Places I Loved in Seattle: Chihuly Gardens, the Ultimate Travel Bookstore + PASTRY PETS

I’ve written a LOT about my first trip to the Pacific Northwest. I didn’t do anything ground breaking or explore hidden gems nobody has ever heard about, but it was a new place for me and there were a handful of things that I had ALWAYS wanted to do.

Read my exact 7 day Pacific Northwest road trip itinerary, what I really thought about Seattle & Portland, how I spent 2 days in Olympic National Park, all about hiking in the Hoh Rainforest, exploring the tidepools at Rialto Beach, and seeing Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge.

This trip was really all about the great outdoors, but here’s a quick (photo heavy) round up of the places that I really loved in Seattle.

Pike Place Market

Everyone talks about the food (I talked about it plenty in this post), but my favorite part was seeing all of the flowers. $25 for a huge, fluffy bouquet of peonies?? These would be $150+ where I live if you could even find them!

But of course you want to know about the food! I’m by no means an expert, and I only ate at a handful of places, but the ones I would go back to are:

Pike Place Chowder: Not a hidden gem by any means, but 100% worth the wait.

Rachel’s Ginger Beer: They make cocktails, but I loved the guava flavored ginger beer.

Cinnamon Works: Every single thing here looked amazing and they have so many options (plus you can add frosting!!) but my favorite ended up being the plain ol’ chocolate chip cookie.

Lowell’s: For a sit down breakfast, I LOVED the crab benedict here.

Space Needle

It’s the ultimate symbol of Seattle, but I really didn’t know very much about it until I visited. It was built for the 1962 World’s Fair in the middle of the Space Age. Who doesn’t love a good Jetson’s x Kennedy’s mashup??!

Chihuly Gardens & Glass

I never miss a chance to see a Dale Chihuly exhibit in a nearby museum, or even the rogue chandelier here or there, so this longterm exhibit in the shadows of the Space Needle was a don’t miss for me.

Part art museum, part garden experience with a charming cafe and a stellar gift shop.

Marnin Saylor

It’s hard to believe I just stumbled onto this cute little shop on a lower level of Pike Place Market, because it’s actually the kind of place I would go out of my way to visit.

Marnin & Saylor started selling these handmade “Pastry Pets” in a craft booth at the market and now they’ve got a full blown shop that’s an entire experience.

Strawberry Sprinkle Donut Cat? Eclair Bear? Honey Bun? How could you possibly choose your favorite???

Besides the Pastry Pets, they also have incredible merch and a lot of it is Seattle/Pike Place Market specific which makes for a way cooler souvenir than a random shirt from a gift shop on the street.

Metsker Maps

I will go out of my way to visit a good indie bookshop, but this one is right at Pike Place Market so no travel is necessary. But also, it’s TRAVEL THEMED.

Maps and atlases are obviously everywhere, but the amount of travel books (with, of course, an emphasis on the Pacific Northwest) is insane.