I’ve heard Seattle described as “Portland’s mainstream older brother.” It’s true that Portland (Oregon) has long enjoyed a reputation for being one of America’s “weird” cities, as evidenced by its famous slogan, “Keep Portland Weird.” However…
I’ve been to Portland. My main man Buddy who accompanied me on this trip even lived there for a hot minute, and we both agree: Seattle is definitely weirder. In fact, I think I can conclusively say that there is more unabashed weirdness walking around the streets of Seattle than any other city in America. I’d be lying if I told you it didn’t make me feel uncomfortable a time or two (spoiler alert: there’s a nude beach in the next article) but after some reflection, I think the problem is me. Because if you really think about it, the amount of weirdness walking around the streets of any city is likely the same no matter where you go. The difference is that, in Seattle, people feel empowered to be themselves. So they let their freak flags fly. And that’s pretty cool.
But what’s even cooler is that all these individuals have created a society that is as unique, quirky, and unrepressed as they are. And they all seem super invested in making that society the best version of itself that it can be. I think my favorite manifestation of this was all the quirky, nice signs (and graffiti) all over the city. Here’s a gallery of pictures I snapped of things that made me smile.
I’m leading with all these pictures of homemade signs because I think they do a really good job of setting the tone for what I am about to show you. From the sign that offered homemade cookies as a reward for returning Caitlin’s lost keys, to the sign encouraging passersby to eat the grapes growing on the fence, to the playground where somebody spraypainted “DEAR KIDS, RIOTS ARE COOL!” on a slide and none of the parents seemed to mind, Seattle had some hilarious and heart-warming signage. It was really life-giving to me to see all this evidence of community sprinkled throughout these neighborhoods. Honestly, it inspired me to be more mindful about investing in my own community.
So without further ado, let’s dive into Seattle’s neighborhoods.
Neighborhoods by Foot
I LOVE a good neighborhood. And Seattle has a lot of those. Over the 3.5 days I was in Seattle, we clocked more than 30 miles walking around these areas, exploring them street by street. Let me tell you, this was not a flat 30 miles. We were nearly always walking straight uphill or straight downhill. My bottom half was not happy by the end of the trip, but my top half sure was. Some of the longest but most rewarding hauls were through the middle of large residential neighborhoods, and even though there wasn’t a tourist attraction for miles, it gave a really cool look into what life in Seattle looks like.
Side note: Somebody told me that Seattle was such a small place that I shouldn’t rent a car for this trip—LIES! Seattle is a big, sprawling hilly monster. And Ubers are EXPENSIVE. We made a rule that we would limit ourselves to < 3 Uber rides per day, and we stuck to that. I am grateful to have seen so much of this city on foot, but next time I come back, I am renting a car. Honestly, next time I go ANYWHERE I am renting a car. I’m goddamn 29 years old. The era of my life where I skate by on as little money as possible is coming to an end. When I think back on these walks, my knees hurt. But it was worth it.
Here are my impressions and photos of some of Seattle’s more notable neighborhoods, in no particular order…
FremonT
Referred to as the "The People's Republic of Fremont" in the not-so-distant past, this neighborhood has historically been associated with America’s counter-culture movement. Things have changed a bit since then, as this place is now home to Google and a bunch of other expensive stuff, but still—in spite of ongoing gentrification—it’s somehow managed to maintain the weirdness and individuality that it has always been known for. The main drag of Fremont is home to bars, restaurants, breweries, dispensaries, record stores, nurseries, a doric/masonic temple, a brass statue of Vladimir Lenin with blood on his hand salvaged from the USSR, and a giant sculpted clay troll under a bridge. You know, normal stuff! We’re actually going to circle back to that troll later in this article.
Anyway, when people talk about Seattle's “neighborhoods,” I feel like this is always one of the first to be mentioned. Indeed, Fremont is the venerable poster-child for what neighborhood life looks like in Seattle. My hopes for it were high but, to be honest, I found some of the main intersections of Fremont to be a bit stressful with all the hustle and bustle swirling around me. Or, at least it was stressful compared to some of the other places I’m going to show you next. I have been a bit averse to loud stressful places since COVID started. 🤷🏻♂️
But the neighborhood itself was lovely to walk through. And if there was any doubt in my mind about the enduring “local-ness” of Fremont, those all washed away when I stopped to take a picture of a convenience store at sunset. It was sort of a dingy little place, but it had a nice vibe, and the ethereal glow that its signage put out in the evening light was actually quite picturesque. So I set about trying to snap the perfect picture of it… when a car rolled up. An old Indian woman got out of the back seat and went into the store. Meanwhile, the woman driving the car, who I inferred was her daughter, called to me and asked if I was taking a picture of the store. I was bracing for her to scold me as I responded that I was indeed taking pictures of the store. “Thank you!” she responded with a smile. “This is my store.” That interaction made me smile. So let me take this opportunity to plug the Ross Park Convenience Store. Good vibes. The picture did not turn out to be well-executed, but I am including it in the gallery below anyway.
Ballard
When I was looking for an Airbnb in Seattle, Fremont was one of the main places that I was focusing on—but that was too expensive of course. After scouring the city, the place I finally chose had the upside of being next to Fremont in an under-the-radar neighborhood called Ballard. I was expecting this location to be a bit of a compromise, but I actually LOVED this area. On the very first night we were here we walked over to an adjacent sub-neighborhood called Adams for tacos and drinks. The Ballard Avenue Landmark District, which centred around the intersection of NW Market Street and 22nd Ave NW, turned out to be lovely. In fact, it was such a great vibe that we ended every single night here. It’s hardly at the top of things to visit in Seattle, but I personally just really loved it.
However, in spite of its awesome districts and lovely neighborhoods, Ballard is not without some rough edges. Similar to almost everywhere I go out west, there are clusters of tents filling in the empty spaces here and there—evidence of the ongoing homelessness situation. Also, that first night when we got tacos in the Landmark District, I saw more rats than I have anywhere else in my life. I did my time in crappy Boston apartments. I’ve visited friends in crappy New York apartments. But the Landmark District after dark looked like something out of Ratatouille. I had to shoo hoards rats away at multiple points!
That probably makes you want to stay as far away from Ballard & The Landmark District as possible, but I would still highly recommend it. Locals seemed to just roll their eyes at the rats—one of them told me that this is to be expected anywhere close to the waterfront. During one Uber ride back from this area I was cracking up as our Uber driver explained how the REAL problem in this area is the infestation of bunny rabbits. Admittedly, I was pretty high at the time, but the concept of people treating rabbits like pests was hilarious to me. There were, indeed, a lot of rabbits hopping around Seattle, but I thought they were cute.
Capital Hill
Capital Hill is another one of Seattle’s most well-known and well-reputed neighborhoods. Like Fremont, it is thought to be very hip and cool, so I was eager to scope it out. Let me start with a few notes on the map below. Different maps have different takes on what is and is not part of “Capital Hill.” The Google Maps embed shown below has a fairly broad definition of it, and I’m not sure if that’s right or wrong, but I can tell you that it overlaps heavily with its own boundaries of other neighborhoods. If you overlayed the Google Maps boundaries for Seattle neighborhoods, it would look like a bunch of Venn diagrams. My sense is that true “Capital Hill” is mostly skewed towards the westerly side of this area shown below, which is much more urban.
I wasn’t crazy about the more urbanized areas of Capital Hill. It was very hip, but because it serves as the transition zone from suburban to urban, its personality always felt like it was in flux. I was having trouble figuring out what Capital Hill really is…
One part of it that I LOVED was the area around Volunteer Park. But we’ll see that part of the city below in the next neighborhood section, and when we visit Bruce Lee’s grave in the next article. (Spoiler alert!) Below are pictures from Capital Hill’s more urban zones.
Stevens
“Stevens” isn’t an area that was recommended on any list anywhere on the internet, but I really wanted to see as much of Seattle’s neighborhoody side as possible, so I looked at the map and took a wild guess that this would be a good place to explore. And explore we did! There’s nothing much here besides some nice streets and cool restaurants, so I’m not sure that I would recommend it to other visitors, but personally, I am really happy to have gotten the opportunity to see this place.
My favorite stretches of this area were nestled up against the borders of Volunteer Park. There are some pictures of these stretches in the gallery below. These streets really capture neighborhood Seattle at its best, I think. The rest of the area is really gorgeous as well—but also, I found it to be inaccessibly wealthy for the most part. It was difficult to see myself here. But even here, all that indie Seattle magic was clearly still at work. There were lots of towering trees and home-made community-oriented signs hanging on telephone poles. Maybe one day I’ll be rich enough to live here. Until then, here’s the map and some pictures.
Green Lake / Phinney Ridge
Now here’s a place where I can really see myself living! There’s a whole lot of nothing for visitors to see here, but it’s real, and although the housing prices are far from modest, it more closely resembles “Middle Class.” Maybe it’s just how I was raised that makes me feel most comfortable in these sorts of areas, but I think there’s a lot to love here no matter who you are. Green Lake itself is not much to look at (the actual lake, that is). It’s basically a big puddle—big enough that there is a crew team that apparently practices on it—but it’s surrounded on all sides by green space and has a walking path that spans its full circumference. And beyond that, it is surrounded entirely by residential neighborhoods. So the park area around this lake (Green Lake Park) is always full of locals, out for a walk or just getting some sun. It would be a great thing to live close to.
Walking west from Green Lake will be a VERY steep uphill climb because you will be walking into Phinney Ridge. This neighborhood is literally named after a geographical ridge that runs north to south, separating Green Lake from Ballard. The roads that run up the top of this ridge have lots of cool local businesses and pretty vistas. On this trip, we used a little bakery & coffee shop called Fresh Flours as a waypoint in Phinney Ridge and descended towards the lake from there. If I come back to Seattle, this is probably where I would be shopping for an Airbnb. This feels like a great, safe, quiet, vibey place to come back to each night. And it would probably be pretty affordable.
Queen Anne
I’ll end here. If you read my first article on Seattle, then you have already seen a bit of Queen Anne, but it would be a crime of omission not to include this area in this article as well. It is one of the quintessential Seattle neighborhoods. This is where THE image of Seattle comes from—the view from Kerry Park looking down over Belltown towards downtown Seattle.
If you can’t tell from this view, Queen Anne sits atop a huge hill. Hiking up it on foot is exercise. I was WINDED. Indeed, even before the Seattle skyline was as big and sparkly as it is today, this was still a great view. That’s likely why many of Seattle’s elite all decided to build their giant houses here, back in the late 1800s. The name “Queen Anne” comes from the architectural style of many of those original mansions. So this neighborhood is old-money Seattle.
Even if I could afford to live here, I’m not sure that I would. But this would absolutely be the first place I’d take any out-of-towner. The walk through these streets to Kerry Park is the best “Seattle in a nutshell” experience you can have in under 20 minutes.
I am in no way an expert on Seattle or its neighborhoods, but these have been some pictures and impressions from the perspective of an interested outsider. It’s not #1 on my list of places-to-live-in-the-U.S. list (that slot still belongs to SF), but it’s definitely in the top 5. That’s it for Seattle’s neighborhoods, but we do have one more Seattle-based article left in the hopper. Stay tuned.
I’ll end the one with a deep cut from one of my favorite Seattle artists. I had a whole moody, depressed chapter of my young life during which I was listening to Transatlanticism on repeat on my Walkman. The demos that they released with this 10th Anniversary Edition are actually super fascinating, and really gave me a new appreciation for the dream team that was Benjamin Gibbard and Chris Walla. Seattle has given birth to some incredible artists.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Peter was born & raised in Columbus, Ohio, and started this blog when he moved from Boston to Hanoi (Vietnam) in 2014. After years based in Nashville working on his band, The Great Palumbo, he now resides in London, UK.
