Seattle can be a difficult place to visit, especially if you don't have a friend in the area to show you around. Facets of Seattle abound, how do you see it all? Here's a guide to help do just that. See Underground Seattle and ride the amphibious duck coach around town in the same day. Or let the wind fly through your hair and ride the double-decker bus, check out a food tour or better yet take a tour of Seattle architecture.
A 2-hour tour of Pike Place Market where you'll get to meet the vendors
and taste some of the wonderful foods on offer. Also, you can view our article about Savor Seattle Food Tours.
Amphibious World War II vehicles will show you Seattle from both land and water. This 90-minute tour includes a drive around the city and brief putt around Lake Union for a unique view of the city. All the while, music plays loudly through the duck’s speakers, passengers gleefully rattler their “quackers” (a $2 noisemaker sold as an add-on to the tour), and a Coast Guard certified captain cracks corny jokes.
Grayline created this line of Double Decker sightseeing buses to create a flexible experience for travels who want to see the city at their own pace. The hop-on/hop-off feature allows riders to get on and off at any of seven central locations throughout the city as they explore the city. Buses stop every half-hour from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., and tickets are just under $20 for adults.
Underground Tour is a leisurely, guided walking tour beneath Seattle’s sidewalks and streets. The tour starts in a restored saloon and concludes at a gift shop and gallery. All told, three blocks are covered as sightseers view the Seattle of yesterday. Taking place in historic Pioneer Square, the tour is a great starting or ending point to a day of exploring the city.
Seattle City Tours pride themselves on offering “the kind of tour you’d expect from a friend.” The 50-mile tour covers Seattle’s tourist highlights from the comfort of a 24-passenger van featuring large, panoramic windows. The professional guides provide spirited narration and historical information as you motor by Pike Place Market, the Ballard Locks, the Space Needle, and many more sights and attractions. Adult tickets are $45. Free pick-up is available from all local hotels.
Enjoy both Lake Union and Lake Washington on this 2-hour cruise. Your cruise includes live narration pointing out some fascinating history and interesting facts of the places you are seeing. See the historic houseboat community including the "Sleepless in Seattle" houseboat, Mt. Rainier and homes of Seattle's rich and famous. Tickets are about $25, with occasional fuel charges and slightly higher rates in the summer months.
Get your bearings amid the bustle and learn tips that will help you navigate like a pro on the hour-long Pike Place Market Heritage Tour, enjoyed by first time visitors and locals alike. An introduction to the mind-boggling maze that is the Market, you’ll visit special nooks and crannies you might otherwise miss. Market Heritage Tours blend history and current information, with a dash of quirky anecdotes and practical shopping tips presented by knowledgeable insiders. Tours are Wednesday through Friday at 11 a.m. Reservations are required for the $10 tour.
Indulge yourself and treat your friends, family, and guests to a one-of-a-kind experience. Enjoy a cruise by Seattle's floating villages with "Houseboat Lady," Jeri Callahan. Hear playful tales of moonlight skinny dips, the real-life romance aboard the famous Sleepless in Seattle houseboat, and how Prohibition era entrepreneurs hid illegal home-brew in their homes. An hour’s tour including boat rental is $40.00 per person with a minimum of four people or $160.00.
Jake leads travelers on tour of the darker side of Seattle. With a medical background and a strong interest in forensics, she takes great vigor in taking toursit to see the macabre and paranormal sides of the city that other tours won't touch. There are two Mystery & Murder" themed tours around Queen Anne and Capitol Hill, and a third "Seattle Ghost Tour." If you have a morbid fascination with Kurt Cobain, Bruce Lee, Jimi Hendrix, or Ted Bundy, this is the tour for you. Tours are about 3 hours long and cost $25.
There's no better way to see Seattle than from above. Enjoy the most spectacular views of the Emerald City and the unique thrill of flying off the water—the quintessential Northwest experience. Your 20-minute narrated adventure departs from beautiful Lake Union in the heart of the city. From your ultimate window seat, you'll take in sweeping vistas of the Puget Sound, Mt Rainier, downtown, and so much more. Tickets are $89 per passenger.
This tour of the 5th Avenue Theatre provides delightful escape from the modern world. Available 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. by appointment only, the tour is an informative walk through the historic theater. Call (206) 625-1418 to make a reservation, and prepare to be compelled to purchase tickets for whatever production is coming on stage at the moment.
Experience Qwest Field like never before by sitting in a luxury suite, suiting up in the visitor’s locker room, and eventually setting foot right on the same field as your favorite Seahawks players! The hour and a half long experience will entertain and educate everyone from those who can’t tell a first down from a touchdown to the die-hard football fanatic. Don’t forget your camera to capture the scenes from our awe-inspiring viewpoints. Tickets are $7. Check the website for availability.
Tour one of the premier baseball facilities ever built, including areas of the ballpark that are not normally open to the public: press box, luxury suites, field, dugout and visitor's clubhouse. Tours are approximately one hour in duration and cover a walking distance of one mile. It's also possible to schedule group tours for groups of 20 or more that would like to see the ballpark. It's also possible to schedule birthday tours for groups of kids that that want a birthday they'll never forget.
Just minutes away from downtown Seattle, it's possible to discover the traditions, spirit and soul of a 7,000 year old culture. Smell the fragrance of incense, Chinese herbs, hom bows, and roast duck. See an Asian museum, markets, and historical sites. Hear the many Asian languages spoken. Chinatown Discovery has been in continuous operation since 1985. The tours are an intimate, lively, personally guided tour that is true to the daily cultural life of the Asian Community in Seattle's Chinatown/International District. The 90-minutes walking tour is $17.
"I walk by here every day and I never saw that before." Some version of this familiar comment, which tour guides hear on a regular basis, gets to the essence of why Seattle Architecture Foundation (SAF) exists. Through entertaining and informative guided walking tours, SAF awakens people to the profound influence of the environment that surrounds them, and inspires them to get involved in shaping its future. Through active participation with our built environment the shape of our communities will better reflect who we are and who we wish to be. Tours are geared in many different directions—check the website to find one that fits your interests. Cost is around $15.
Explore Seattle and our most popular areas and attractions. Run by the city of Seattle, this virtual tour encompasses many topics of interest for potential visitors to the city. There’s the comprehensive “Seattle 101: A Guide for Travelers and Tourists”; tips on where to stay, eat, and shop; a list of walking tours; and an abundance of other practical information. The tour is also available in Spanish.
Visit Seattle in a most unique way. Through the use of Panoramic VR (Virtual Reality) Photography, you can interactively view over a thousand locations throughout Seattle and Washington State. Panoramic VR images let you spin around, look up and down and zoom in as if you were standing right there. There's nothing like an immersive 360 degree image to see all of what you want to see from the comfort of your computer.
Take a virtual tour of the Washington Park Arboretum. It’s a living plant museum emphasizing trees and shrubs hardy in the maritime Pacific Northwest. Collections are selected and arranged to display their beauty and function in urban landscapes, to demonstrate their natural ecology and diversity, and to conserve important species and cultivated varieties for the future. The Arboretum serves the public, students at all levels, naturalists, gardeners, and nursery and landscape professionals with its collections, educational programs, interpretation, and recreational opportunities.
HistoryLink.org provides a free, authoritative, and easily accessible history reference for the benefit of students, teachers, journalists, scholars, researchers, and the general public. Included on the site are 25 separate cyber tours ranging from a tour of Ballard, a classic Seattle neighborhood, to a tour of the Columbia River, a cornerstone of Pacific Northwest culture and heritage.
