What do you think of when someone mentions Seattle? Rain, Starbucks and Seattle’s Best, or Nirvana and the 90’s grunge scene, fishmongers tossing sizable tuna across a busy market, Kelsey Grammer.

Seattle is one of the fastest growing cities in the US, the largest city in the Pacific Northwest, and probably one of the urban areas most likely to be stereotyped by people who have never been there.

Downtown Seattle is home to one of the best aquariums in the U.S., The Seattle Aquarium, as well as the Pike Place Market, which is crammed with tourists and local shoppers most of the time. Pike Place is one of those venues that could only be found in Seattle. Other spots include Waterfall Garden, a park that makes use of natural granite to create over 20 waterfalls, and the Underground tunnels which run under much of the downtown area (guided tours available).

Seattle is one of those places with a unique atmosphere. It is not simply the high density of coffee shops/bakeries or the numerous, spacious, green parks or the remnants of maritime culture. All those things add to Seattle’s ambiance. What makes Seattle unique is simply that it embraces those things that make it unique. Perhaps some of these things make it seem a bit eccentric, but it’s hard to argue with the success of some of the things that have come out of Seattle: the coffee culture, the music, the fad of midsized cities becoming as cool as New York or LA.

Add to this uniqueness, the sheer natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest’s rocky coastline and lush forests. Within the city or outside of it, there is a lot of nature worth taking a break from the world’s greatest coffee for.