Small, but mighty (and free). A fantastic place to visit but it requires some planning ahead…read more They're only open to the public the first and third Saturday of every month. Reservations are available 15 days in advance. I'd highly recommend that you reserve tickets when they are first made available. We planned a trip out on the Bainbridge Ferry the day we had The Spheres reservations. I definitely don't recommend doing that. The ferry was delayed and we wound up getting to The Spheres 25 minutes after our reservation time. Thankfully, they let us in without really mentioning the time. They request that each guest stay in the building for at most an hour to accommodate the constant flow of guests. The Spheres is a 4 level botanical garden. It was designed to replicate a cloud forest in order to host thousands of tropical and subtropical plants. There were a lot of interesting things that I had never seen elsewhere including spiky-leaf plants (Bigonia xerox), a palm with bright orange stalks with small green fruit that look like capers (Pacaya Palm), and a cone-shaped, bright orange flower that looked unreal (Guzmania conifers). There were also exhibits with amphibians or tropical fish. There's a cafe on the second floor called General Porpoise and gender neutral bathrooms on every floor. A few stations have experiments for kids to interact with or poster boards to read. Because they restrict the guests, it's not too crowded. There is a ton of things to look at and photograph. The amount of people make it so you can get the perfect shot if you are willing to wait a little. It's a must see building and worth the time planning ahead for. Brendan's Rating: 4.4 Charlotte's Rating: 3.9 Shanying's Rating: 5.0 Winston's Rating: 5.0

How lucky were we to see on Facebook that the Amazon Spheres would be open the day we arrived in…read moreSeattle. We were completely blown away by what we saw when we arrived at our appointed time to visit. The Spheres comprises a trio on connected glass domes, located in the center of Amazon-occupied office towers in Downtown Seattle. The Spheres opened in 2018 by Jeff Bezos for his employees. They are only open to the public for free on two Saturdays of each month. The structure was designed by American architecture firm NBBJ. They serve as an employee lounge and workspace. The Spheres are a fully functioning, self-contained ecosystem - a greenhouse with more than 40,000 different varieties of plants from all over the world. It is built on a concrete foundation, using 620 tons of steel. The structures are connected in an open-plan indoor area filled with numerous exotic plants. The most striking feature inside the Amazon Spheres is a 4,000 square foot Canyon Living Wall. It stands 62 feet tall and 50 feet wide. A path winds up four stories across a suspension bridge to a Bird's Nest meeting area. During the day the temperature inside is in the mid 70's with 60% humidity. At night, it drops to 55 degrees with 85% humidity. The highest of the three Amazon Spheres is 90-meters tall. The catalans at the Amazon Spheres contain an incredible 2,643 panels of glass, making the whole structure visible from the outside thus, creating a clear view on the inside. There's also a cafe with treats and coffee. They also offer free tours. We found The Spheres to be a serene and comforting place to visit. The place was amazing!

Fun and family friendly activity! I love going during strawberry picking season/check their website…read morefor what produce are in season. Paying by the lb, they provide boxes and cartons.

We visited Bailey Family Farm on the very first day of strawberry picking for the year (Jun 1)…read moreright after lunch. They had their fields filled with their earliest variety, Sweet Sunrise, with tons and tons of gigantic berries ready for harvest. When I say tons, I mean it - each plant was flush with berries, and it barely took us 30 minutes to basically fill up our entire flat. They also had a limited number of Shuksan and Rainier strawberries, and some barely ripe Totems available for U Pick. We ended up picking an entire box with Sweet Sunrise and two smaller pints of Shuksan and Rainier. Sweet Sunrise - These are a deep crimson red both inside and out. They are large (averaging around 33g each), but large doesn't necessarily mean better. In this case, the taste is kind of diluted down by the amount of water inside. The most ripe and soft ones are sweet and fragrant, but the vast majority are somewhat diluted in flavor. Even the sourness is dilute. The berries are mostly soft and tender. These are still really great strawberries, but are more muted in flavor compared to some of the smaller varieties. Shuksan - This is the 2nd time I've eaten Shuksans and the 2nd time I've been a little disappointed. These are medium size berries, coming in at around 15.5g each. They are extremely sour, making me pucker with every bite. They are also quite a bit firmer than the other two strawberries, even the darker crimson ones. Quite possibly it's too early in the season for these. I'll have to come back later to try more. These have the most lumps and mutant individuals with tons of multiple fused berries. Rainier - This is probably my 2nd favorite variety of strawberry after Hoods (last year, I ate half a flat every week when these were available). It's really early in the season, so there weren't too many available for us to pick. The ones that we were able to locate fill the mouth with a delightful, strong and potent strawberry fragrance. Unfortunately most are quite a bit on the sour side - the ones in the coming weeks will probably be more sweet. Size is by far the smallest, coming in at around 12g per. The berries are really soft and teeth slice through them like warm butter. They are more acidic and are the only strawberry variety to cause me some stomach issues. We visited again the following Monday and the plants were noticeably skimpier. The leftover Sweet Sunrise were only a third the size of previous, and mostly not as ripe. There were more ripe Shuksans, Totems, Rainiers, and even some Tillamooks, Puget Crimsons, and Mary's Peaks ready. Just some quick notes for these: Tillamook - 24.4g avg, 6.2 brix, varying shape, awful variety, even the super red ones are ridiculously sour. Even beyond the sour, they taste awful. The juice is sour, bitter, nasty, the worst. Puget Crimson - 35.8g avg, 8.2 brix, caps really easily, didn't pick a single strawberry where the cap stayed on. Very conical in shape. Really dark red color. Stronger flavor than tillamook and more sweet, but still quite sour. Expected more flavor for being so dark red. Juice is dark in color, no particular distinguishing characteristics. Mary's Peak - 18.8g avg, 8.4 brix, leaves stay attached, some even have stems. Mostly conical in shape but some wider. Really noticeable seeds, can feel them protruding out of the skin. Very pronounced sweeter but mild flavor, some grassy notes. Juice has some candy element like pixie sticks but more sour. Really love the juice. Sweet Sunrise - 17.2g avg, 7.3 brix, half the size of the ones picked the previous week and not nearly as good. Not as ripe I guess so they don't cap nearly as easily. Deep red color, but more sour than sweet. Shuksan - 17.6g avg, 8 brix, Lumpy strawberries, lots of them fused together into big half moon shapes. Great flavor complexity, nasal, strong strawberry flavor, a little perfumey. More stem quality in the flavor, vegetal not bitter, probably because the pith/stem area stays attached more. Juice normal and bright. I liked these way more than the previous week. Rainier - 12.2g avg, 9.5 brix, most of the ripe ones have holes in them from birds and slugs. Aromatic, sweet but sour. Super perfumey elements. Best in flavor. Juice astringent surprisingly not as sweet as the brix would imply, more acidic instead. I like eating the whole berry more than juiced. Thanks to Bailey Farm having so many varieties, this kind of turned into a little science experiment. What else can I say other than that I will definitely be back next year for more strawberries. As a side note: I really wish farms grew Hood strawberries around here. Maybe we just don't have the right climate and soil for that variety? Those are my favorite by far, with the most sweetness (one batch I measured this year when down in Portland was 16 brix!) and best flavor complexity.

We visited Duris Strawberry Farm on the first day of strawberry picking (Jun 13, 2026) and it was a…read morecomplete madhouse. This was about 30 minutes after opening and the small parking lot was completely full. Cars were parked haphazardly all along the street, making it difficult for two way traffic (we had to drive on the grass). Luckily as soon as we pulled into the parking lot a car reversed out. Score! Picking is hectic but organized. They give boxes out at the main stall and have a flag system to mark how far down the row has been picked. The problem is that most people didn't actually use the flags. On the other hand, it's not like the rows were picked very well in the first place. We started at a random one in the middle and there were still plenty of huge and juicy ripe strawberries even on the first couple of plants. We ended up filling our entire box, weighing in at 8.25 pounds by around half way down the row. At $4.75 that was almost $40 in strawberries! The employees said that they would rotate to a second field of strawberries later in the day for more fresh picking. The strawberry variety of the day was Puget Crimson. Since this was the first day, the cream of the crop were still available, meaning huge, juicy, flavorful, ripe strawberries all over. Puget Crimson typically seen at farm stands and markets are medium and small size; these were massive, with the larger ones averaging over 35 grams a piece. Nicely sweet too - I measured a mash of five strawberries at 10.9 brix and a second at 12.1 brix! This particular variety has a decent amount of acidity, but are all full flavored, unlike the first pick of Sweet Sunrise I had a couple of weeks ago, which were huge but somewhat watery. They are deep red/crimson in color, especially for the extremely ripe ones, and mostly conical, although we found a small number of mutants, one looking like 4 or 5 strawberries fused together! Check out is easy. Pro-Tip: there are two checkout lines, one on each side of the stall. The line furthest away from the pathway to the strawberry fields seems to always be shorter. In my case, only 3 groups in line instead of 20+ groups. Warning: these strawberries are planted on top of very sandy dirt, which sticks to the strawberries. Even after soaked and scrubbing, dirt still sticks onto the skin! I will definitely be revisiting Duris Strawberry Farm next year for their first day of strawberry picking!

We stopped and bought some strawberries today and they were spectacular. We received the tip to…read morevisit Duris today from our waitress Lisa at Mama Stortini's during lunch. She said they have great produce so we stopped there on the way home along River road and I'm so glad we did. They had big juicy sweet strawberries picked today just like she said. It was a great tip so I'm paying it forward for anyone who is looking for strawberries. It's best to call them before you go since when they run out, they close and we barely made in time after a late lunch. They only had a few half flats of strawberries bu the time we got there. GPS got us there the back way but once we found it, I have to say it's very easy to find.

BIOPHILIA...Sponsored by PRIME.... never heard of it till…read morestumbling across this place. Located in the heart of downtown Seattle, an Amazon Company satellite office (i guess where Amazon Corporate employees can go when the need to connect with nature arises during work day)...cool concept, wish my job offer a green house. -lower level open to the public. Cool display of frogs and crystal shrimp. -Staff was knowledgeable and seem like they like their job and sphere concept. -Verdict: worth checking out when in the area....BIOPHILIA for LIFE......

There were plenty of street parking when we came on a week day. Parking was $1 per hour from 8AM to…read more11AM, $5.50 per hour from 11AM to 5PM, and $5.50 per hour from 5PM to 8PM. Wasn't sure what the place was about. We walked into the room and started looking around. There was an attendant who spoke about needing a reservation for visitors to enter the Sphere. The place was cool as there were tiny, poisonous frogs to look at.