There’s more to Seattle than the Space Needle and Pike’s Place Market. Here are some of our favorite places to go and things to do
Bainbridge Island is home to a planetarium and, at 27½ inches in diameter, the largest publicly accessible telescope in the Northwest.
The Battle Point Astronomical Association holds monthly star parties, which include planetarium shows and telescope viewings that are open to the public.
Acts that can easily fill larger venues opt instead for extended-night runs at the casual, intimate Tractor.
Country singer Shelby Lynne popped by to perform recently. Other acts feature rockabilly, jazz, ska, blues, and pop music.
Hold the Raisinets–opt for something along the lines of a glass of French red and a stone oven-crisped pizza topped with spicy Italian sausage and organic mustard greens.
The Central screens indie flicks, old favorites, and events like the popular Arab-Iranian Film Fest in March. Read more
With free admission and $1 glasses of wine, this has to be the city’s best bargain night out.
Local writers read essays, short stories, comedy, memoirs, and, yes, poetry while the audience packs the small cafe and snacks on cheese and crackers or hummus and veggies.
With 277 glorious, woodsy acres jutting into Lake Washington, bike paths, and sandy beaches, Seward Park Environmental & Audobon Centerhas always had a lot going for it.
The center is within a historic landmark, a refurbished 1927 Tudor, where there’s a library, a lab, and two classrooms where kids can test their science savvy.
You might hear Robert Cray while munching on salt-and-pepper squid one night and then discover a folk singer-songwriter the next.
This 1926 theater was saved from boarded-up neglect and turned into an intimate place to hear musicians who are not just run-of-the-mill mainstream.
For some schooling in the Northwest’s other brown bean, hop onto the Tour de Chocolat van, run by the Chocolate Box shop, for a three-hour edible intro to the city’s hottest sweet spots: Theo Chocolate, Oh! Chocolate, and Fran’s Chocolates.
Patrons visit this Seattle banya (Russian for “bath”) for it’s moist sauna, Turkish-style steam room, cold plunge, and tepid saltwater pool.
Men, women, and families all enjoy the 20-ton 220° perilka oven, inside a bathhouse that is therapeutic without being froufrou. Read more
In autumn, flame-colored maples light up the forest edges around Seattle, chum salmon hit the creeks, and waterbirds like buffleheads and harlequin ducks come home for the winter.
Add in year-round residents like rhinoceros auklets (yes, they have horns on their bills) and the place starts looking like a zoo.
Observe from Discovery Park, where the wild beaches have tidepools, bluffs, and restored wetlands.
You can watch professionally trained bodies bending, leaping, and twirling every which way at the venerable Pacific Northwest Ballet. Tickets normally run $25 to $150, but if you time it right you can score tickets at the little-known $10 preview days.
These are not just plays based on books but theater entirely from books. Practically every word is spoken, every scene, every situation comes straight from the text.
From Don Quixote to John Irving’s The Cider House Rules, go for performances absolutely cut down to their essence.
Enjoy this saucy mix of burlesque, comedy, and dinner circus.
The ever-evolving production that combines improv, dance, and sensuality is served up with a five-course gourmet dinner under a giant Belgian mirrored tent.
Make like a meteorologist or a little kid and look up. From towering cumulous castles to saucerlike lenticulars, Northwest clouds are viewed easily from the park’s wide-open western vantage point.
Pull up a driftwood log on the pebble beach just below the park, tilt your head back–and gaze.