Seattleite Advice.
 

I will be taking my second trip to Seattle this Sept with the view to relocating there. On my first trip I stayed in downtown Seattle. The purpose of this trip (4 days) is to explore the larger area outside the city. I want to visit areas north and east of downtown, Ballard, Shoreline, Bellevue, Kirkland to name a few. Can anyone recommend a base area to do this outside of downtown to save on hotel and parking.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

There are many options, but you might consider the Silver Cloud, University Village. You have lots of nearby services, the region's best bike trail next door, great coffee down the block (Zoka), easy access to Bellevue (off peak), and free parking.

I've been nothing but impressed with the Silver Cloud Inn. Plus you'll be right by the 520 with quick access to the eastside.

One of my advice, if you want to check this site http://www.mydriveholiday.com/, so that you could a different choice in which you could choose from

The areas you name are geographically widespread. Ballard is deep in the city, Shoreline north of the city, and Bellevue and Kirkland east of the city. Kirkland, close to 520 and 405 might provide the best access.

What sort of area are you looking for? Do you know where you would be working?

Thanks for all the responses. I will check out the Silver Cloud at the University and also the Kirkland area hotels. I want to spend a few days in the area to get a "feel" of the city before I make a decision to move. I would like to live in a close-in neighborhood but my budget may not allow so I wanted to check out some of the nearby suburbs. I think I would most likely be working in the downtown area.

If you will be working downtown I would *strongly* urge you to look at neighborhoods closer in.

Bellevue and Kirkland, for example, are not really any cheaper plus you would be committing yourself to an absolutely horrible commute every work day (believe me I did it for 10 years) coming across the 520 bridge.

There are still some reasonable rents to be found if you take time to look around on Capitol Hill, in the Central District, Fremont or Ballard.

Ditto Suze's comments. The east side of Lake Washington (that would be Bellevue and Kirkland) are the most expensive parts of the Seattle metro area. Look closer.

Kirkland, which has a cute downtown, is horrendously expensive. Bellevue has a slick downtown with lots of construction (more of a city now, than a town), and is likewise horrendously expensive. The rest of Bellevue and Kirkland, where it is merely extremely expensive as opposed to horrendously expensive, are very suburban. I live in Bellevue and would move to Seattle in a hearbeat, if not for the commute. (My husband's work is on the eastside.)

By the way, crossing the 520 bridge is a horrendous commute. That's the one that would take you from Kirkland to Seattle. I-90 is far better. This is reflected by the carpool lane requirements - 2 people in a car on I-90, 3 people required on 520. The 520 bridge is verging on catastrophe anyway. Whenever we're on it, we hope we won't be the ones to be on it when it goes done. (Ditto for the Alaska viaduct, but we don't get on that disaster-waiting-to-happen very often) Heaven forbid we should repair our failing infrastructure in Seattle.

Hmmmmmmmmph... (pondering in great detail)

As others have hinted, the eastside comes with prohibitive housing costs AND potential commute nightmares, so I just wonder whether your intentions of spending much of your research time considering those areas will bear fruit.

North of downtown is where most of the population is, and while the south end is sprawling farther south every day, it still might have the most affordable options.

Admittedly the southern bedroom communities have their drawbacks at times, but the commutes into town may be better in the south end than in the north end (fewer people, and fewer cars on the road, along with more alternate freeway paths than in the north).

The public transportation (bus) system is more reliable here than in most areas, and the weather, on average, is more hospitable to those standing outdoors waiting for the bus, than is the case in most other big cities)

If I were to mold your stated intentions just a bit, I would limit your research to areas within 3 or 4 miles of Interstate 5, to the east... and to the water's edge on the west.

Although some people ferry in from Bremerton every day, on the 2nd largest ferry system in the world (BC, Canada is number 1).

good luck.

Oh, and as for where to stay for this research... while trying to limit expenses... I think I would just stay near the airport.

Many of the realistic communities you should be searching won't be terribly far from there, and it is usually a buyer's market for hotels around there... and you could get great rates if willing to use Priceline.com.

When driving from the airport base toward your northern research areas, you'd get a reasonable sense of the distance involved if not the commute time as well.

Or, you know, build that monorail.

If you have a choice, I'd also recommend living close to where you work. My now former co-worker moved here from California in May. She lives in Pioneer Square and while her commute looked okay on paper(1 bus door to door, roughly an hour each way), the reality of Seattle traffic and a 2+ hour daily commute set in quickly. She quit a couple of weeks ago after finding a job downtown.

As for me, I live in Redmond and used to work in Bellevue. When I was laid off last spring, I didn't even consider applying for jobs across the lake. The mere thought of the commute made me cringe. I ended up finding a job ten blocks from my house and now have a 15 minute walking commute each way. I reiterate the "if you have a choice" comment. I know not everyone does.

Thank you all for the valuable advice. I think I will focus on the close-in neighborhoods and areas directly north of the city. Since I currently have a very short commute I probably could not deal with the commute you describe from the eastside.
One additional question do you advise renting a car or do you think it’s reasonably possible to use public transportation to visit the neighborhoods around the city.

If you're going to be working downtown, West Seattle (my neighborhood) is a relatively close in option that's a little less pricey than some of the neighborhoods to the north.

You might also consider some of the neighborhoods to the SE of downtown that are going to be on or close to the Sound Transit light rail line when it's finished (e.g. Columbia City).

When we first moved to Seattle in 1960 we lived as far north as you can get and still be in King County. Then we moved to Shoreline, then to Queen Anne, then to Magnolia, then to lower QA, and now live in Renton...each move took us farther south.

My take on how this area developed is that growth was constrained by hills and water, so roads went where they could be forced to fit the contours. Queen Anne is an excellent example...great place to live, but with winding two-lane streets and impossible parking.

Development in the south end took place on farmland, for the most part, and was planned more than forced. Zoning came into its own. Wider, straighter streets, decent availability of parking.

We live in Renton and like it. Many Seattleites look down their noses at the South end; don't discard it out of hand. Light rail is going to make a big difference when it is completed next year.

I'd suggest you rent a car, as you are going to be looking at a range of areas and want to make the most of your time.

While I made the commute "across the lake" for years, I live on Capitol Hill, and scored a new job in Belltown (downtown) so I have a 3 mile drive on surface streets each morning. I thank my lucky stars. Not to mention my office is a couple blocks from the Pike Place Market, a real plus!

Jolibee,
One thing I recommend you doing is to contact a real estate agent and let him or her show you around. This can save huge amounts of time and energy as is you give them your perameters, they will be able to come up with places that might work for you. We did this before we moved here and I'm really glad we did.

Good luck! We love it here.

Not to hijack this thread, but on the subject of relocation, I have a friend who would like to move here within the next year. While I can help her out if she ends up living and working in my neck of the woods, I am at a loss as to what neighborhoods to recommend to her in the city because I don't know Seattle all that well. Here are some particulars about her.

She's 38 and single. She likes to go out, not to nightclubs, but to eat, movies, shows, and the like. She also likes outdoor activities like hiking and boating. Also, in her words, she doesn't want to live in a "concrete jungle". To top it off, she does not drive and would be totally transit dependent. What neighborhoods would you recommend if she ends up living in Seattle proper?

BTW, she currently lives in a small town that, the way she describes it, makes Monroe sound like Manhattan, so there's also the culture shock factor. She's visited major cities, but she's never lived in or near one.

Kostrama~ Queen Anne is close in and a very nice, least culture shocking kind of neighborhood. Capitol Hill equally close but a tad more "counter culture". Ballard, Fremont, Wallingford, or Ravenna are a bit further out, more residential. All have excellent Metro bus service. Just make sure she has a good route between home and work.

Jolibee~ While a bus could conceivably get you everywhere, to do a tour of many neighborhood a car would be much more practical and time efficient.

Kostroma, she should definitely consider West Seattle. I think it has a great combination of being close to downtown, yet having an "away from it all" feeling. We've got all sort of great parks over here (I just got back from walking down at the beach in Lincoln Park, where I watched a blue heron flying along the beach), and the West Seattle restaurant scene has improved greatly in recent years so you don't even have to go downtown to get a very good meal if you don't want to. Plus it's a bit more affordable than some other close-in neighborhoods.

I moved over here about 13 years ago after having lived on Capitol Hill and in the Leschi/Madison Park areas previously, and I just love it.

Thanks everyone. I will stick to my plan of renting a car. I hadn't really considered west seattle but am now adding it to my list of areas to visit.

NWWanderer, My sister recently moved near Lincoln Park. She absolutely loves it. If my husband weren't at Microsoft, that is where I would want to live. I told him recently it is the first place I have seen that I can actually envision living in when we retire.

And I recently moved from the Lincoln Park area. It is really fantastic - will go back in a heartbeat.

Orcas, I don't blame your husband for not wanting to commute to Redmond from West Seattle!

ttt

Thank you suze and NWWandeder.

I'm trying to help her as much as I can as far as advice, but I'm loathe to talk about places that I know little of outside of name, rank, and serial number.

The good thing about helping her with research is that *I'm* also learning a lot about this area. She's excited about places that I've long took for granted as a 20 year resident and she also wants to go to places that I've never been when she visits in October to check things out for herself. It's going to be interesting.

If I didn't have occasional out-of-town guests I probably would have never been anywhere! That's what finally got me up the Space Needle, on the Victoria Clipper, out to the Locks, etc.
:-)

In 21 years here, I've never been on a ferry, gone whale watching, been to Olympic National Park, Mts Rainier or St. Helens, or gone to Pike Place Market. These are things that I'd like to do, but I get so busy that I neglect to make time to do them.

I had such grand plans for the summer. I wanted to do a few things that I've never done and decided that I was going to take a trip down to one of the volcanoes, ride the Dinner Train, and go out to Snoqualmie Falls. Here it is, Labor Day weekend, and I've done none of these things. It's pathetic, really.

I think it's funny that I love to travel and plan to go to so may far flung places, but I don't appreciate what I have at home. When I travel, I go all over the cities that I travel to. I probably know Vancouver, BC better than I know a lot of cities in King County.

When I was 12, I went up on the Space Needle for the first and last time. When I went to the Bite last year, I bought one of those "I Made It To The Top" t-shirts from the gift shop. It was nearly 20 years ago, but it's still true. :)

Kostroma,
The Summer's not over yet by any means. Sept. is often the most beautiful month yet and the least crowded for the sights you mention. Go for it!

The La Quinta in downtown Seattle (near Whole Foods) has one-bedroom king suites that come with free parking and breakfast.

You're right, artlover. It's not too late. I'm just annoyed at myself for procrastinating.

While it would probably be best to go the the Falls and the mountain of my choice before the weather turns, taking the Dinner Train trip in November or December might be more scenic than if I did it in the next month or so. Since it now heads in the direction of the Cascades, they should be lovely and snowcapped by then. The problem is lucking out with a clear day. We get some that time of year, but blink and you miss it.

I share the guilt with many Seattle residents of having failed to explore and experience the city and the area as extensively as I should. Work is the curse of the, er, 'playing' classes, is my experience.

Re relocation: for someone who doesn't drive, and who'll be working in the city, I would like to add a plug for Southeast Seattle (Rainier Valley, Columbia City, Mount Baker, etc.). The light rail line will open in about a year, and the commute downtown will be vastly simplified for those living in proximity to that train.

I drive thru the construction area almost every morning on my commute (yes, it's finally drive-able, after years of detours, rough streets, blocked intersections...what a war it's been). I'm amazed at the amount of high-quality new housing that's been built on and around the train route -- mostly condos and townhomes.

They're selling for relatively cheap prices now, but when the train starts a-rollin', you can bet that'll be premium housing at premium prices.

Be sure to explore that area on your trip, too.

BTW, to absolve some of my guilt at not having learned more about the city, I'm taking the Duck tour over the holiday weekend -- gonna play tourist!