Seattle Travel Guide

Holiday cheer is in the air and I’m reminiscing about our little holidaymoon we took to Seattle last Christmas. It was our first married Christmas and it was perfect.

We aren’t traveling this holiday so I’m going to relive my white Christmas from last year by sharing my Seattle travel guide with you guys here and tell you where we stayed, ate and explored!

My husband and I absolutely love the Pacific Northwest. We got married in Portland and basically take any chance we can to go back, but last year we thought we’d branch out a little and check out Seattle, Washington.

Seattle is about 3 hours north of Portland and so the weather and foliage is pretty similar. They’ve both got overcast weather, mossy trees, cool people, great coffee shops, GREAT food, yummy wine and my favorite, waterfalls… that PNW vibe. We’re obsessed.

Lodging – Hotel Theodore

We normally stay in Airbnbs while we travel, but this hotel caught our eye, well lets be honest, the bathtub caught my eye (#bathgirlforlife).

We booked our trip pretty last minute and we couldn’t find an Airbnb we liked so we decided to check out some hotels. Not to hate on hotels, but I think the reason I don’t typically love them is they just seem a little boring. They all look the same and lack character to me, but not this one! I lovedddd this hotel!

The hotel was originally built in 1930 and previously known as the Roosevelt Hotel, but it was renovated and renamed Hotel Theodore in 2017.  They’ve got a few different room options and we stayed in the studio suite and loved it!

What I loved about Hotel Theodore

The Room

The room is decorated with a vintage meets modern presidential feel, but not stuffy or old. Think warm leathers and plaid. I loved the room and the style of it, but my absolute favorite part of the room was the bathtub shower room.

It has a beautiful black clawfoot bathtub in a wet-room with a shower. I didn’t get a very good picture of the shower head, but its just on the opposite wall from the tub. If you’re a bather (like me) and your lover prefers a shower (like my husband), you can both bathe and shower at the same time together. Steamy 🙂 But no really, it gets really steamy from the shower and is kinda fun.

I took a bath (or two!) everyday. It was heaven. I even brought a bath bomb and a candle from home to really indulge myself. The room is also stocked with a complimentary Nespresso machine and pods and I just loved being able to have quality coffee in the morning without having to leave the room.

I mean look at this bathtub shower room. It’s a dream.

And here’s the regular bathroom.

The room service menu had a great selection including items from the hotel restaurant (more on that below) and icecream from Salt and Straw, one of our favorite ice creameries in the PNW. Ice cream in bed anyone?

Rider Bar and Restaurant

This is not your average hotel restaurant! This place is delicious and has lots of great seafood and handcrafted cocktails. It’s also just so nice to be able to walk right up to your room after dinner. We had our Christmas dinner here and it was delicious.

Coffee Bar

If you need something a little fancier than the Nespresso shot from the room you can stop at this cute coffee shop on your way out to do some shopping.

Location

It’s in a super prime location in the heart of downtown Seattle. We were able to walk or take a short Uber to many of the restaurants we ate at. Pike Place Market is also walking distance.

Seattle Food

Seattle is a foodie’s dream city. The food is amazing! I feel like most of our trip was about eating yummy food so here are the places we loved!

The Walrus and the Carpenter

If you love oysters and you visit Seattle, you must go here. Like most of my favorite restaurants in the PNW, this one is small, intimate and full of character. We sat at the bar, which is the best seat in the house in my opinion. Dinner and a show! Watching the shuckers shuck is incredible.  Its an art form in itself and they make it look effortless, oyster after oyster after oyster. It was mesmerizing.

Sitka and Spruce

Seriously, the PNW is all about that small cozy restaurant life and i’m all about it. This one was particularly intimate. I’m definitely first drawn to a restaurant for its aesthetics, but I wouldn’t recommend it if its food didn’t stand up to its prettiness.

Sitka and Spruce did not disappoint. It’s located in the Melrose Market, which is set in historic automotive buildings dating back to 1919. When we went, our reservation was later and so most of the shops were closed, but if I had known this restaurant was nestled amongst these cute shops, I would have shown up early to do some shopping. The food was delicious farm to table style and the wine was very yummy too.

Pike Place Chowder

“Did you know there’s clams in clam chowder?” continues to be a joke in my house that I’ll never seem to be able to live down, because I did not know that it had clams in it until I was twelve! And it was one of my favorite soups haha.

But let me tell you about this clam chowder with clams in it! It’s amazing! We got a sample of it on our food tour of Pike Place Market (more on that later) and we loved it so much we had to go back for more the next day! If you visit in the colder months like we did, I can’t think of a better meal to eat after being out in the cold. And, since we did eat some fancy (aka expensive) meals on this trip, our wallet was thankful for this meal.

Matt’s on the Market

ok guys I didn’t really take pictures here because I was distracted because we were sitting next to our favorite waiter from our favorite restaurant in Portland (small world), but you definitely need to go here! This was one of Justin’s finds and it was awesome. Everything they cook is made with ingredients from Pike Place Market and if they have the butterscotch custard please do yourself a favor and order that for dessert. The restaurant is on the 2nd floor right across the market with very picturesque views of the market.

Things to do in the city

Pike Place Market

This market is awesome and what so many people think of when they think of Seattle. We did a 2.5 hour food tour that we loved. I’ve linked the company we did it through because it has more info on it, but be sure to check on Groupon because we got a great deal booking it through there.

This tour was our favorite part of the trip. We loved it because we got to explore the market, hear some of the history and taste so much yummy food that we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to try because of long lines.

In the future when we visit Seattle again and stay in a place with a kitchen, I’d love to come buy some fresh seafood here. This is also a great place to get some souvenirs.

Museum of Flight

We spent a couple hours here, but my husband could have spent the whole day here. If you’ve got a man who’s into that kind of stuff take him here! They had all kinds of airplanes from prop planes, fighter jets and commercial airplanes.

Museum of Industry

Honestly, I have a hard time explaining what this museum was even about, but basically it had a lot of random things, but it was cool. Sorry if that’s vague! Also, we saw geese outside of the museum!

Outdoor Activity

I was super excited when we chose to go to Seattle because even though it doesn’t snow often in the actual city (even though it did while we were there on Christmas Eve and Christmas!), you don’t have to drive too far for snowy winter magic! We had planned to drive a little over an hour east to a snowy area and hike to a frozen waterfall, but unfortunately the owner of the car we had rented for the day had forgotten to include one of the snow chains for the tires.

We tried to make it, but the snow got too intense and we didn’t feel safe.  (The waterfall we were trying to go see was called Franklin Falls and I still highly recommend it just based on pictures alone.)

I was beyond bummed and felt like Christmas was ruined. A tad bit dramatic, I know. Luckily, my husband saved the day and found us a snowy trail to hike that we could safely drive to. It was really breathtaking and still. We only saw one other couple in passing, so really it was just him and me in a winter wonderland. It wasn’t a waterfall, but it was just as magical.

We had the best holidaymoon ever and even though Portland has our heart, I can’t wait to go back to Seattle in the summer time and experience that season of it. If you want just a taste of snow, Seattle is a perfect winter trip because you don’t have to deal with the snow day in and day out, but you can easily get to it. And just know you’re going to have happy happy tummies on this trip.

Cheers to the beginning of this holiday season!