Seattle

Seattle is the 23rd largest city in The USA with a population of 573,000, making it slightly smaller than Milwaukee but a little larger than Boston. You can find Seattle in the north west corner of the country, not so far from the Canadian city of Vancouver, just under 200 kilometres, in fact.

It has a quite varied economic history, first starting as a town at the centre of the timber industry, receiving the trees and putting them through the sawmills ready to be used in construction. When this went into decline, Seattle next became an important supply centre during the famous Klondike Gold Rush. Following that boom, the next industry to grow up was shipbuilding, which was in turn replaced by the aviation industry. Boeing set up here and was the main employer for many years. It's only recently that the company head offices have moved to Chicago, although the factories remain in the local area. The most recent industry to hit the city has been technology based, with Microsoft, Amazon and RealNetworks among many dot-com companies in the area.

As for the city itself, probably the first thing you notice on arrival is the world famous Space Needle. This is Seattle's landmark which remains from the 1962 World Fair. It's 184 metres tall and was one of the tallest structures in America at that time. You get a magnificent view from the observation deck and if you have time you could even have a meal in the rotating restaurant at the top. Don't worry though, it doesn't rotate so quickly that your food flies off the plate - in fact one complete rotation takes 47 minutes.

Finding the Space Needle is pretty simple - you just need to look up. However, many visitors to the city get a bit confused with the way the roads are labelled. The streets which go in a north south direction are called Avenues (or sometimes Way or Boulevard), and those which go east west are called Streets. The city is then divided into seven zones - north, east, south, west, northeast, northwest, southwest. For some reason there is no southeast zone. Now, street addresses are written with the zone before the name, for example NW 23rd Street. However, avenue addresses are written with the zone after the name, for example 23rd Avenue NW. Oh, and you also should know that in the downtown district there are no directional signs. Make life easier for yourself and simply buy a map.

Once you've mastered how to find your way around why not visit one or two of the city's tourist attractions? One of the most popular is the Museum of Flight, located at 9404 East Marginal Way, South. Straight away you know this is a north south road in the south zone - see, you've learnt already. Here you'll see anything and everything to do with aviation, including some space missions too. Instead, you could go to the Experience Music Project, a music museum where you can even see one of Jimi Hendrix's guitars - he was from Seattle, by the way. Or how about a trip to the aquarium, the zoo or a stroll in one of the city's many parks. Go and watch the Mariners play baseball or the Seahawks play American Football. Indeed, there's an awful lot to do here in America's 23rd largest city.