Seattle 6.16.25

The last time I was in Seattle was a few years ago, and even then I made the comment that it seemed much cleaner than Portland does these days.

I moved to the Portland area in 2004 after graduating from the University of Oregon in the Eugene. I grew up in North Idaho, and visited Seattle on a few occasions. I knew about the homeless problem, heroin addiction. Seattle had kind of a bad wrap to be honest. When I first moved to Portland area, I loved it. I would go down to events on the Portland waterfront, and frequent restaurants and bars in the city. However, since Covid and the riots, it’s really gone downhill.

In my opinion, Portland is far worse these days. I know they are trying to find housing for the unhoused population, and from what I hear from sources on the inside, they are successfully doing that. However, in the meantime, the city still remains an eyesore and for me personally, does not feel like a safe place to visit.

It would actually be a fun comparison after spending a night in downtown Seattle, to also spend a night in downtown Portland, behaving like a tourist and just see how things feel. If anyone wants to sponsor this comparison experiment for me in exchange for writing an article about my experiences, I would gladly do that. But I don’t think I want to spend my own money on a “vacation” in Portland, especially since even one night in a hotel or an Airbnb is a few hundred dollars these days.

Here in Seattle, I found what I considered to be a pretty good deal on an Airbnb walking distance to the space needle, the waterfront, and pikes place market.  I didn’t do the best job of reading the listing, and expected to have a little more room, but for the four of us for just one night, it worked. The space was a small studio in a seven story apartment building that said it slept four, but the fold out couch was mini. My 14-year-old daughter and her friend made the best of it and I think we all got a pretty good night sleep.

OK, maybe not me, I was a little stressed out that I had left my car parked on the street. When we arrived, there was miraculously a street spot open right in front of our building and parking from 8 PM to 7 AM was free, so instead of moving my car to a nearby garage for the night, as recommended by the Airbnb host, I instead opted to trust the Lord and have faith that he would protect my belongings. He did, and next time hopefully I will sleep easier. 

When I woke up around 3 AM, I checked on it in my app to make sure everything was OK and realized I hadn’t even locked it the night before 🤦🏻‍♀️. When I went down at 7 AM to pay for parking, nothing had been touched. All my belongings were intact and no damage had been done. Thank you Jesus. 

I then headed out on my morning walk to the space needle, to scope out our best route for when the kids wake up later, and find a parking garage closer to our destination that we can store the car while going to the top of the needle and exploring to Chihuly Gardens.

On my morning walk, I think I only passed two people sleeping on the sidewalk, and I didn’t smell any urine. Lol

While walking around the space needle and Fischer Pavilion, there was one man that I tried to steer clear of, that seemed to be preaching something from a stage, all alone that I couldn’t understand. Other than that, there were lots of other people and maintenance workers out, and I didn’t feel unsafe. I didn’t see any tents and very little garbage. There were street sweepers cleaning the pathways and generally it just had a way different vibe than Portland. 

Last night, after we checked in to the Airbnb, we went for a walk down to the waterfront and through Pikes Place market before eating at a pizza place, grabbing some snacks and heading back to our Airbnb for the night to watch Sleepless in Seattle.

I saw very few unhoused people on most of the walk as well. There was one sketchy point, when we veered off our route by a block to find a convenience store to buy the snacks to watch the movie. For some reason they were congregated in front of that store, I think there was a bus stop there and maybe some other services in the area but, once again we just trusted the Lord to protect us and got in and out with our snacks and moved on to cleaner, safer streets. 

It’s not that I think these people are bad people, I truly do have compassion for them and their situation, it has just been my own personal experience on a few different occasions when people in this situation, whether because of mental illness, drugs, or any combination of factors, have behaved in a way that made me feel unsafe, so I try to avoid, especially if I have my kids with me.

It’s was an enjoyable 24 hours in the city, and I would definitely come back here before I would consider vacationing in downtown Portland. 

The following is a breakdown of what this one night get away to Seattle cost for one adult and three kids (ages 14 and 11.) This is mainly for my own personal recollection and comparison in the future, but thought you might find it interesting or helpful as well.

Cost of a 1 night getaway to Seattle for 1 adult and 3 kids (ages 14 and 11):

Gas (plug in hybrid): ~$30

Airbnb $260

Space needle and Chihuly Garden tickets $286

Outlet shopping on the way to Seattle $75

Lunch on the way $28

Dinner in Seattle (Serious Pie) $94

Snacks at Belltown Grocery $72

Rent Sleepless in Seattle on Amazon Prime $3.99

Breakfast (Uptown Espresso) $32

Coffee/Tea (Chaco) $8

Souvenirs $20

Lunch (Subway at The Armory) $57

Parking $32

Dinner at Olive Garden on the way home $63

Total cost for the 4 of us: $1055

What’s your favorite place to go for a one or two night getaway?