What To Do This Weekend? Go To A Museum!

Image courtesy of commons.wikipedia.org

There is so much to love and do in Seattle that some weekends it’s hard to even begin to pick where to go. Out for a hike? To a new coffee shop? Whale watching?

Another great option for weekends is visiting a museum; museums give us the ability to explore various topics, from art to history to science, at our own pace, alone or in a group. Fortunately, there’s no shortage of museums in Seattle to choose from! Here’s the top 10 museums in Seattle, listed by hotels.com:

• The Olympic Sculpture Park: The Seattle Art Museum transports its most dramatic sculptures to the waterfront Olympic Sculpture Park, where visitors enjoy the works for free. A sunlit sky and the blue sparkle of the Puget Sound render the oversized sculptures even more spectacular. 
• The Seattle Aquarium: Just try to resist touching the nubby, rubbery flesh of starfish or the slippery smooth rays in the Seattle Aquarium’s touch tank. The waterfront museum also exhibits fragile corals, shore birds, marine mammals and lots of fish. 
• The Museum of Glass: Delicate vases contrast with towering abstract sculptures at the Museum of Glass, dedicated to 20th- and 21st-century works. Check out the Hot Shop where glassblowers create new works in molten glass every time the museum’s doors open. 
• The Museum of Flight: The Museum of Flight highlights all forms of mechanical flight in Seattle, hometown of plane-making giant Boeing. Visitors test their physical and analytical prowess in the flight simulator, designed to showcase the demands of space travel. 
• Seattle Art Museum: Hammering Man’s black silhouette towers 50 feet outside the Seattle Art Museum. Stand beneath his shadow and watch him hammer silently, then head inside for the museum’s renowned Northwest Coast Indian artworks. 
• The Experience Music Project: At the Experience Music project, a rock ‘n’ roll museum spanning music from Ray Charles to grunge, Jimi Hendrix isn’t the only attraction but he is the star. Absorb Hendrix’s creative energy through a headset while swooning over his psychedelic costumes. 
• Woodland Park Zoo: Woodland Park’s brown bears reveal nature’s power and beauty as they fish for salmon in their own stream. The bears are just part of the zoo’s 1,100-animal collection, representing 300 individual species over the 92-acre site near Green Lake. 
• The Seattle Asian Art Museum: Asian artworks from the Neolithic period to the present bring east to west at the Seattle Asian Art Museum. The collection of jades, ceramics and snuff bottles is especially rich. 
• The Science Fiction Museum: A dozen alien spacecraft come to life with the click of a mouse in the Science Fiction Museum, their histories and literary or film origins revealed in multimedia displays. The museum also displays clothing, books and memorabilia from literary, television and film sci-fi. 
• The Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture: A revolving collection fills the halls of the Burke Museum, highlighting the natural and cultural history of the American Pacific Northwest. The museum boasts a collection of colorful Northwest totems and fleshes out local history with archaeology, dinosaur and animal displays.

Here’s a bonus tip: if you’re on a budget, check out one of these three museums, which offer free admission and events throughout the month!