The Pearl Of The Pacific Northwest: Seattle Travel Information

The keystone of Puget Sound's commerce and the origin of many alternative American trends is none other than the bustling Emerald City of Seattle. Secure your airfare to Seattle with cFares and discover why Bill Gates, Starbucks, Nirvana and the Space Needle made this metropolis their home. Travel in Seattle is as dynamic and diverse as its inhabitants. Enjoy the theater, mountain biking and the fish market all in one day with time left over to indulge in some excellent seafood dining.

Seattle quickly capitalized on the Yukon Gold Rush that swept the nation by establishing itself as the banking center for the newfound funds of the Pacific Northwest. This trend did not cease over the centuries as Seattle has become synonymous with major tech firms such as Boeing, Microsoft and http://Amazon.com. The affluence is now visible in the many public arts and architecture projects that have been established in recent years as well as the proliferation of fine and modern arts museums and performance art funding.

Get Out and About the Rainy City

Just as much as Seattlites seem to work, they love to get outdoors, rain or shine. Seattle offers an incredible Parks System for such a metropolitan city. Get your bearings in Kerry Park with its infamous view of Seattle's skyline. Locate the Space Needle against the backdrop of Mt. Rainier and the rest of the Olympic Range. Take a jog along the Puget Sound at Golden Gardens Park, one of the last beaches that still allows bonfires, or you can cycle around the serenely quite Elliott Bay in Myrtle Edwards Park. Seattle also provides easy access to Washington's Olympic National Park, which offers all kinds of recreational activities amid breathtaking lush green scenery.

Several specialized tours are offered of Seattle's many sights and sounds. One of the more interesting is the Seattle Underground Tour, which leads you through Seattle's "basement" underneath Pioneer Square. Between the resistant swamp lands and a fire that completely destroyed downtown in 1889, Seattle rebuilt itself over the original city layout (this time using brick and steel) creating an actual underground network. Several cruise lines offer a tour of Seattle's coast or you may choose to exert yourself a bit more with a kayak tour.

Garage Grunge and Conspicuous Coffee Consumption

Seattle's prosperity may be due in part to the caffeinated cosmopolites buzzing around the city. Thanks to the establishment of Starbucks, Seattle's Best and Tully's, Seattle quickly became the coffee capital of the country. The first Starbucks store is still a block away from the touristy Pike Place Market, where the famed fish merchants will toss your order to you, giving a whole new meaning to flying fish.

Seattle is also the birthplace to the popular Grunge movement, spawning Nirvana and a whole string of bands with similar sound and style. Cafés spotlighting free-styling poets and off-beat monologue performances sprouted out of the Grunge scene and still fill the Seattle air with funky lyrics and indie beats today.

Seattle today is an eclectic mix of high-tech industry, commercial consumerism, counterculture trends and (thankfully) Bill Gate's generosity.