Seattle Dog Friendly Travel Guide - Part I
- Travel With Bindu
- Jul 7, 2022
- 7 min read
Updated: Nov 24, 2022
Seattle holds a special place in our hearts. It was one of the first places that my husband and I visited as a couple and we keep returning to it, over and over again. We like that it has the "big city" feel while still remaining fairly clean and safe. It's also surrounded by some of the most beautiful national parks and natural landscapes in the US. We love Seattle so much that at one point, we had planned on relocating there. While circumstances have changed, we still enjoy our occasional weekend trip to the Emerald City, especially when accompanied by our baby Benji ☺️
This blogpost focuses on our most recent trip over July 4th weekend, 2022. Part 1 is a city guide, and Part 2 covers day trips to the surrounding areas.
WHAT TO DO
Pike Place Market
An obvious one, but still worth mentioning. Pike Place Market is the Seattle icon. It opened in 1907 and has been continuously operating since. That's, like, a long time, especially in dog years!
Pike Place Market is unfortunately not dog friendly per their website. I think the rules are slightly more relaxed in the outer part of the building that's open to the public street (where the flowers and souvenirs are). I've seen a few dogs there before.
Regardless, you can take pictures of the iconic "Public Market" signs from the public streets where dogs are always welcomed.
For the best shot, I'd recommend going early in the morning before the market opens. You can find a parking spot right in front of the market fairly easily during that time. You can also go at night after the market closes, but the restaurants and bars around it would still be open, so it won't be as quiet. The early bird gets the Instagram shot ...
There are 2 "Public Market" signs, the vintage one with the clock is at the corner of Pike Street and Pike Place. Right underneath that sign is Rachel the Piggy Bank, the market's mascot. You can donate your spare change to Rachel to support the Pike Place Market Foundation.
The other "Public Market" sign is at the intersection of Pike Place and Pine Street.
There are lots of beautiful flower stalls right at the entrance of Pike Place. We took pictures of Benji from the back of these stalls, which face the public street where he was allowed.
Another popular stop is the Original Starbucks store. The line is always very long, but you can take pictures in front of the original logo without waiting.
Side note for the hoomans - Over the years, we've tried most of Pike Place staples (Beecher's, Mee Sum Pastry, Ellenos Yogurt, Pike Place Chowder, etc) and while they were good, we didn't find any of them so spectacular that you'd need to wait in line for. The one exception is Oriental Mart, where we had the most tender and delicious chicken adobo. I don't think dogs would be allowed to dine in ("dining in" is a loose term, it's not a proper restaurant, just a small counter), but you can take the food to go.
Kerry Park
Kerry Park is a small public park in the Queen Anne neighborhood, about a 15-minute drive from Downtown Seattle. It has a wonderful view of the Seattle skyline and it's a great spot for city scape photos.
We visited on a Sunday afternoon during a very light drizzle and there were only a handful of people there. We were able to park right in front of the park and take pictures without any wait. However, it's a very popular spot, so if you're visiting on a sunny day, there will be a wait for parking and photos, so plan accordingly.
If the main wall (pictured above) is busy, walk to the right, around the wall, and down the dirt path. There's another spot with great view there that will most likely be less crowded. We actually prefer the view from this dirt mound over the main view, although Benji got a bit dirty since the ground was wet. Nothing baby wipes couldn't fix though!
Gas Works Park
Gas Work Park is a very large and well maintained park in the Fremont neighborhood. It's on the site of a former gasification plant. They did an excellent job incorporating some of the old pieces of the plant into the park, giving them a new whimsical life. The design reminded me a lot of the Giant Ghibli Clock in Tokyo.
The park also has a beautiful view of the water and the Seattle skyline. A lot of people were laying out since the weather was nice.
There were a lot of dogs there, which could be good or bad depending on how social your dogs are. Benji really enjoyed people (and dog) watching from our spot on the grass.
There's parking immediately in front of the park, but also across the street. We had to wait 15 minutes or so to grab a spot, but it was definitely worth the wait.
Fremont Troll
The Fremont Troll is an 18-ft tall concrete statue located under the George Washington Memorial Bridge (The troll under the bridge, get it? Get it?)
The troll's left hand is clutching an actual Volkswagen Beetle. The car originally had a California license plate, but the plate has since been stolen. There's a lot of street parking around, and it was fairly empty even though we went on a Friday afternoon.
It is perfectly fine to climb on the troll and it makes a great photo. If your dog is not good with sit/stay commands however, I'd be very careful as you don't want them to jump and hurt themselves.
Woodland Park and Rose Garden
Woodland Park and Rose Garden is a public park in the Fremont neighborhood, about a 5-minute drive from the Fremont Troll. Perhaps my standards are low since I live in the desert and only ever see dirt and rocks, but I can't get over how freakin' gorgeous this FREE park is: so many colorful flowers, a cute little pond, gazebos, plenty of beautiful corners to have a picnic.
We visited on a Friday night and it wasn't crowded at all. There was ample parking right outside (which costs $6, but the park itself is free). I don't think this is an absolute "must visit", but if you're in the Fremont area and the weather is nice, it's worth a stop.
WHERE TO EAT & DRINK
Apologies in advance for the terrible quality of these photos, we don't usually bring our camera to dinner and our iPhones don't work well under low light
Brimmer and Heeltap ($$)
Brimmer and Heeltap is the best meal we've had in Seattle! The fact that they're dog friendly is just icing on the cake. It's a small neighborhood restaurant in Ballard with an adorable covered & heated outdoor patio - excellent for cold and rainy days. They take online reservations via Resy, which allows you to select an indoor or outdoor table ahead of time. This is a small but very handy feature when you're bringing a dog and can only sit outside.
The food here is amaaaaaazing. We ordered Radicchio Salad (pictured below), Potato Dumplings, Manila Clams, and Olive Oil Cake. Everything was 10/10. Soooo good. I also highly recommend the Handwritten Letters cocktail - rum with honey and lavender.
Bangrak Market ($$)
Bangrak Market is a Thai street food restaurant in Belltown. The interior of the restaurant is modeled after a Thai street market, complete with food carts and colorful plastic baskets. The covered outdoor seating area is nicely decorated with string lights and is dog friendly.
We like that they run an online waitlist through Yelp. You can put your name on the list and show up near your reservation time. No need to stand around waiting! We couldn't quite figure out how to notify the restaurant via Yelp that we had a dog, though. We just let them know when we arrived and luckily an outdoor table opened up shortly after we checked in with the hostess.
For dinner, we ordered Kao Mun Gai (chicken & rice), Moo Ping (marinated pork skewers), Goong Pao (grilled jumbo white prawns), Tod Mun (fried fish cake). We specifically ordered the Kao Mun Gai because Benji loves Hainanese Chicken Rice and this was the Thai version of that. He liked the pieces we let him taste, but he wasn't as excited as he was when he tried Hainanese Chicken Rice. I guess that's still his favorite. I also ordered the Tequila Basil Margarita (good, but very spicy) and my husband ordered a Thai beer named Leo.
Bottlehouse ($$)
Bottlehouse is an adorable wine bar that also serves small bites (think charcuterie board, sandwiches, etc) They have a covered outdoor patio with heat lamps. That last part is always important to us because we're from the desert and get cold very easily 😬
We ordered wine, baguette with butter and honey, and the charcuterie board. Everything was excellent. Benji tried some of the baguette and he thought it was perfect - crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside.
Side note - the "cocktails" here are made of wine/beer and not hard liquor. They're still delicious (we got an Old Fashioned) but something to keep in mind.
Reckless Noodle House ($$)
Reckless Noodle House is a Vietnamese fusion restaurant with a dog friendly outdoor patio. We ordered the Shrimp Chips, Shrimp Fresh Rolls, Reckless Fried Rice, and the Coconut Tapioca with Pandan Sorbet. The Shrimp Chips were our favorite. We gave Benji some of the shrimp from the fresh rolls and he was very happy.
One thing we really loved about this restaurant is they have a connecting dog-friendly bar. They allowed us to sit inside with Benji and enjoy our post-dinner cocktails (which were very good and decently priced compared to Las Vegas). The waitress said it was okay because they don't serve food at the bar.
WHERE TO STAY
We stayed at the W Seattle (★★★★) with Benji and it was ... okay. We didn't hate it, but wouldn't highly recommend it either.
👍🏼 Things we liked:
- Their website doesn't mention a pet fee and we didn't get charged one
- The location was great
- The in-house coffee shop was decent. It was counter service, so they didn't have issues with us sitting inside with Benji
👎🏼 Things we didn't like:
- Benji eats frozen fresh food from The Farmer's Dog so we needed a fridge in the room. We don't usually have issues requesting one, but the hotel attempted to charge us an extra $35 per night for a fridge, which frankly felt a little tacky for a 4-star hotel
- Pet amenities were extremely basic (2 dog bowls and a dog bed). To their credit, Benji loved the dog bed.
🌟 Overall Rating: 3/5
Other pet friendly hotels we've stayed at and preferred over the W: Hyatt Regency Seattle (★★★★), Hyatt at Olive 8 (★★★★)
Thanks for reading our first ever blogpost! We had a lot of fun writing this ☺️
Stay tuned for Part 2 with our recommendations for day trips from Seattle!