay. We want to do most of the urban activities (museums, zoo, food tours) more than the outdoor types of stuff. My girls aren't much for hiking. I'm thinking closer to downtown area is better, but when I look at a map, I'm not really sure where "downtown" is. 

So, any guidance that you folks can give is welcome.

[bombay317]

There are lots of different neighborhoods in Seattle.  Also of note, the Bottlehead HQ is probably a day trip away from Seattle.  It is located on Bainbridge Island and you would have to take the ferry and drive to them.  Picking a neighborhood in Seattle is like picking the type of thing that you like doing and staying near it.  There are places like Capitol Hill which has a lot of cool things to do.  Fremont is also really neat.  If you get a rental car, all of this stuff would be accessible.

The classic downtown tourist area is Pikes Place Market, and really close to all that are all the downtown attractions like the SAM, the symphony, the library (which is a Rem Koolhaas work of art in of itself), and all the shopping malls you could quickly soon forget.

Another "downtown" Seattle attraction area is the Space needle with the EMP which is pretty much in Lower Queen Anne.

What do you like to do with your family?  I would suggest searching out some of those things and then pick a location that is centrally located for you to do those things on a daily basis, and then take larger day trips to places like Bainbridge Island, and also consider going wine tasting on Whidbey Island.  I really like Whidbey Island Winery because they have great wine and a Maine Coon cat.

[RayP]

Hi David,

I visited Seattle several years ago and as usual, blogged it. You can read about my trip to Bottlehead HQ here. It's worth the trip.

http://ratbagp.blogspot.com.es/2013/09/a-visit-to-bainbridge-island-and.html

The blog also contains other entries for typical touristy things we did in Seattle.

ray

[Paul Birkeland]

For what you want to do, I would recommend staying south of the ship canal and north of the stadiums.  Capitol Hill, Queen Anne, Belltown, Downtown, Madison Park, and Madrona should all do the job nicely.