Outdoor activities including camping, hiking, kayaking, swimming, skiing, snowboarding, and climbing are popular seasonally. Seattle is an unparalleled base for nature lovers, and it boasts a relaxed vibe that caters to a lifestyle facilitated by the natural environs. Logging was Seattle’s primary industry in the 19th century, but today one can hike and explore the mossy woods without hearing chainsaws in Olympic National Park or on Mount Rainier. “The Emerald City” receives its sobriquet from the lush, green foliage surrounding the area.
If you come in spring or winter, be prepared for chilly temperatures and frequent drizzle (no need to bring an umbrella - just endure the rain like the locals do). While the summer months are always popular thanks to an increased chance of warm temperatures and sunshine, fall is a gorgeous time to make your way to Washington as well. Most gays congregate around the northern section of the beach, away from the more family-oriented southern side.
Madison Park Beach, located on the shores of Lake Washington, is Seattle’s unofficial gay beach. It’s no wonder, given Seattle’s reputation as a bastion for liberalism and counterculture, that the people here are so accepting of their fellow gay citizens. There are also a number of venues and fringe theaters showcasing performances of a more vaudevillian nature. Here you’ll find thriving nightclubs featuring a diverse mix of musical tastes-in fact, hip hop artist and ally Macklemore happens to be from the Emerald City. Seattle’s de facto gayborhood has one of the highest concentrations of LGBT residents per capita in the United States. Seattle has a bustling arts scene unsurprisingly centered on its gayest neighborhood: Capitol Hill. That makes Seattle the second-gayest city in America! Dan Savage would be so proud. In fact, the only American city to claim more LGBT residents is San Francisco. But it also has a reputation as a very gay-friendly destination with a significant gay population. The city is known as the birthplace of grunge music and Starbucks Coffee, and its rainy and cloudy weather is the stuff of legends. “People were coming in to experience what the gay bars were all about as a community, the type of music they enjoyed, the culture.Of the stereotypical things that pop into mind when thinking of Seattle, a robust gay population isn’t necessarily one of them.
“It was the beginning of more openness, for both gay and straight folks, and diversity,” says Schläger, who remembers how younger customers would bring in their straight friends in hopes of amplifying their support network during the AIDS crisis of the ’80s and ’90s. While clubs still had to consistently pay off law enforcement to keep their doors open and their patrons safe, this bubble was ready to burst.Īnd it did. The queer community found tolerance amid spaces that were comfortable, says Schläger. Niche spots on the Hill created a sort of “gay bubble,” as Neighbours Nightclub disc jockey and LGBTQ+ history aficionado Randy Schläger likes to call it. Pioneer Square walked so Capitol Hill could run. Before there was the fetish-friendly Cuff Complex or drag-heavy R Place-both of which opened on Capitol Hill, the former in the late ’80s and the latter in the early ’90s-Pioneer Square had the Casino, a same-sex speakeasy dancehall, and the South End Steam Baths too.