The last leg of our epic Pacific-Northwest summer road trip was Seattle, Washington. Because we have good friends there, it was our third visit to the city, and the first with our tween. We’d done most of the famous tourist things on previous vacations.
This time around, we wanted to explore lesser-known neighborhoods and have our friends direct us to good local food. These are some of the gems we discovered.
Mix them in with some of the popular tourist attractions, like the Space Needle and MoPop, and you’ll have a great weekend visit to Seattle with your kids.
2 Seattle Hotels for Families
I highly recommend staying downtown. Most of what you want to see is there or close by and Seattle doesn’t have much in the way of public transit.
Luckily, it’s not that hard to find good downtown hotels with reasonable rates. I think these are two stand-outs.
The Fairmont Olympic Seattle offers upscale amenities you’ll appreciate, like street side tables for your morning coffee, attentive staff and good-sized rooms. Both you and the kiddos will love the glass-enclosed pool and large hot tub.
You have casual dining right in-house, should you want it, at the hotel’s coffee bar, oyster bar and brasserie. If you’re in town for a special occasion, consider springing for the hotel’s family-friendly afternoon tea. Your tween and teen girls will be thrilled.
The Inn at the Market is an easy choice if you’re traveling with a baby or teens, who care less about having a pool.
It’s outdoor lounge overlooking the bay and Pike Place Market is an excellent place to take a break, have a snack, play a game. It even has an outdoor fireplace to take the chill off at night.
The modern rooms have calm Pacific-Northwest woodsy tones, comfortable chairs and minibars; some also have great views. The suites are roomy.
One of its restaurants serves breakfast all day, which kids love. It’s not included in the room rate, but there are plenty of good coffee spots within walking distance. So you can save this breakfast for later in the day and grab your morning meal elsewhere.
If you don’t stay downtown, or you plan on venturing to neighborhoods beyond it, plan on having a car.
Other stops on this Pacific Northwest road trip:
• Portland, OR: 2 Nights in Portland With a Tween
• Olympic National Park: Why We Love This National Park
• Whistler, BC: 9 Whistler Summer Adventures With Kids
• You can also take a road trip down the Oregon Coast
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• You can visit Olympic NP from Seattle in just one day! Book online
• This article is now featured on GPSmyCity. To download it or offline reading or create a self-guided walking tour, go to Walking Tours and Articles in Seattle. Or read it in the app.
15 Seattle Places to Romp, Eat & Shop With Kids & Tweens
Go Kayaking on Lake Union
Our time at Olympic National Park and Whistler had us in an outdoorsy mood. We thought it would be fun to see the city from the lake, after seeing the lake from so many different sides of the city.
We rented kayaks from Moss Bay, on the south-east shore, but there are other outfitters around the lake as well. They gave us touring kayaks, which have a narrow shape that makes them fast and easy to maneuver.
They felt a bit less stable than the sit-on-tops we’re used to and have a rudder that you steer with foot pedals. It took a few minutes to get the hang of it, but once I did I liked the maneuverability they had. Rich and Tween Traveler shared a double while I had a single to myself.
Because the kayaks were fast, we were able to paddle the length of the lake and back in about an hour. We glided by a houseboat community and managed to reach Gasworks Park.
The park is just what it sounds like: a former gasworks converted into a grassy waterfront park. Much of the industrial infrastructure is still there, making it an interesting urban-development landscape.
We could have turned left toward the locks that connect the lake to Elliott Bay, but we weren’t feeling quite that ambitious.
On our return to the south end of the lake we had great views of the city. Alas, I didn’t want to risk bringing my camera into the kayak. We had to simply enjoy the views in the moment, which we very much did.
Lunch on Lake Union
The Pacific Northwest has fantastic oysters and crab. We make sure we eat at least one meal in a Seattle restaurant that specializes in seafood on every trip.
Before kayaking, we had lunch at Duke’s Seafood. We picked it mostly for its enticing lakeside patio and proximity to Moss Bay. But it was an enjoyable lunch and the tab was pretty reasonable for a waterfront seafood restaurant.
Rich and I each had a bowl of soup — outrageously good lobster bisque for me; rich, herbaceous clam chowder for him. Then we split a Dungeness crab-cake sandwich on sourdough with fresh aioli and sweet potato fries. The crab cake had a good crab-to-breadcrumb ratio.
Tip: The “dingy” of soup is small. Given how good the soups are, get a cup or a bowl.
Tween Traveler ordered the cod and chips off the kids’ menu. It was made in-house with fresh cod. The kids’ menu also had shrimp and grilled chicken. I like restaurants that give kids’ dishes the same attention they give everything else.
They have a good cocktail menu, but with an afternoon of paddling ahead of us, we stuck to Pacific Northwest beer.
Explore the Elliott Bay Shoreline
A Scenic Waterfront Park
Seattle has large and very nice parks when you get away from downtown. We drove out to Golden Gardens Park, about 20 minutes northwest of downtown.
It has a wooded area as well as a beach, cement boardwalk and playground. Rich and I took a ten-minute stroll along a beach to the park’s marina and back while Tween Traveler happily tackled some fun climbing structures.
On the way, we passed through Bellmar’s busy Market Street and the funky Fremont neighborhood. Both looked interesting with local restaurants, doughnut shops and stores. We probably would have stopped to walk around had it been close to either breakfast or lunchtime, or even time afternoon coffee. Next time
Tip: Keep your eyes peeled for the troll when you pass under the Fremont Bridge.
Check Out the Ballard Locks
On our way back downtown, we stopped at Ballard Locks (the ones we chose not to kayak to). The property has a botanic garden with scenic walking paths on one side and a small park with lawns and a promenade on the other.
You can walk along and cross the locks. If you’re lucky, as we were, they’ll raise or lower the water to let boats through while you’re visiting—a bit of engineering that’s always cool to see.
If it’s spawning season, look for leaping salmon on the salmon ladder. In summer, keep your eyes peeled for the seals that pop their heads up in the bay.
Try not to get stuck on the middle peninsula though. It takes a while to close the locks and your kids’ interest might peter out before you can move.
More Great Parks
If you really want a day outdoors, and especially if you have bikes with you, Commodore Park, on the locks’ south side, connects to the Kiwanis Memorial Preserve with a series of more wooded paths.
From there you can segue into Discovery Park. Discovery Park is large, with a good-sized beach and green hiking trails that open up to offer nice views of the bay here and there.
Taiwanese Food + Shopping
Our friends led us one morning to the University Village Shopping Center, an upscale outdoor mall just north of the University of Washington. Our destination was Din Tai Fung, which specializes in Taiwanese dumplings and noodles.
The restaurant now has a growing dumpling empire across the US, but it was still new when we visited.
Our group of seven shared soup dumplings and moon-shaped pork and shrimp dumplings. The adults ate a spicy cucumber salad that the kids passed over, but they dove into sautéed string beans and chicken with small, chewy Taiwanese rice cakes.
If you go early in the day, stop by a window that looks onto the kitchen to watch the cooks fill dumplings with speed and precision.
It’s pricier than dim sum in your typical Chinatown restaurant, but definitely worth a detour if your family are fans of Asian food in general and dim sum in particular.
Save room for dessert. The mall has shops that sell French pastries, upscale cupcakes, ice cream and mochinuts, a cross between mochi and doughnuts in quirky flavors that my teen loves. Seek them out if you’ve never had them.
The mall also has the Froglegs Cooking Academy which offers cooking classes. You can make the class a family activity or drop your kids off for a class and indulge in lunch date for two at one of the mall’s many dining spots.
At Paint the Town, you can choose from a variety of ceramic tableware, garden items or kids’ items like piggy banks. Paint them any way you like and let the store fire your work for a unique vacation souvenir. They welcome walk-ins, but make a reservation if you are more than five people in your group.
Both activities are good rainy day options, which are good to have ready in Seattle.
Two Neighborhood Farmers Markets
Phinney Ridge & Its Market
Visiting green markets is one of our favorite things to do in any city. We offered to cook dinner for our friends on our last night and so headed to one of the city’s several very good green markets for ingredients.
The Phinney market was lively on a Friday afternoon with musicians, plenty of produce and locally made foods, including seasonally-flavored ice pops. It also has a trio of cool metal slides between the market and parking lot.
We picked up fresh mozzarella and summer tomatoes for caprese, mushrooms to sauté and put atop steak, and fresh pasta to toss with garlic and olive oil.
Phinney Ridge, on the north side of the zoo, is another funky neighborhood. We took a short walk after we shopped and found Phinney Books, a small used book store with a nicely curated selection, just a few blocks away.
Bluebird Microcreamery and Brewery, which makes its own ice cream, soda and beer, was right across the street from the bookstore. It’s perfect for making both kids and parents happy after a day of sightseeing. We suddenly regretted buying those lemon and blueberry ice pops at the market (though they were good).
Capitol Hill & Its Market
Seattleites like combining green markets with books and ice cream.
Had we gone to the Capitol Hill Farmers Market, at the south-east of the lake, we could have visited Elliott Bay Books, an enormous bookstore with big windows, a large selection of popular books and frequent author events. This is a must-stop on our next Seattle vacation.
Around the corner from Elliott Bay you’ll find one of Molly Moons’ homemade-ice-cream shops. Here you can try flavors like cinnamon roll, honey-lavender and frosted berry tart, as well as the more typical flavors. The rich and creamy ice cream is sourced almost entirely from Pacific-Northwest ingredients.
In & Around Pike Place Market
This is the one place we stop by on every visit. It’s fun, you get to see men throw fish and there are always new shops and vendors. In addition to the fresh food purveyors, look for crafts and artisan products to bring home and fresh flowers at good prices.
If it’s your first visit, consider a food tour to point out the highlights and provide some samples before you explore on your own.
In summer, look for regional produce like marionberries and mushrooms. There are often buskers performing around the edge of the market.
Tip: The most famous purveyors that are in all the guidebooks have the longest lines. There’s so much good stuff here, though, that you might have more fun skipping the lines and seeking out the lesser-known gems.
You’ll find a good number of restaurants in and around Pike market, from all parts of the world and in all price ranges. Visit in time for lunch!
This time around, we ventured down to the Purveyors’ Hall on the lower level.
We snagged a table on the patio at Old Stove Brewing Co. It was a lovely place to sit out on a sunny day, even if the highway disrupts the view of Puget Sound a bit.
Our tween lobbied for warm pretzel nuggets. They come with house mustard and cheese sauce made in house from Pike Market’s Beecher’s cheese, so we were happy to oblige. We also had a plate of wings and a bowl of mussels and clams cooked in beer, which was more than enough to share.
Everything is made from scratch, with local ingredients where possible. The wings had Indian spices and raita on the side. It was a nice change from the usual Buffalo wings.
Like a lot of microbreweries, Old Stove has a lot of IPA beers, which I’m not keen on. Rich ordered one, and I found a refreshing Belgian blonde ale.
If you visit the market in the cooler weather, seek out Indi Chocolate, a café that makes hot drinks and baked goods with its own dark chocolate. Try the chocolate chai with a brownie. Or, maybe mint-cacao tea, or fancy hot chocolate with a chocolate-chip cookie.
We walked around the market to buy fruit for a snack and do a little sampling.
It’s impossible to sample the chocolate had caramel sauces Woodring Northwest Specialties and not buy something. We picked a jar of white chocolate marzipan spread to bring home with us. It was unique and the best chocolate spread we’ve ever had. We were sad when the jar was empty.
On a previous trip, we had lunch at Emmet Watson’s, a no-frills oyster bar, which is named for a legendary Seattle reporter and has been there forever.
It has a small, very old-fashioned bar, vinyl booths, blue-checkered tablecloths and a small patio. It serves perfect local seafood: raw oysters, fried oysters,steamed clams, shrimp cocktail, chowders. Simple menu; all tasty.
Teens who eat fish & chips or other seafood will get a kick out of this place. But keep in mind that it’s very small and there’s nowhere to hide if young kids get restless or cranky. Also, their only concession to those who don’t eat seafood is a plate of chicken & chips.
Yup, More Book Stores
Seattle has more independent and used bookstores than anyplace I’ve been. There are actually four (4!) reputable and quirky indie book stores within a stone’s throw of Pike Place:
Left Bank Books publishes its own radical literature and sells used books that are in the spirit of the store.
BLMF Literary saloon is proud of the piles of books it has everywhere and promises to find the perfect book for you if you can tell them what you’re looking for.
Lamplight Books and Lion Heart Book Store are small spaces packed tight with new and used books, including many classics, history and kids’ books.
Favorite Things To Do From Past Trips
The Boeing Factory Tour
Boeing’s Factory in Everett, Washington, 30 miles north of Seattle, for several planes to sit nose-to-tail on the factory floor being assembled. Think of that. The tour is unlike any factory tour I’ve done and seeing the planes getting put together made me feel better about flying, somehow.
You can visit an exhibit about aviation and a viewing platform for free, but if you are going to plan a day trip out there, you’ll want to take the tour.
Tip: Book ahead, because it’s popular. If you aren’t otherwise renting a car, you can book a tour that provides transport to and from Boeing, but your tour will still be given by a Boeing employee.
The Seattle Underground Tour
As you’ll learn if you take the Seattle Underground tour, Seattle 1.0 was built of wood and was continually knee-deep in mud. After the fire of 1889, they rebuilt the city above the mud. This tour takes visitors below the streets, where you’ll learn the history of this pioneer town and see remnants of the original buildings below Pioneer Square.
Like a lot of pioneer towns, Seattle has a colorful history and, especially if you get a lively guide, this is a fun and slightly different city tour.
Save Money on Seattle’s Top Sights
If it’s your first time to Seattle, you’ll want to do at least some of the city’s top attractions, including the Space Needle, MoPop, a harbor cruise, the Chihuly Garden & Glass. The Seattle Aquarium, Pacific Science Center and Woodland Park Zoo are also hugely popular with families, though less quintessentially “Seattle.”
If you plan to visit at least three of them, consider buying CityPass tickets. They will save you money and often allow you to skip the line, too.
REI Flagship Store
If your family is outdoorsy, you really have to spend an hour at the giant REI store on Yale Avenue.
First, the store has a 65-foot-tall glass-enclosed climbing wall! It got new foot and hand holds in 2024, but there’s no longer a way to make a reservation online.
It also has a Ranger Station where you can get information and passes for the area’s state and national parks and Forest Service recreational areas.
You can also have clothes and outdoor gear repaired and rent what you need for any outdoor activity you’d want to do nearby.
And if all of that doesn’t entice you, the product selection is so huge, you’re bound to discover some outdoor clothing, gear, guidebook or camping equipment that you can’t live without.
The Museum of Pop Culture
MoPop sits next to the Space Needle, inside a trio of metal shells designed by Frank Gehry; one is iridescent purple. It’s pretty hard to miss.
We visited back when it was the Experience Music Project. Now it strives to house an impressive collection of artifacts from a broader swath of pop culture.
Our tween is oblivious to pop culture, so we didn’t go back. And that might have been a mistake.
The museum defines pop culture so broadly, it’s always worthwhile to see what exhibits, movies and events it has going on. They often have exhibits exploring science fiction, comics and mange and the local music scene.
Our whole family would have enjoyed Fantasy Worlds of Myths & Magic. I mean, who can resist checking out the Cowardly lion costume from The Wizard of Oz or props from the Lord of the Rings and Narnia movies?
Practical Information for Your Family Weekend In Seattle
Seattle Weather
The Pacific Northwest is known for rain, especially from mid-fall to mid-spring. Pack rain jackets at any time of year, and consider water-resistant boots in winter.
On the other hand, the climate is pretty temperate. Summer days are warm, but it can cool off at night. Oddly enough, summers aren’t very humid. Light pants, shorts or summer dresses are ideal for sightseeing; have a light sweater or hoodies handy after the sun goes down.
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Photos by Eileen Gunn© except the two hotels, Elliott Bay Books, REI and MoPop (all care of the businesses.