Out & About >>

• Best Ski Outfitter on the Duwamish: Wiley's Water Ski Pro Shop
  You read that correctly—only we're talking about water skis, and the closest body of water has probably never seen a (legal) water-ski run. (Anyone foolhardy enough to do so would require a detox shower out of Silkwood.) Yet this is where Wiley's Water Ski Pro Shop has been located for... More >>
• Best Local Boardsmith: Blue Montgomery
  Down a winding road just past Fishermen's Terminal lies the CAPiTA world headquarters. Nestled near the ship canal, amid industrial and marine-related warehouses, this may seem like an odd spot for a snowboard company. But from the wide-open, windowed warehouse and offices—sorry, no... More >>
• Best Feminist Butt-Kicker: Joanne Factor
  On my way to interview women's self-defense teacher Joanne Factor, I noticed a creepy, middle-aged man trailing me with puppy-dog eyes. "Where do you go to school?" asked the man, confirming this reporter's consternation at being the apparent object of a stranger's jailbait fantasies. He... More >>
• Best Old-School Anglers' Shop: Linc's Bait and Tackle
  Having a business infested by worms and maggots is typically not the best calling card, but then, Jerry Beppu, owner-operator of Linc's Bait & Tackle on Rainier Avenue, is an atypical merchant. "I guess maggots would be kind of a strange item to carry, but fishermen use a lot of them,"... More >>
• Best Place to Drink Beers With Unabashed Sports Fans
  Since I moved back to Seattle from a place where lovers of sport often gather in solidarity at their favorite neighborhood pub to stare glassy-eyed at walls of TVs, guzzle cold ones, and cheer with gusto, it's been a sad search to find a decent spot to take in a game around here. Thank goodness,... More >>
• Best Place to Find Your Way Around the Pole/Get Some Unexpected Girl Time
  In Krisha CatZen's Queen Anne apartment is the kind of display you can't easily hide from your mother: an extra bedroom, softly lit with glowing red, in which three vertical poles are installed. A silver, sequined curtain lines the back wall. Five ladies are wearing their mandatory,... More >>
• Best Spot to Snag a Whale
  Who the hell wants to go to the gym in the summer? Get off the Stairmaster and enjoy our cornucopia of ass-kicking hills, and by all means get out of that 80 percent water, 20 percent chlorine and go enjoy the refreshing salt water of West Seattle's Colman Pool. The pool sits on an outcropping... More >>
• Best Place to Play Bocce Ball
  The best way to get to Lake Washington Boulevard from Capitol Hill and the Central District by bike is also one of the most dramatic: the I-90 Pedestrian/Bike Tunnel, a secondary route above the freeway tube that passes through Mount Baker. On a hot, bright day, you pedal into the dim... More >>
• Best Place to Watch the Sunrise
  We are blessed with many a vista in our fair city, but none so lovely as the view from the benches of Louisa Boren Park, where you can gaze eastward over the rolling backside of Capitol Hill, past wavy Lake Washington, and out to the Cascade Mountains beyond. The east-facing perch is the perfect... More >>
• Best Quickie Hike
  OK, maybe not a whale, but the Elliott Bay Public Fishing Pier is a sweet urban spot to snag a fat salmon or wrestle up a jumbo rockfish. About a mile north of the sculpture park along the paved trail that traverses Myrtle Edwards Park, the pier has sheltered seating for those drizzly... More >>
• Best Place to Run Into Your Co-Worker in a Jockstrap
  Not that I've spotted any current Seattle Weekly staff members at the Eagle Tavern's Underwear Party. But the skivvy party that takes place most Saturdays at this venerable dive brings in prides of lust-drunk gay men, and people I know who work at other companies have had to squeeze past some... More >>
• Best Place to Outfit Yourself Like a Local
  Despite what you might think, Pioneer Square's Occidental Square isn't just for crackheads. The place, though still a haven for the homeless, has been spiffed up and is now lined with lovely outdoor tables, a charming visitors-info kiosk, and two—yes, two—regulation bocce-ball... More >>
• Best Karaoke Room
  Love karaoke, but hate waiting for your turn while an obnoxious drunk hogs the mike for yet another rendition of "Livin' on a Prayer"? Gonna tear your eyes out the next time someone attempts "Baby Got Back"? All hail Seattle's Best Karaoke! The private room at the bottom of Denny Way earns its... More >>
• Best Place to Car-Camp Not Too Far From the City
  Though Seattleites live closer to the woods than a lot of urban dwellers, every now and then one needs to commune with nature on a deeper level than circumnavigating Green Lake Park. But not everyone has the time, gear, or inclination to go, say, ice climbing in Leavenworth. Just 30 minutes east... More >>
• Best  South County Bike Trail You've Never Heard Of
  There's a wandering eight-mile loop near Kent that takes you along a gently sloping, paved route populated with dog walkers and small children and crisscrossed with horse trails; and for most of your ride, you'll have the leafy path all to yourself. Soos Creek Trail is the perfect lazy bike... More >>
• Best Excuse to Chug in Public
  Thanks to Ballard's Second Ascent, which specializes in used high-end outdoor clothing and gear, you don't have to drop a ton of coin to fit in with the Northwest crowd. The six-year-old store's staffers are discriminating about the condition and brand of what they'll buy and sell, which results... More >>
• Best Place to See Gothic Lolitas, Capoeira Artists, Hippie Hula-Hoopers, Sleeping Drifters, and Guys with Guitars in One Afternoon
  Throughout the tortuous summer of 2005, Capitol Hill residents routinely broke through the construction fences in their frenzy to enjoy Cal Anderson Park, which was then receiving the finishing touches of its revitalization. Ever since the official opening that fall, you can't keep the throng... More >>
• Best Place to Learn How to Gut and Scale a Fish
  OK, say it's, oh, a Wednesday, and you've got a hankering to sleep out under the stars. Without much fuss, you can take a short trip out close to Enumclaw (about a 40-minute drive) and find yourself in a cush car-camping spot, Kanaskat-Palmer State Park. The park has four miles of hiking trails,... More >>
• Best Place to Book That NASCAR Vacation Package
  "You just start out taking a few of your friends, then it evolved into taking thousands of people a year," says Ron House. House is speaking candidly about his addiction: Since watching his first NASCAR race with his grandfather at age 6, the former diesel mechanic now attends anywhere from five... More >>
• Best Beach-Blanket '80s Nostalgia Trip
  The table card advertising the Stiefel at Prost describes the tradition clearly: A Stiefel is a 2-liter drinking vessel in the shape of a man's boot, meant to be chugged in a team of at least three people, passed from person to person. Once the glass is lifted, setting it back on the table is... More >>
• Best Free Aquarium
  The live shellfish display at Uwajimaya sure beats shelling out $15 for admittance to the Seattle Aquarium. Razor and geoduck clams, Dungeness crab, lobster, shrimp, and multiple species of oysters swim in open-top tanks, along with colorful whole octopus, mackerel, and squid. There won't be a... More >>
• Best Excuse When Caught Walking Out of the Lusty Lady
  At Pike Place Market's Pure Food Fish Market, longtime fishmongers like Walter Compare don't want customers to leave with any questions about what to do with their catch. "I like to educate people as much as I can," says Compare. He's been in the business for 43 years and sees it as a service... More >>
• Best Public Golf Course
  If all the purple signage and landscaping doesn't tip you off, perhaps the golf carts emblazoned with Pac-10 team logos and colors will: Washington National Golf Club is the home course for the UW men's and women's golf teams. Yes, it's a bit of a hike from town, but it's a gem that's well worth... More >>
• Best Place to Buy a Houseplant From A Norwegian
  "How's your ficus?" says Palm Room owner Brandon Peterson every time my wife and I set foot in his store. We are connected to Peterson because of a 5-foot-tall houseplant we bought from him that sits in our kitchen and soaks up sun all day. But this is exactly what keeps us going back to the... More >>
• Best Time-Travel Experience
  Best Cheap Civic Thrill More >>
• Best Actualization of the Term "Jungle" in Urban Jungle
  Seattle Center's 1995 decision to renovate its International Fountain into something you interact with, rather than just look at, was a brilliant one. Any warm day, and even some cool ones, you see kids romping around inside this grandly curved, gently sloped, 200-foot-diameter basin, squealing... More >>
• Best Place to Inspire an Alibi
  There are places in Seattle that seem to have remained gloriously unchanged for decades. I'm thinking of businesses like Byrnie Utz Hats, stacked to the ceiling with fedoras, Stetsons, and berets, a throwback to the elegant days when no man left the house bareheaded; or lower Queen Anne's Mecca... More >>
• Best Reason to Play Hooky
  Yes, there are still old-growth trees in Seattle proper. West Seattle's Schmitz Preserve Park boasts a few standing old pines—maybe not possessing the generous girth of the ones you'll find in the Hoh Rain Forest, but certainly stately and awe-inspiring. Here, you'll wend your way through... More >>
• Best Place to Pretend You're in Kindergarten
  God, the family: wife always bitching, younger brother always hassling you for golf pointers—sometimes you just want to disappear. Go to Vegas for the weekend without telling anybody. That'd be fun. Unless your family freaks the hell out and calls in a missing-person report, spurring a... More >>
• Best Courts for Free, Drop-in Tennis
  When the sun comes out in Seattle, the instinct is to head to the water. But doing so would be at the expense of experiencing one of the things that makes this town so great: a Mariners game at Safeco. The ushers are friendly, the garlic fries are addictive, the views of the Sound from the... More >>
• Best Place to See Wild Salmon Runs in Seattle 
  Last December, Matt Jones was having a blast. "I was just dancing and painting with a friend of mine and, in a corny kind of way, said 'paintdancing.com!'" Last New Year's Eve, a mere two weeks after checking for the domain name's availability, Gasworks Gallery hosted its first Paint Dancing... More >>
• Best Time to Find a Kilt in Chinatown
  The best way to ensure that you'll never be wanting for a tennis match is also the most expensive: Join a tennis club. That's not always possible, or even desirable, but take heart—you can find a game if you know where to look. Every city has a set of public courts that, for some reason,... More >>
• Best Bar to Cap a Lads' Night Out
  With a slew of hardworking volunteers serving as environmental stewards, Carkeek Park has successfully transformed itself into one of the strongest local habitats for salmon runs. Years of careful work have made the park's Pipers Creek the place to go in the fall to see fish thick in the... More >>
• Best Exercise With a View
  In parts of San Francisco, Chinese-Jewish pairings are so common that they have their own nickname: "Chewish." So why should Chinese-Scottish pairings seem odd? They shouldn't. In fact, the best relic of mixed ethnicities—nay, of America—is the ability to cherry-pick from each.... More >>
• Best Rebirthing Experience You Can Have on a Bike
  While girls have to navigate the Machiavellian world of Queen Bees and Wannabes, making friends among the rougher sex is a bit simpler. Basically, dudes bond through competition. It doesn't really matter what it is or what's at stake; if someone's keeping score, it counts. And when said dudes... More >>