Postscripts 2023: Catching up with some of this year’s cover story subjects.
AMID OUR COMPLAINTS about this or that being wrong with Seattle, we locals can forget why this is a truly magnificent city.
So thank you, tourists.
In June, I wrote a story about the most-asked questions tourists have when visiting Seattle. From the Pike Place Market Gum Wall to the best place to see whales, we provided answers.
On a rainy, cold October evening, I went back to the Green Tortoise Hostel. That’s where I interviewed guests for the original story.
The new group I talked to didn’t mind the weather as they shook off their parkas.
I was struck by what Benny Zelkin, 27, of Washington, D.C., who’s working as a digital nomad, told me after he’d rented a minivan and driven south on I-5 from downtown Seattle.
“I’m driving, and Mount Rainier came out of nowhere. Holy —-! It was insane. I was speechless. What an amazing sight,” he says.
We locals are familiar with that astounding image. From numerous spots around Seattle, we’re going about our everyday business, and then happen to look in the distance. It’s there. No matter how many years you’ve lived here, you stop in wonder at the mountain.
The hostel is at First and Pike. Yes; it’s a location where you get to experience downtown.
Zelkin took it in stride. “Every city has its characters. Seattle is no better or worse,” he says.
Then he talked about a hiking trip he took in the Olympic National Forest. He showed a selfie from the way to Mount Townsend.
“The trail runs through a ravine, a creek and massive old-growth conifers. With the ferns and moss, it was like a picture out of a storybook,” he says.
TOURISM IN SEATTLE is rebounding from the pandemic; the number of visitors in 2022 was up a quarter over 2021. That translates to more than 33 million visitors to Seattle and King County last year.
Nearly all our visitors — 96% — are from domestic locations. A third of that 96% comes from Washington. It’s hard to resist a Seahawks game. The top domestic origins for visitors after Washington are Oregon and California. Easy driving. The other two states in the Top 5 are New York and Texas.
Direct flights, our arts and culture scene, “great food” and “still surrounded by nature,” are reasons, says Ali Daniels, chief marketing officer for Visit Seattle, the city’s official marketing group.
Plus, our moderate climate is a selling point. “You can experience the seasons without the extremes,” she says. Texans appreciate that. We’re a city in which only half of homeowners feel the need for air-conditioning.
As for international visitors here, it’s no surprise that Canadians lead the Top 5. They are followed by visitors from the UK, India, Germany and China. For those from the UK and Germany, it’s the ease of direct flights that motivates them, says Visit Seattle.
In the case of India, although there are no direct flights, family and friends come to see people working in our tech sector. China is down to one nonstop flight here (from Shanghai) when there used to be five. Geopolitics.
AT THE HOSTEL, I met Taylor Kuklish, 23, of Fishers, Ind., a suburb of Indianapolis. She’s a recent Ball State University graduate. By late October, she had been staying here for two months at $50 a night.
“It’s a way to meet people, and the price, of course,” she says.
Visit Seattle figures show that those coming to Seattle are spread across all incomes: roughly one-third at the wealthier end (more than $100,000 annual income), about one-third under $50,000 and the rest in between.
For Kuklish, it doesn’t cost anything to wander across the street to Pike Place Market. Or to get fish pieces there from the trash to use as crab food, and walk down to Myrtle Edwards Park along Elliott Bay. There, it was a feast for the small shore crabs that dwell in the rocks. “It’s free and doesn’t have an impact on the environment,” she says.
Kuklish is pondering going to the University of Washington and earning a master’s degree in a marine sciences field. In the Midwest, she says, “There is a very negative perception whenever Seattle is mentioned. The drug issues, fentanyl. I heard a lot about homelessness.”
And?
“I think the city is much more than that.”
What is memorable for her, she says: “I love how you can be downtown and then be in a park in five minutes.”
I ALSO TALKED to Severyn Quirk, 25, of Corvallis, Ore., and Chloe Parson, 23, of Battle Ground in Clark County. They’re friends who took the Amtrak from Portland to Seattle.
“You guys have a pretty solid bus system,” says Quirk, perhaps a surprise to local complainers.
They used Tripadvisor, which claims to be the world’s largest travel website, to figure out which spots to visit. It gives a lot of 4½ and 5 stars to local attractions.
The friends had fun at the Museum of Pop Culture, jamming in the sound booths. They enjoyed walking along the waterfront. They thought the locals were a friendly bunch. At the waterfront, they talked to a guy who lived in a nearby apartment.
He advised them, “Don’t go past Second Avenue.” When I talked to them, they hadn’t.
Going back home, what will Quirk and Parson tell their friends about our city?
“I loved it,” says Parson.
A little outside perspective always helps.