Exploring Seattle And Boeing Factory

Seattle was one of the cities that I visited on my last overseas trip. I had just booked a couple of days as a side thought at that time. However, I very much come to enjoy the time, so I thought it would be fun to return and explore a little more. An added benefit I met a friend along the way on my last trip and they invited me to stay.

The timing of arrival was not perfect, and I needed to spend one night in a hotel in the city first. Then my friend would be able to pick me up the following afternoon. I did a little research upon arrival at the hotel and found I could book a tour of the Boeing Factory to fill in some time in the morning.

Boeing Factory Tour

It turns out that Boeing has some facilities around Seattle. Including Boeing Field to the South in Tukwila and a factory in Renton. However, the tour today would take us to the larger facility they have in Everett to the north of Seattle. They produce four different models at this factory including the 747, 767, 777 and 787 Dreamliner.

Largest Building In The World

The building in which the factory resides is in fact, the largest building by volume in the world. It has a capacity of 13.3 million cubic meters, more than double the second place on the list. The next closest is the Jean-Luc Lagardère Plant in Toulouse-Blagnac with just 5.6 million cubic meters.

Getting Up Close

The tour takes you inside this massive factory to see just what goes into producing this large aircraft. There are some different viewing decks that you visit above the production lines of all four models. It very much brings home that the very large aircraft that get us between continents are many up of many very small parts. Unfortunately, no camera’s are allowed on the tour, due to one too many incidents of a camera being dropped and causing damage. However, below is some of the aircraft used in transport parts manufactured elsewhere.

Walking Seattle

I filled in the rest of the spare time I had walking around Seattle. I stopped by the Sculpture Park, marked on a map, but was a little disappointed by the lack of sculptures to see. There is one of the sculptures pictured below. In total there was only about a dozen spread over a relatively large area.

Alki Beach

Once my friend had finished work and come to meet me in the City. It was decided a short drive to an area known as Alki Beach would be a great idea. Even though the weather was not the best, it is still a very beautiful area to see. The beaches are much different to what you find back home in Australia, but the climate does not always allow for swimming so much. It is also a great spot to get a look back across the harbour at the skyline of Seattle.