Rent a Car in Seattle

Downtown Seattle, Capitol Hill and the waterfront work well on foot, and the light rail connects the airport to downtown in about 40 minutes without a car. But Seattle's real draw is what surrounds it: Mount Rainier National Park is roughly a two-hour drive south-east, the ferries to the Olympic Peninsula and its rainforests and hot springs depart from Puget Sound terminals, and Snoqualmie Falls is under an hour east on I-90. None of that is realistic on transit alone.

A hire car also opens up day trips that define a Pacific Northwest visit — wine tasting in the Woodinville valley, hiking near North Cascades National Park, or crossing to Vancouver, Canada in around three hours north. Seattle traffic is notoriously heavy at rush hour, so most visitors collect the car at the airport and use it mainly for excursions outside the city core, parking it once they're back downtown.