I am so excited to be sharing this post from my trip to Seattle this December. My best friend, Jamie, and I are all for spur-of-the-moment activities, traveling and great food. We planned this trip in November on a whim and bought our tickets, booked our flight and arrived with little to no plans for the whole weekend. We had both researched a few restaurants and activities but nothing was truly set in stone. We also wanted to really get a feel for the city and be able to navigate the streets and coordinate neighborhoods in conjunction to landmarks, parks, etc. so we used mostly public transportation and the feet in our shoes. We Uber'd a few times but that was when we had to either catch a train or we'd been already walking 4+ miles in freezing rain. I hope this itinerary inspires you to travel often, indulge more, grow your friendships and open your mind to new adventures. Thanks for stopping by!
Day one:
Arrive at Sea-Tac airport. The Link Light Rail is a train with a stop on airport property to take you north or south. The train is pretty clean, runs very frequently and is easy to hop on or off. We saw a lot of kids and parents on the train during our trip as well. We took the train from Sea-Tac all the way up to Pioneer Square. This train stop was the closest location to our Airbnb that we had booked. From the train station we hauled our luggage up and out of the station to the streets for the bus route we needed. The King County Metro Transit is a cable line bus route that runs all across Seattle and it's major neighborhoods. We took the #4 line to Cherry Hill - East Jefferson and 20th Avenue. This stop is right outside of the main downtown area - right where the suburban area begins.
Our first Airbnb experience: Amazing. Another post to come on that.
After dropping our bags off we headed to Pike's Place to walk the market and explore Miner's Landing where we grabbed lunch at The Crab Pot {this was pretty much the only restaurant we had planned on going to}. This is definitely a tourist-y spot, but we got to try some real West coast seafood and had a blast hammering away to Christmas music and enjoying a gorgeous view of the ocean and pier. We had the Westport - a deal on the menu for about $35/person - crazy expensive but the most costly meal we had all trip - which comes with snow crab, dungeness crab, mussels, clams and prawns. Although costly, you're paying for the experience; the bibs, mallets and cutting boards, view of the bay, etc. Definitely one of our favorite places on the entire trip. Worth a visit if you're with large groups of people. May not be ideal for a first date :)
After lunch we walked the market for a bit and enjoyed the christmas displays, music and soaked in everything Pike's Place had to offer. We headed towards the first Starbucks (which I was incredibly excited for after completing my Finance semester-long project on their history and records). There is a line out the door and you pick through a list of products to purchase at the counter - be warned, they don't let you grab anything off the shelves - they have a system down and aren't afraid to enforce it! There are many different roasts only available in the Seattle area that we loved trying.
From there we headed towards the downtown area by the Macy's Christmas tree display. We hopped on the merry-go-round - best $3 spent that day - and enjoyed our hot coffee, watching locals finish their last minute shopping and just enjoying being present in the city with all the Christmas street light displays.
Right around the corner was the Seattle West Lake Shopping Center/Mall. We had some fun walking the different levels, picking up a pair of must-needed snow boots and wrapping up our day at Sixth Avenue Wine Seller - a little wine bar located at the top floor next to Nordstrom. It was so nice to be able to just sit down, watch the city buildings (we were right across from Forever21 and a hair salon - super cool to see people getting blow outs, trims, etc. in their own little window boxes). and talk about how crazy it was that we were on the other side of the country in just a few short hours. We didn't know a single person in the entire state. We had absolutely no plans. Just our luggage, our cameras and the feet in our boots.
Part 2 coming soon!
Here is a short montage of clips from our weekend: