Seattle Attractions: Book Tickets Now

Seattle Aquarium sits on Pier 59 and has been open since 1977. Most of what you see comes from the water right outside, and the Window on Washington Waters is the best example. It is a 120,000-gallon tank that recreates Washington’s coastal waters, and divers work inside it. The Underwater Dome puts you in a room beneath a 400,000-gallon tank of Puget Sound fish, with salmon and sharks passing overhead.

Tide pool exhibits let you see sea stars and anemones up close, and the aquarium also has sea otters, harbor seals and a Giant Pacific octopus.

Pacific Science Center started as the United States Science Pavilion at the 1962 World’s Fair, and it still sits among the arches and fountains at Seattle Center. Inside, there is a Tropical Butterfly House with free-flying butterflies, a planetarium, a laser dome and two IMAX theaters. Dinosaur displays and hands-on exhibits keep younger visitors busy.

Because most of it is indoors, it also works well on a wet Seattle day.

The Original Selfie Museum is at 92 Union Street, tucked into Post Alley near Pike Place Market and just past the Gum Wall. It is not a traditional museum. It is a set of colorful installations, each lit for photos and many with props to pose with, and it works as well for a group of friends as for someone on their own.

Most people spend about an hour, which makes it easy to fit between a walk through the market and lunch.

The Seattle Center Monorail is a short ride with a good story. It opened in March 1962 for the World’s Fair and runs on an elevated track above Fifth Avenue, 0.9 miles from Westlake Center to Seattle Center. The trip takes about two minutes and it makes no stops in between.

That makes it a handy link between downtown and Pacific Science Center, and a fun detail of the day in its own right.