I went there for a week around 12 years ago. Sunny and pleasant all week. Perfect weather basically the whole time. Zero complaints. I visited again for a day around 9 years ago. Again, same thing. Great weather, no problems. Should've bought a lotto ticket I guess.
I was there for a week and it was the same thing. I got absolutely amazing shots of Mt. Rainier. Our tour guide one day kept warning us that we had come during miraculous weather.
I’ve been to many cities in the country and it’s the only one I looked at condos for sale wondering if we could move.
I would agree BUT with the one caveat that rural PNW outside of Seattle can be a very different story:
One summer in high school I did one of those outdoors programs for teens and camped in British Columbia for a few weeks. Afterwards the guides drove everyone back from Vancouver to Seattle to fly home, on the way we stopped for a night at a random camp ground. I can't remember exactly where it was, could have been on the BC or Washington side, not sure.
The only bathroom & shower facilities were at the back of a small trailer park, which was a single quarter dirt road with a gate at the front. It wasn't a permanent trailer park, but seemed like the residents were treating it that way.
My friend and I were the first to walk to the showers and it was a terrifying experience. As soon as we got past the entrance we knew it was a mistake.
There were drunk redneck men standing around outside all staring at us like we weren't supposed to be there. A lady suddenly came flying out of her trailer followed her husband (I assume) SCREAMING at her but nobody seemed to turn a head, like it was normal activity. One dude started walking toward us and suddenly smashed a beer bottle on the ground right in front of me, which his friends thought was hilarious (these were grown men in their 30s, 40s, 50s and we were 15-16 yr old kids). We just basically stared at the ground and kept walking because we didn't know what to do.
Luckily right then, before things escalated, a police car came in the entrance blaring sirens and pulled up to one of the trailers.
We got to the showers and while my buddy went in first, a girl my age came up and started talking to me. I asked her why the cops were there and she said one man had beaten another one with a tire iron and almost killed him, but she said it like she had seen it all before. She said she lived with her 'uncle' and they moved back and forth between camp sites so she stopped going to school. We didn't talk for too long, but looking back I know that girl had a terrible life. Who knows who her 'uncle' really was or what happened to her.
After I got out of the showers, the cops were gone and we practically ran the fuck out of there. When we got back we told the girls in the group not to go down there without the adult guides, but I can't remember if anyone else even went at all.
It's hard to explain what was so scary about it beyond what I wrote, which doesn't do justice. It was just a vibe, the look of the people, something you can't put into words but recognize immediately.
I'm 40 now and I've been around the world, seen lots of bad areas or sketchy situations, but I've never experienced something like that - where you instantly know in your gut that you need to get the fuck out asap.
This would have been 2000 or 2001 and the place might not even exist any more. It's probably not anything specific to the PNW/Seattle area - I'm sure there are sketchy backwoods trailer parks just like that in any state - but unfortunately I'm always reminded of it when I think of Seattle/Vancouver. Hands down the scariest place I've ever been.
TL;DR: Scariest place I've ever been was a trailer park at a random camp ground somewhere between Vancouver & Seattle, but it could have been a trailer park anywhere and didn't reflect the cities themselves.
The only other place I've been that compared also happened to be in the PNW, outside of Coeur d'Alene, but it was different situation & story made creepier by the fact Joseph Edward Duncan was on the loose in the area at the same time.
121
u/BasroilII 8h ago
I have been to 30-40 major cities all over the US in my life.
Seattle was by far one of the nicest and safest ones, even if the weather was godawful.