The largest and most densely populated city in Washington State, Seattle is known as the Emerald City, in recognition of its lush evergreens and plentiful public green spaces that include an old growth forest, a converted military base, and parks built over freeways.
All that green is a byproduct of the temperate marine climate. And while there are many gray, wet days in Seattle, it rains less here than most visitors have been led to believe. Seattle's average annual precipitation is below what falls from the sky in Boston, Houston, New York City and Washington, D.C.; it just seems like more rain because Seattle's drizzly weather lingers longer.
All the buzz about Seattle's love affair with coffee is real. Starbucks was born here (an outpost at Pike Place Market retains the first store's original look) and the city brims with branches of that now-worldwide chain along with dozens of independent coffeehouses with steadfast followers.
While more than 200 cruises set sail from Seattle for Alaska and the Pacific Northwest each summer, the city does not sit on the ocean. It's actually at the inland-most end of Puget Sound, which wends its way north to the Pacific and is the gateway to some of the most magnificent scenery on the continent. Pristine mountain ranges rim the east, while hundreds of islands dot the Sound to the north and west.
Downtown, you'll find Pike Place Market, one of the oldest continuously operating farmers' markets in the United States. In nearby Pioneer Square is the 38-story Smith Tower, which opened in 1914 and held the title of tallest building west of the Mississippi for more than 50 years.
There's plenty of must-see modern architecture, too, from the geometrically exuberant glass-and-steel Central Library on 4th Avenue downtown to the MoPop Museum at Seattle Center, which celebrates music and popular culture in a building inspired by a pile of smashed guitars. Next door to the pop culture museum is Seattle's most famous landmark, the Space Needle, which still looks futuristic although it was created for the 1962 World's Fair.