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38 places, and an honest answer on how long each deserves.
Not a top-ten list. This is the working list our drivers plan from: the time on the ground each place actually needs, the drive to reach it, and what shuts at five. Tap any of them into a day on the home page.
In the cityShort stops, about twelve minutes of driving between each.
1h 15mPike Place Market
Nine acres of fishmongers, farm stalls and the first Starbucks.
0h 15mKerry Park
The view on every Seattle postcard — a 15-minute stop, and worth it.
1h 15mSpace Needle
Built for a World's Fair in 400 days, and never taken down.
1h 15mChihuly Garden and Glass
Dale Chihuly's glass, indoors and out, at the foot of the Needle.
1h 30mMoPOP
Frank Gehry's crumpled-guitar building — music, sci-fi and horror inside.
0h 40mBallard Locks
Boats climb 26 feet between salt and fresh water, and salmon climb beside them.
0h 25mPioneer Square
The original Seattle — burned down in 1889, rebuilt in brick within a year.
0h 15mFremont Troll
An eighteen-foot concrete troll clutching a real Volkswagen Beetle.
0h 30mGas Works Park
A rusting gasification plant kept as sculpture, on the best lawn in Seattle.
0h 35mThe waterfront & Overlook Walk
The rebuilt central waterfront — and a walkway most itineraries haven't caught up with.
0h 30mSeattle Great Wheel
A 175-foot observation wheel hanging out over Elliott Bay.
1h 00mDiscovery Park
The city's biggest park, a beach, and an 1881 lighthouse at the point.
0h 45mAlki Beach
Where the Denny Party landed in 1851, and the best view back at the skyline.
3h 00mMuseum of Flight
Concorde, the first Air Force One, a Blackbird, and the original Boeing plant.
0h 45mSmith Tower
The city's first skyscraper, with brass lifts and a speakeasy at the top.
0h 45mSeattle Japanese Garden
A formal stroll garden in the Arboretum, designed by Juki Iida in 1960.
0h 40mVolunteer Park
An Olmsted park on Capitol Hill with a Victorian glasshouse and a water-tower view.
0h 30mThe UW Quad
Thirty Yoshino cherry trees, Gothic stone, and about ten days a year of chaos.
0h 20mThe Amazon Spheres
Three glass domes of cloud-forest planting in the middle of a tech campus.
0h 20mThe first Starbucks
The oldest surviving Starbucks store, and a queue to match.
1h 10mThe Elliott Bay ferry
The cheapest boat ride with the best view in Washington State.
Out of the cityHalf a day. Times include the drive out and back.
2h 15mSnoqualmie Falls
A 268-foot waterfall forty minutes from downtown, with a lodge on the lip.
4h 00mWoodinville wine country
Washington's wine in one valley, thirty minutes from the city, all of it indoors.
3h 50mBoeing Future of Flight
The largest building in the world by volume, with a tour that goes inside it.
2h 40mBainbridge Island
A ferry ride, a harbour town, and the skyline from the water on the way back.
3h 20mMuseum of Glass, Tacoma
A working hot shop under a 90-foot steel cone, and a bridge of glass to it.
2h 35mNorth Bend & Twin Peaks
Twede's Cafe, the Salish Lodge, and Mount Si standing over all of it.
4h 30mWhidbey Island
Farmland, bluff-top prairie and one of the longest islands in the country.
4h 00mDeception Pass
A 1935 steel bridge 180 feet above a tidal race that runs like a river.
3h 30mSnoqualmie Pass
The Cascade crossing — alpine lakes in summer, four ski areas in winter.
5h 30mCrystal Mountain
Washington's highest lift-served summit, staring straight at Rainier.
A full day outLeave early, return late. The drive is part of it.
7h 30mMount Rainier
An active volcano with twenty-five glaciers, and the best wildflower meadow in the country.
7h 30mLeavenworth
A failing timber town that rebuilt itself as a Bavarian village in the 1960s, and it worked.
4h 00mSkagit Valley tulips
A million bulbs in bloom across flat farmland, for about three weeks a year.
8h 00mOlympic National Park
Temperate rainforest, glaciated peaks and wild Pacific coast in one park.
8h 00mMount St. Helens
The mountain that lost 1,300 feet of itself in a morning, and the forest still flattened around it.
Where we meet youCruise terminals and pickup points.
Build a day around these and see the price.
Tap the places you want on the home page. We work out the driving, tell you honestly if it will not fit, and show the whole vehicle price before you give us a name.