End of the Road—Seattle:

Start your day the way most Seattleites do: with a cup of joe. Sign up for the two and a half hour Seattle Coffee Crawl and get a taste of what keeps this city moving. Spend the morning learning about the history of coffee, brewing techniques and roasts, and tasting some of the city’s most popular cups. 

Now that you’re fully caffeinated, make a beeline to the waterfront and spend the afternoon in the legendary Pike Place Market. Wander through the century-old sprawling marketplace where you’ll pass by elaborate displays of locally-caught seafood for sale, watch cheese being made at Beecher’s cheese shop, and sample everything from lavender jam to chocolate pasta from local artisans. The market’s recent expansion has added nearly 50 more vendors, so there’s always something new to discover.

Filling buckets with berries is a summertime ritual for locals, and there are over a dozen farms just outside of Seattle that grow a variety of berries. At Graymarsh Farms you can pick up to six different types of berries, including boysenberries and blueberries, seven days a week during the summer. 

Finish the day at the Ballard Locks, a historic passageway that allows hundreds of spawning salmon to swim up a ladder through the locks from saltwater to freshwater. Throughout the summer and into late fall you can watch four types of fish migrate from above sea level or through an underground observation room. The Pacific Northwest is known for its abundant wild salmon population, and a visit to the Ballard Locks is a behind-the-scenes look at how the state has worked to maintain a sustainable and healthy ecosystem for the fish.