Seattle: A Day Guide to the Emerald City

My recent cruise to Alaska left from port in Seattle, Washington. Generally, if you’re taking an Alaskan cruise, you don’t leave out of Florida. When we disembarked after a week of cruising, we didn’t have to catch a plane until later in the evening. This left us hours to explore and enjoy Seattle (known as the emerald city). We had two wonderful tour guides, an old roommate of my boyfriends mom and her husband. (Hopefully that’s not as confusing as it sounds. At least it wasn’t my boyfriends mom’s aunts sister, right?)

Since I’m a total city girl, I have nothing bad to say about Seattle! Even the gross gum wall was cool in a sense (once you got past the smell). I wanted to share some of the adventures we had in our one day of exploring Seattle. So if you ever find yourself waiting for the red-eye home, you know all that you can see! You can also watch my Instagram highlight on Seattle.

Seattle Travel Guide

The Seattle Space Needle

While we could’ve waited for and spent money on going to the top of the Space Needle, I was personally satisfied just looking up at it. The Space Needle was built for the 1962 World’s Fair and stands 605 feet tall. Maybe I’m just a chicken who’s afraid of heights or maybe I’m just a Disney freak, but I much prefer the 1964 World’s Fair with “It’s a Small World” and the “Carousel of Progress”. Either way, you can’t disclaim that the Space Needle is truly iconic and an awesome sight to see! 

Pike Place Market

If you know me you know I love a good farmers market. The Pike Place Market is unique in that a lot of it is covered. I’m not entirely sure why this is because Seattle actually gets less rain than places like New York, Boston, and even Houston. Clearly it’s a common misconception that we have of Seattle. However it makes for a very interesting market. They have everything at Pike Place, especially fresh seafood. I wish we could have brought some on the plane, but I don’t think that would’ve gone over too well. My favorite thing about the market was all the flowers. That was just another thing I wish I could’ve brought home with me.

The First Starbucks

Pike Place is also home to the world’s first Starbucks! We stopped by but didn’t wait in the long line to order something. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not any different from the Starbucks a couple blocks over. We did however visit Starbucks headquarters, slightly closer to the outskirts of Seattle. The Starbucks inside the headquarters is called “The Reserve” and they actually do sell coffee that is different from your typical Starbucks. They have all these fancy concoctions and methods of brewing. It. Was. Awesome. I would totally go there again. I just wish I got extra stars on my Starbucks app for visiting, that would’ve been the cherry on top.

Mo PoP Museum

You save the best for last right? This was my personal favorite from our day in Seattle. The Museum of PoP Culture (Mo PoP) is full of trendy stuff. From sci-fi movie props, to exhibits on popular music, and outrageous fashions. This museum was clearly made for hipsters & mainstreams alike. They had a horror movie section, which I honestly wasn’t a fan of. I tried to take a photo in the “cool picture spot” and heard some kind of creepy voice through a hidden speaker. That’s all it took to make me run out of there like scooby doo. On the other hand, there was also a section for runway fashion which I was all about. I could’ve stayed in that section way longer, but knew we had limited time.

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The last room we entered at MoPoP was a collection of all the PoP culture you could think of. It was fun to recognize even more things I loved in such a small place. (Anyone else a huge fan of The Princess Bride, JK Rowling, and Frankenstein?)