• Seattle Green Tortoise Hostel, 1525 Second Avenue, (206) 340-1222 or 1-888-424-6783. A Seattle backpacker institution which also runs festive low-budget bus tours to Mexico and Central America.
 • The Seattle Hostel, 84 Union Street, Seattle WA 98101, about 2 short blocks to Pike Public Market, is an excellent base for exploring Seattle. It also close to all the great Seattle attractions: Pioneer Square, walking distance to the new Seattle Central Public Library (which offers free wi-fi in an architecturally    More...

If you're staying anywhere near downtown, the ferries hardly seem like "getting out" since they leave from a pier at the south end of the waterfront, an easy and interesting walk from downtown.

 • Take a Washington State ferry to Bremerton and back. Almost 2 hours on the water, in a place as scenic as the Aegean Sea, walk-on passengers a little under $6 round trip. (A commercial ferry, passenger-only, is a bit more expensive and aimed primarily at commuters.)
 • Or, take the    More...

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, (Airport code: SEA), called "SeaTac" by locals, connects Seattle to all regions of the world, with especially frequent transpacific routes. Alaska Airlines provides something approximating discount air fare to and from the San Francisco Bay Area and Southern California. There are several choices for getting from the airport to the city center:

 • Taxi - The trip is about 20 minutes by taxi ($25 - $35); catch one on the third floor of the parking garage.
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Seattle's street designations make sense once you understand them, but unless you do understand them, you can end up many miles away from your destination. All North-South streets are labeled "Avenues" while East-West streets are labeled "Streets". The city is roughly divided into a 3 by 3 grid with nine directional sectors (i.e. N, S, NE, NW, etc) Street addresses in each sector are written with the area name BEFORE the street's number, e.g. NE 45th Street or NE 45th. Avenue addresses in each sector are written with the area AFTER the   More...