My wife & I will spend 4 nights in Washington, the last two in Shelton. We have 2 nights unreserved at the end of August. I'd prefer to visit Leavenworth, but my wife insists on seeing Seattle. We'll pick up a rental car at Sea-Tac for our entire stay, and I'm thinking I'm better off getting a hotel/B&B in a residential neighborhood 10 minutes from downtown, parking the car for 2 days, and taking public transportation into the city.

Suggestions for neighborhoods with easy transportation and/or specific places to stay will be welcome. I'd like to keep the budget at $100/night, but if we had to we could go to $150.

What is it about downtown Seattle you are trying to avoid? Why do you think you are better off out of it? Traffic? Cost? Safety?

If you want to be very close, you could stay in Queen Anne or Lake Union - basically adjacent to downtown, borderline walkable. If you stay in Lake Union, you could take the streetcar or buses into downtown proper.

Andrew, I drove a cab in Manhattan for 2 years. I'm not afraid of the traffic, nor about safety. I just think that spending $200+ for a hotel room and an extra $30 to park is a tremendous waste of money, especially when Seattle is renowned for it's fabulous public transportation. I'd rather stay in a 2-12 room guesthouse in a real neighborhood than be on the 12 floor of a monolith.

"Seattle is renowned for it's (sic) fabulous public transportation". Really? I didn't know that.

Check out the delighful Belltown Inn -- possibly even less than $100 -- great little friendly place with parking on the street -- OK, you sometimes have to feed the machine for a sticker -- or pay for parking through the hotel in a nearby lot-- nowhere near $30 a day! What makes you think you can't stay in a "real neighborhood" without being remote. Belltown is right downtown, but definitely what I'd call a REAL neighborhood.

But in all honesty, you sound like your mind is made up that you'll hate Seattle no matter what, so you probably will.

Gee, Patrick. It's like you already know me! Thanks for the tip on Belltown. I'll check it out.

I think most Seattle residents would get a chuckle out of your assertion that we have a renowned public transportation system! Most people I know (myself included) thinks it's terrible. The just opened light rail is a small step in the right direction but far too little too late.

That aside, you might look at Capitol Hill which has some lovely B&B in big older stately homes on tree-lined streets, but is a short drive or bus ride from downtown.

I would note that we are having an unusually hot (for us) summer and many B&Bs and less expensive places like the Belltown do not have AC. 8 out of 10 nights, you wouldn't miss not having it but with the way the summer's going I'm not sure I would risk it.

Oh, I'd never spend $200+/night on a hotel in downtown Seattle. I'd use Hotwire or Priceline instead to get one for maybe half that. In case you aren't familiar with these services, they don't tell you the name of the hotel ahead of time until you pay then you are locked into a non-refundable/non-changeable hotel. Sounds scary at first, but if you do research on a site like BetterBidding.com you'll find you can guess pretty well ahead of time which hotel you might get in which area. I've been using Priceline for hotels for years and have never been unhappy with the hotels I've gotten (for the price, anyway).

I just checked a random weekend in Seattle - Aug 28-30 and find Hotwire has a 4-star hotel for $109, 3-star for $89 (both supposedly near Pike Place). Priceline might be even cheaper. Figure an extra $20 - $25 for parking of course.

I'd suggest Priceline - you'll do much better than $200 for a four star, even downtown. Queen Anne (Downtown - Space Needle area on PL) is good for a close-in neighborhood, bid for a 3 star.

My neighborhood fits what you describe. Capitol Hill is 2-3 miles from downtown Seattle, serviced by many bus lines (about a 20-25 mins. ride). You can take the #10 along 15th Avenue or #7 down Broadway.
www.baconmansion.com
www.sbmansion.com

Forgot to mention... beautiful tree-lined streets, old homes, lots of independent shops, cafes, restaurants. Plenty of free on-street parking especially around Volunteer Park (watch for the Zone designations, one side of the street is free 24/7, the other side most places will be posted for 4 hours only unless you have a resident pass.

I third the Capitol Hill suggestion. It's a much more interesting neighborhood than downtown or Belltown, with more affordable restaurants (some very good ones, too) but close enough so you can access downtown sights (ie the Pike Place Market). I know there are some b and bs though I haven't seen the inside of any of them.

We'll pick up a rental car at Sea-Tac for our entire stay, and I'm thinking I'm better off getting a hotel/B&B in a residential neighborhood 10 minutes from downtown, parking the car for 2 days, and taking public transportation into the city.

Then why pay for the car rental? There are plenty of rental agencies downtown, and you'll pay less because airport fees and taxes won't be added. A taxi from the airport to any Capitol Hill B&B will be cheaper than a day's car rental.

Or you might have a look at the Doubletree Arctic Club Hotel, a conversion of one of the best historic buildings in the city. You can take the new light rail train from the airport (actually a shuttle bus to the Tukwila station - the station in the airport isn't done yet) and get off at the Pioneer Square station downtown, then walk half a block to the hotel. The train is $2.50 each, the buses in downtown Seattle are free, the hotel is for the time being pretty cheap, probably cheaper than some B&B. No rental car, no hotel parking fees, no taxi charge to downtown, no daily bus charges... think of the money you'll save.

And continuing with Gardyloo's idea, if you take a taxi into downtown and do without a car for the first two days, you can pick one up when you leave downtown (from downtown) for your other two days and drop it off at the airport. You will save not only on the parking and the two days rental, but the additional two days will be way less than it would be getting a car at the airport. I've found the difference in price between airport and downtown in Seattle to be the most dramatic of any city.

The NY Times Travel section actually gave Seattle as an example of the huge disparity in rental car prices between airport and downtown pickup. It is so easy to get downtown from the airport by taxi, town car or public transport that there is no reason to pay the exorbitant airport pickup prices.

Here's a few more Capitol Hill B&Bs:
www.gaslight-inn.com
www.capitolhillmansion.com
www.salisburyhouse.com

Thanks for all the wonderful replies. Capitol Hill sounds like the perfect spot. Many of the B&Bs are booked, but we'll keep searching.

I considered not picking up the car at the airport, but from what I saw, getting from the airport to downtown is not inexpensive. Please correct me if I'm mistaken. How convenient or inconvenient is the light rail system?

Also, from what I can tell, some of the older hotels & B&Bs do not have a/c, and even though we don't leave for almost a month, I know that it's hotter up there than here in Orlando. Maybe the humidity is not that bad up there, but it seems like the difference would be roasting up there as opposed to steaming down here.

Please keep the comments coming!

"I know that it's hotter up there than here in Orlando."
Huh? The only Orlando I know of is the one in Florida. You must be talking about another one. Are were you just trying to be funny? Even if Seattle has 100 degrees (almost unheard of) it is nothing like Orlando with 95 and 95% humidity! Nothing like it! And I can't picture Seattle not cooling off in the evenings even in the middle of an extreme heatwave.

And I can't picture Seattle not cooling off in the evenings even in the middle of an extreme heatwave.

It's all relevant. Nobody has central a/c. The night before last our house got down to 82°F (except in our bedroom where we have a window a/c unit.) We know only one family who has central a/c in their home, and that because one of them has been in poor health for a decade.

Last night the heat broke and I turned off the a/c around 4 AM. Today (so far) it's overcast and in the 60s; forecast is for low- mid 80s for a high, so definitely better. No, it's nothing like the south/east in muggy heat, but then again nobody's prepared for that. AFAIK few families in Florida have earthquake straps on their water heaters, either.

For lenox862, the light rail is too new to say anything definitive (hell, we only had our first fatal pedestrian interface 3 days ago.) But some hotels, like the Mayflower or Arctic Club are a block (Mayflower) or half a block (AC) from a light rail station, so hard to imagine it's all that difficult; I suspect ease of baggage handling would be the difference.

I'd do a little experiment - book a car with pickup/drop-off at the airport, then the same dates with p/u/d/o at some downtown location, and see what the difference might be. You may be pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised. For a four- or five day rental, downtown is usually around $40 - $50 cheaper than the airport, i.e. about one cab ride's difference or two nights hotel charges.

Taxis from the airport to downtown are around $40 plus tip, so counting hotel parking charges it would be hard to be competitive using a rental car. Capitol Hill B&Bs will be a little more in the taxi, and parking will be dependent on the particulars of the B&B. Note most of Capitol Hill is in a "residential parking zone" (decals in your car windows) that severely restricts guest/visitor parking. In addition to asking about air conditioning I'd ask about parking permits as well when you go to make a booking.

I'm pretty sure all the major downtown hotels have a/c. Those that don't will presently be going out of business after this week's heat wave.

Portland (three hours south) tends to be a little warmer than Seattle, but here in Portland we just had a nasty heat wave: 100+ degrees three days in a row, where it did not cool down much at night. For people without A/C it was a miserable few nights. Still, such spells are rare, for Portland and probably moreso for Seattle. I personally wouldn't worry about it. Even the hotels that have A/C in Seattle might not have equipment that can handle such rare extreme heat.

Seattle's light rail system is only a few weeks old, and currently one must take a shuttle bus from the airport to the first stop. But it looks quite convenient to get into the heart of downtown. There are other options to get downtown as well, I think, but I'd probably take the light rail myself.

Lightrail's too new for us to comment on.

I haven't priced it out myself, but the last set of friends I had visit (and they are very budget minded) went ahead and picked up their rental car right at SeaTac for the convenience.

suze (in Seattle)