It’s round this time yearly that individuals begin arising with methods to handle the Pacific Northwest’s notoriously darkish, damp winters, and with out fail, these survival guides embody the tip to get out of city. Go to Palm Springs, they are saying. Catch a flight to Hawaii, they yell. Effectively, wouldn’t that be good, Mr. Cash Luggage Luggage of Cash?! However what do you do when you possibly can’t bodily escape Seattle’s Large Darkish? You get artistic. You discover methods to dissociate take a trip in your thoughts. Listed here are a number of of our favourite methods to get out of our heads when the chilly, the drizzle, the slick sidewalks, the existential election dread, and the limitless blanket of grey get to be an excessive amount of.
Metropolis Sweats’ Indoor Seashore
A go to to a neighborhood sauna is a reasonably apparent strategy to fake you’re someplace else. I gained’t insult you by assuming you haven’t already considered that. However do you know that the majority Metropolis Sweats areas HAVE THEIR OWN BEACH??? After you’re executed sweating in one in every of their infrared cubicles, head to their air-conditioned again room, the place you possibly can sip complimentary hibiscus iced tea and eat orange slices in your individual little cabana chair whereas operating your toes by way of large quantities of white sand. Sure! Actual sand! Not the sand-pebble-toe-slicing-rock hybrid discovered on most native seashores. On the West Seattle location, there’s even a candy little shoreline mural painted on the wall for max creativeness. Simply cue up some ocean soundscapes in your earbuds, sit again, and calm down. (Suppose the employees would get mad in case you DoorDash a Piña Colada? There’s just one strategy to discover out!) MEGAN SELING
Little Water Cantina
Tucked away on the south aspect of the ship canal, Little Water Cantina presents a respite from the unrelenting gloom of Seattle. Whereas on stormy days, the large home windows might pressure you to stare into the abyss of Lake Union’s uneven waters, all you need to do is flip your again to the window, and as a substitute, soak of their mural—a precise duplicate of the view out the window, however on sunnier days. Plus, the heated, lined patio stays open all 12 months spherical, so on clear winter nights, you possibly can nonetheless go and benefit from the contemporary air and fake it’s only a late summer time night with a little bit of a chill. I significantly love their after 9 pm completely satisfied hour on Friday and Saturday, and their liquid nitrogen margaritas. ASHLEY NERBOVIG
The Indoor Solar Shoppe
Lengthy-time locals already know this trick, however right here’s a tip for newbies: Fremont’s Indoor Solar Shoppe is a beacon of literal light and heat and the proper likelihood to recharge your sun-deprived spirit. Not solely is the house full of mood-lifting sunlamps, however each inch of the store is lush with each form of plant you possibly can think about—they grasp from the ceiling, line the cabinets, and sit on the ground, forming winding paths. It looks like a tropical treehouse. (I at all times hope a small monkey ought to soar down from the ceiling onto my shoulders, however that has but to occur.) Even in case you aren’t a plant individual, you doubtless gained’t need to go away empty-handed. Fortunately, the educated employees can set you up with the proper accomplice, from no-maintenance and low-maintenance terrariums and cacti to carnivorous crops that seem like one thing that was beamed all the way down to Earth throughout a complete eclipse of the solar. (Feed me, Seymour!) In addition they often host workshops so you will get out of the home and socialize whereas soaking in all that faux solar, all of that are superb issues to do for anybody beginning to sink a bit of too deeply into the large unhappiness. MEGAN SELING
Inside Passage
You understand that feeling whenever you’ve simply gotten off a airplane and also you sidle as much as a beach-side bar on your first boozy, over-the-top Trip Drink? You’ll be able to hear the palm fronds within the gentle night breeze; you possibly can odor the saltwater wafting within the air, and the orgeat and pineapple juice hides the power of the double-proof rum you’re sipping out of an ornate tiki glass. It’s the primary breath of trip, as a result of each single sense is telling you that you just’re Someplace Else.
Usually, you possibly can solely seize that feeling at house by going to a tiki bar, however then you need to quiet the voice inside your head, reminding you that Tiki Tradition is one large appropriation of Polynesian, Melanesian, and Micronesian cultures.
Enter Capitol Hill’s Inside Passage—a tiki bar with out the tiki. Cross by way of the sliding door, and also you’re in Kiki’s world: an enormous kraken “that embodies the ability of fable itself and grows with each story that’s advised.” She lives within the Inside Passage—the crusing route from Seattle to Alaska that chooses the trail between the outer islands and the mainland to keep away from stormy, uneven waters.
In the event you don’t look too carefully, Inside Passage appears to be like like a conventional, ornate tiki bar, snatched out of the Nineteen Fifties. But it surely’s constructed round Kiki’s mythology. If you sit down on the bar, her tentacles cowl the ceiling above you holding tiny trinkets and rum barrels from sailors that weren’t in a position to survive the passage. The MOHAI-Tai is served in a Rainier can with smoked hops on the aspect; the One-Eyed Willy, the PNW’s most well-known pirate, involves you in a smoking treasure chest.
The cocktail program alone is price it—and the bartenders like to lean into the bit. However in case you ask me, the true motive to come back right here is the real feeling of that first night time on trip, together with your first devil-may-care drink, and the sensation that you just’re Someplace Else. HANNAH MURPHY WINTER
Eat Cake within the Bathtub
In the event you really need to trick your mind into believing you’re someplace you’re not, you might want to interact all 5 senses. For me, meaning drawing a heat bathtub and consuming a fats sq. of cake from Desserts of Paradise.
Right here’s easy methods to seize all the proper vibes: Run a heat however not scorching bathtub. Crank the warmth and arrange a fan to create a cooling breeze. (Take care to not get {the electrical} shit too near the water, clearly. That’s the fallacious form of escape.) For music, make a playlist of no matter reminds you of trip. I like to recommend Oof! by Seattle’s personal Blue Students, which is all about MC Geologic’s Hawaiian heritage. (“Bought a drink in my cup / Selecta with the tunes / Cruzin’ with my, cruzin’ with my, cruzin’ with my crew.”) Drop in a shower bomb that smells like coconut and perhaps a few of these tablets that flip the water blue, and arrange a slideshow in your laptop computer that cycles by way of beachy, tropical scenes. Lastly, seize that cake and climb in.
However actually, it’s all in regards to the cake. There’s an simple transportive high quality to Desserts of Paradise’s desserts. Their guava, mango, and rainbow sponge desserts—topped with tart, salivary-gland-tickling fruit gel, and a beneficiant layer of sunshine whipped cream—style like rays of sunshine. Even with out all of the scene-setting hullabaloo, you’ll really feel such as you’re someplace shiny, heat, and candy with each good chunk. Fuck Calgon. Cake, take me away. MEGAN SELING
