Especially for Kids

Kids will also enjoy many of the attractions described earlier in this chapter, including Odyssey Maritime Discovery Center, Seattle Aquarium, Pacific Science Center, and Woodland Park Zoo.

Adolescent and preadolescent boys seem to unfailingly love Ye Olde Curiosity Shop and the Underground Tour. Younger kids also love the Museum of Flight.

And even the surliest teenagers will think you're pretty cool for taking them to the Experience Music Project.

You might also be able to catch a performance at the Seattle Children's Theatre (tel. 206/441-3322; www.sct.org), in Seattle Center ; or at the Northwest Puppet Center, 9123 15th Ave. NE (tel. 206/523-2579; www.nwpuppet.org).

Don't Bug Me, Man! -- If you find giant spiders more fascinating than frightening, then you should drop by Pike Place Market's unusual Seattle Bug Safari, 1501 Western Ave. (tel. 206/285-BUGS; www.seattlebugsafari.com), which is located on the Pike Hill Climb and is home to more than 40 species of large and unusual insects, spiders, scorpions, centipedes, and millipedes. The zoo is open Monday from 11am to 6pm and Tuesday through Saturday from 10am to 6pm. Admission is $8 for adults and $6 for children 3 to 12.

Good Times in Bad Taste

If your kids (or you) love bad jokes and are fascinated by the bizarre, you won't want to miss the Underground Tour and a visit to Ye Olde Curiosity Shop. Together, these two attractions should reassure you that espresso, traffic jams, and Microsoft aside, Seattle really does have a sense of humor.

If you have an appreciation for off-color humor and are curious about the seamier side of Seattle history, the Underground Tour, 608 First Ave. (tel. 206/682-4646; www.undergroundtour.com), will likely entertain and enlighten you. The tours wander around below street level in the Pioneer Square area, where you can still find the vestiges of Seattle businesses built just after the great fire of 1889. Learn the lowdown dirt on early Seattle, a town where plumbing was problematic and a person could drown in a pothole. Tours are held daily. The cost is $14 for adults, $12 for seniors and students 13 to 17 or with college ID, and $7 for children 7 to 12; children 6 and under are discouraged from participating.

Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, Pier 54, 1001 Alaskan Way (tel. 206/682-5844; www.yeoldecuriosityshop.com), is a cross between a souvenir store and Ripley's Believe It or Not! It's weird! It's wacky! It's tacky! The collection of oddities was started in 1899 by Joe Standley, who developed a more-than-passing interest in strange curios. See Siamese-twin calves, a natural mummy, the Lord's Prayer on a grain of rice, a narwhal tusk, shrunken heads, a 67-pound snail, fleas in dresses -- all the stuff that may have fascinated you as a kid.