Lonely Planet Pocket Seattle

By Robert Balkovich

Inside Lonely Planet's Pocket Seattle:

Up-to-date information - all businesses were rechecked before publication to ensure they are still open after 2020's COVID-19 outbreak

Full-color maps and travel photography throughout

Highlightsand itineraries help you tailor a trip to your personal needs and interests

Insider tips to save time and money and get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots

Essential infoat your fingertips - hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, prices

Honest reviews for all budgets - eating, sightseeing, going out, shopping, hidden gems that most guidebooks miss

Convenient pull-out Seattle map (included in print version), plus over 21 color neighborhood maps

User-friendly layout with helpful icons, and organized by neighborhood to help you pick the best spots to spend your time

Covers Downtown Seattle, Pike Place, the Waterfront, Pioneer Square, the International District, SoDo, Belltown, Queen Anne, Lake Union, Capitol Hill, Fremont, Green Lake, Ballard, Georgetown and more

The Perfect Choice:Lonely Planet's Pocket Seattle an easy-to-use guide filled with top experiences - neighborhood by neighborhood - that literally fits in your pocket. Make the most of a quick trip to Seattle with trusted travel advice to get you straight to the heart of the city.

Looking for a comprehensive guide that recommends both popular and offbeat experiences, and extensively covers all of Seattle's neighborhoods? Check out Lonely Planet's Seattle city guide.

Looking for more extensive coverage? Check out Lonely Planet's Western USA guide for a comprehensive look at all that the region has to offer.

eBook Features: (Best viewed on tablet devices and smartphones)

Downloadable PDF and offline maps prevent roaming and data charges

Effortlessly navigate and jump between maps and reviews

Add notes to personalize your guidebook experience

Seamlessly flip between pages

Bookmarksand speedy search capabilities get you to key pages in a flash

Embedded links to recommendations' websites

Zoom-in maps and images

Inbuilt dictionary for quick referencing

About Lonely Planet: Lonely Planet is a leading travel media company, providing both inspiring and trustworthy information for every kind of traveler since 1973. Over the past four decades, we've printed over 145 million guidebooks and phrasebooks for 120 languages, and grown a dedicated, passionate global community of travelers. You'll also find our content online, and in mobile apps, videos, 12 international magazines, armchair and lifestyle books, ebooks, and more, enabling you to explore every day.

'Lonely Planet guides are, quite simply, like no other.' – New York Times

'Lonely Planet. It's on everyone's bookshelves; it's in every traveler's hands. It's on mobile phones. It's on the Internet. It's everywhere, and it's telling entire generations of people how to travel the world.' – Fairfax Media (Australia)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lonely Planet
• Release date: Feb 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781837581283

Book preview

Front CoverFull Page Samplerbutton

Contents

Plan Your Trip

Top Experiences

Dining Out

Bar Open

Showtime

Treasure Hunt

Outdoors

For Kids

Under the Radar Seattle

Coffee

Four Perfect Days

Need to Know

Seattle Neighborhoods

Explore Seattle

Downtown, Pike Place & Waterfront

Pioneer Square, International District & SoDo

Belltown & Seattle Center

Queen Anne & Lake Union

Capitol Hill & First Hill

Fremont & Green Lake

Ballard & Discovery Park

Georgetown & West Seattle

Survival Guide

Before You Go

Arriving in Seattle

Getting Around

Essential Information

Behind the Scenes

Our Writer

COVID-19

We have re-checked every business in this book before publication to ensure that it is still open after the COVID-19 outbreak. However, the economic and social impacts of COVID-19 will continue to be felt long after the outbreak has been contained, and many businesses, services and events referenced in this guide may experience ongoing restrictions. Some businesses may be temporarily closed, have changed their opening hours and services, or require bookings; some unfortunately could have closed permanently. We suggest you check with venues before visiting for the latest information.

Seattle’s

Top Experiences

Explore Pike Place Market

Seattle’s beating commercial heart.

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GOLDILOCK PROJECT / SHUTTERSTOCK ©

Seattle’s Top Experiences

Ascend the Space Needle

Seattle’s most iconic sight.

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MATTEO COLOMBO / GETTY IMAGES © ARCHITECT: JOHN GRAHAM & COMPANY

Seattle’s Top Experiences

Enjoy Pop Culture at MoPOP

Tactile exhibits explore pop history.

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LEMBI / SHUTTERSTOCK © ARCHITECT: FRANK GEHRY

Seattle’s Top Experiences

Discover Fremont’s Public Sculptures

Celebrate Seattle’s eccentric art scene (pictured: Fremont Troll).

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SPOONPHOL / SHUTTERSTOCK © SCULPTORS: STEVE BADANES, WILL MARTIN, DONNA WALTER & ROSS WHITEHEAD

Seattle’s Top Experiences

Check Out Seattle Art Museum

Small but mighty art temple.

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DAVID TONELSON / SHUTTERSTOCK ©

Seattle’s Top Experiences

Learn All About Seattle at the Museum of History & Industry

Extensive collection of Seattle ephemera.

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TRISH JOSE / SHUTTERSTOCK ©

Seattle’s Top Experiences

Delve Into Aviation History at the Museum of Flight

Interactive museum of aerial innovation.

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NORMAN ONG / SHUTTERSTOCK ©

Seattle’s Top Experiences

Glimpse the Past at Pioneer Square

A slice of Seattle’s yesteryear.

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Seattle’s Top Experiences

Go Wild at Discovery Park

Natural wonders in city limits.

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DAVID TONELSON / SHUTTERSTOCK ©

Seattle’s Top Experiences

Marvel at Glass Art at Chihuly Garden & Glass

Shrine to Seattle art royalty.

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CHRISTIAN HEINZ / SHUTTERSTOCK ©

Dining Out

Seattle’s food scene was always noteworthy, but in recent years it has exploded thanks to the popularity of farm-to-table practices and new American cuisine. As with other major cities you’ll also find that immigrant communities have made their mark, as have flighty contemporary dining trends.

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DAVID TONELSON / SHUTTERSTOCK ©

Northwest and Pacific Rim Cuisine

A lot of Seattle’s gourmet restaurants describe their food as ‘Northwest cuisine.’ Its cornerstone is high-quality regional ingredients that grow abundantly in Washington State: seafood so fresh it squirms, fat berries freshly plucked, mushrooms dug out of the rich soil and a cornucopia of fruit and vegetables.

Another distinguishing feature is pan-Asian cooking, often referred to as Pacific Rim cuisine or fusion food.

What Seattle Does Well

Surrounded by water, Seattle is an obvious powerhouse of fresh seafood. Local favorites include Dungeness crab, salmon, halibut, oysters, spot prawns and clams.

Other genres in which Seattle excels are bakeries (a by-product of its cafe culture), Japanese food (the sushi is unwaveringly good) and – perhaps surprisingly – spicy Ethiopian food; the bulk of the East African restaurants are in the Central District (CD). The city used to be noted for its dearth of Mexican restaurants, but in the past decade or so many shockingly good ones have opened.

Best Restaurants In Seattle

Sitka & Spruce If you had to sum up Seattle cuisine in three words, this is it.

La Carta de Oaxaca Unmissable regional Mexican cuisine and the best brunch in town.

Staple & Fancy It’s worth blowing your budget on the tasting menu at this rustic Italian spot.

Maneki This traditional Japanese restaurant is a unique dining opportunity in town.

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ASSEMBLY / GETTY IMAGES ©

Best Seafood

Walrus & the Carpenter Ballard oyster bar where they serve ’em raw with white wine.

Sunfish Head to Alki Beach for some of the best fish-and-chips in the city.

Pike Place Chowder Pike Place institution where there are always 40 people queuing for four tables. (Pictured)

Best Recent Openings

It’s been a tough time for new restaurants due to COVID-19, but before the pandemic these were some favorite newcomers on the scene

Heartwood Provisions Fine dining that actually makes a splash on the scene.

San Fermo A welcome addition to Ballard in one of the neighborhood’s oldest buildings.

Kamonegi The traditional soba noodles and tempura here have shaken up the Fremont dining scene.

Arthur’s Aussie-inspired breakfast and lunch bites sure to keep the bad-weather blues away.

Restaurant Reservations

Most Seattle restaurants don’t require bookings. The hot new places often fill up quickly, though, so if you’d like to eat at one of these, it’s best to call ahead or book online to avoid disappointment.

Bar Open

It’s hard to complain too much about Seattle’s crappy weather in a city where local beer and wine, artful craft cocktails and one-of-a-kind spirits are in such abundance. No doubt about it, Seattle’s an inviting place to enjoy a drink, whatever your poison.

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DAVID TONELSON / SHUTTERSTOCK ©

Macro Numbers of Microbrews

The microbrew explosion rocked the Northwest around the same time as the gourmet-coffee craze, but not coincidentally: Seattle’s Redhook Brewery was co-founded in 1981 by Gordon Bowker, one of the guys who founded Starbucks.

You can find microbrews practically everywhere, but brewpubs often feature signature beers and ales not available anywhere else. Most of the brewpubs offer a taster’s selection of the house brews. Pints range in price from $5 to $7, and you can usually get a small sample to try before committing.

Bar Scenes By Neighborhood

Capitol Hill is the place in Seattle for a night out, with gay bars, dive bars, cocktail lounges and themed bars aplenty. Belltown also has a famous bar scene, although it’s not as grungy as it once was. Of the city’s outer neighborhoods, Ballard and Fremont are a must for beer lovers with old-fashioned pubs sitting alongside boisterous brewpubs and cozy nano-breweries, while the U District is resplendent with dive bars.

Best Brewpubs

Fremont Brewing Company Old-school brewery where you can taste beer at wooden tables on the factory floor.

Pike Pub & Brewery One of the oldest and most cherished brewpubs in Seattle. (Pictured)

Optimism Brewing Co A newer player on the scene, having been founded in 2013, this is an industrial-style brewery and tasting room in Capitol Hill.

Best Whiskey

Westland Distillery Micro-distillery with tasting room and the yardstick against which other Seattle whiskeys are measured.

Bookstore Bar Settle down on a sofa with a book and a glass of the water of life.

Radiator Whiskey Pike Place bar with a menu exclusively for Manhattans.

Whisky Bar A change in location hasn’t dampened the throat-warming effects of the numerous whiskeys.

Macleod’s Genuine Scottish pub in the bar bonanza of Ballard.

LGBTIQ+ Bars

Pony Capitol Hill’s own agora, located in a renovated auto shop.

Wildrose Lesbian pub in Capitol Hill.

R Place The place to watch go-go boys gyrate before trying some moves of your own.

Outwest Bar A mellow LGBTIQ+ outpost in West Seattle.

Food & Drink Happy Hours

Most Seattle bars run their happy hour from around 3pm until 6pm. Some offer happy-hour deals on food as well. Late-night happy hours, usually 10pm until 1am, are becoming more common.

Showtime

Quietly aggrieved that it was being bypassed by big-name touring acts in the 1980s, Seattle shut itself away and created its own live-music scene. There are also plenty of other artistic strands, including independent cinema, burlesque theater, bookshop poetry readings and some high-profile opera, classical music and drama.

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Live Music

One of the major strengths of Seattle’s music scene is its diversity of venues. Here you can attend concerts at a 17,000-capacity arena, midsized bastions of the ’90s grunge heyday, neighborhood bars, jazz clubs, and small pubs and cafes that specialize in undiscovered talent.

The Arts

Seattle is a book-loving town and there’s a literary event practically every night. The film industry also has national stature.

Theater runs the gamut from nationally recognized productions and touring Broadway shows, to staged readings of obscure texts in cobbled-together venues or coffee shops. The Seattle Symphony has become nationally