Family Fun magazine has consistently ranked Seattle among the top U.S. destinations for family travel. Indeed, the city offers much to see and do for families.

Seattle Center
Families can easily spend an entire day at the Seattle Center, a 74-acre urban park and the legacy of the 1962 World's Fair.

Amusement Park
The Amusement Park offers thrilling rides for the whole family, including the ride 520 feet up the Space Needle. Families can grab a bite to eat at the Seattle Center House which offers a wide variety of eateries and vendors.

Children's Interest
The Seattle Center features excellent art and culture experiences for children, including the Seattle Children's Theatre with a line-up of plays and musicals, and the Children's Museum which offers a drop-in art studio, technology and music studio, hands-on activities and interactive cultural exhibits. Each May, the Seattle Center hosts the Seattle International Children's Festival.

Pacific Science Center
The Pacific Science Center offers over 80 hands-on exhibits, as well as a tropical butterfly house.

Uncommon Museums
The Experience Music Project opened to much fanfare on the Seattle Center grounds beneath the Space Needle. The dramatic new museum, designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, is the brainchild of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, and features a wide range of exhibits of popular music artifacts and family-friendly interactive musical experiences. Connected to the Experience Music Project, the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame features out-of-this-world exhibits. The Center is easily accessible to downtown Seattle by a 90-second nonstop monorail ride.

Animals

Woodland Park Zoo
The 90-acre Woodland Park Zoo is just ten minutes by car or 30 minutes by city bus from downtown hotels. This zoo is ranked in the top five "Class A" zoos in the United States and helped pioneer naturalistic exhibits.

Experience Wildlife
Northwest Trek, 50 miles south of Seattle, features a tram to view North American animals in their native habitats - all enclosed in a 635-acre park.

Sports
The Seattle Mariners, our Major League baseball team, have a home in the retractable-roofed Safeco Field. The NFL football Seattle Seahawks and the Sounders FC play at Qwest Field, an open-air stadium next door to Safeco Field. The Seattle Storm play WNBA basketball at the KeyArena in the Seattle Center. The Thunderbirds play hockey at the Showare Center in nearby Kent.

Downtown
Right downtown, visitors of all ages enjoy the activity of the Pike Place Market, the waterfront with its shops and open air seafood restaurants and the Seattle Aquarium. Families will enjoy seeing remnants of Seattle's past beneath the streets of present day Pioneer Square on the guided Underground Tour. Just blocks away is the Klondike Gold Rush Museum, a free national historic museum that celebrates the gold rush and Seattle's early years.

Fun & Games
Seattle's downtown shopping district features plenty of diversions for families. Gameworks, for example, offers a virtual oasis from reality with its galleries of state-of-the art video and synthesized games. Ride a jet ski, practice fly-fishing, destroy aliens - it's all here.

Festivals & Celebrations
Seattle celebrates many festivals year-round which are great activities for families. The Giant Magnet and Folklife Festivals in May feature music and culture from numerous countries. If you're looking to watch fireworks on Independence Day, Seattle offers the spectacular Chase Family Fourth event over Lake Union. Seafair is a popular Seattle celebration running throughout July and August that includes numerous events almost every weekend during the summer such as the Milk Carton Derby races and the Torchlight Parade. It is also the time when the U.S. Navy Blue Angels fly in exciting formations among the Seattle skies and hydroplanes come to compete on Lake Washington. Over Labor Day weekend, Bumbershoot, Seattle’s Music & Arts Festival, offers fun for the whole family.

Transportation
Who wants a free ride? Don't forget that public Metro buses in downtown Seattle are all free from 6am to 7pm daily. Just jump on or off as you like. The Free Ride Zone extends from the Jackson Street in the International District and Pioneer Square on the south end of town to Battery Street on the north.

The Locks
The Hiram H. Chittenden Locks, in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood, link salt water Puget Sound with fresh water Lakes Union and Washington, allowing pleasure and commercial boats to pass 24-hours-a-day, 365-days-a-year. These are the busiest locks in the Western Hemisphere. The salmon fish ladder is also located at the locks. Travelers can get there by car or bus (15 minutes) or see the locks as part of a Gray Line of Seattle City Tour. The locks are free to the public and include a visitor center operated by the Army Corp of Engineers.

Aviation
The Museum of Flight is only a 10-minute drive from downtown Seattle. Permanent exhibits include the original Air Force One, the supersonic Concorde (the only one on the West Coast!), the Blackbird spyplane, a control tower with views of, and real audio from, the adjacent working airfield and Boeing's original red barn where its first aircraft were constructed. A Smithsonian Affiliate institution, this museum consistently ranks among the top flight museums in the nation, and is often compared with the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. The Boeing Tour, located at its main assembly facility in Everett, 30 miles north of Seattle, offers guided tours which feature views of 747s and 767s under construction (children 4' tall and over). Gray Line of Seattle offers a roundtrip tour to and through the facility.

On the Water
Don't leave Seattle without getting out on the water at least once. You can walk or drive aboard Washington State Ferries, which depart from Pier 52 on the Seattle waterfront. Round trip to Bainbridge Island and Bremerton are about 1 and 2 hours respectively. Argosy Cruises (Pier 56/57) offers one-hour tours of Seattle's harbor and extended tours of Puget Sound and the Ballard Locks. Ride the Ducks is a 90-minute land and water sightseeing tour aboard amphibious vehicles called DUKW's which were used during World War II to storm beaches. Vehicles are operated by Coast Guard-certified captains.

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