Everett, WA
Home of the Boeing Everett factory — the largest building in the world by volume (472 million cubic feet, 98.3 acres under one roof). Boeing built the factory in 1967 specifically to assemble the 747. Every wide-body Boeing since (747, 767, 777, 787) rolled out of this building. The Future of Flight Aviation Center on the south side runs the Boeing factory tour, the most popular industrial tour in the country. Paine itself opened 1936 and was a WWII USAAF training base before Boeing arrived. Commercial passenger service returned in 2019 with a small modern terminal. Mount Baker and the North Cascades are visible to the east, Olympic Mountains to the west. In July 2026 Boeing opened the North Line here, its fourth 737 MAX final assembly line and the first outside the jet's longtime home at Renton.
On the south side of KPAE Paine Field. The Boeing Everett Factory is the largest building in the world by volume — 472 million cubic feet, 98.3 acres under one roof, with its own internal weather (yes, occasional indoor clouds early in its history). Built 1967 to assemble the 747 after Boeing literally bet the company on the program. Every wide-body Boeing since (747, 767, 777, 787) was built here. In July 2026 the factory also began assembling the 737 MAX; the North Line is Boeing's fourth 737 line and the first outside the jet's longtime home at Renton. The Future of Flight Aviation Center runs the public factory tour — the only public access to a major commercial airliner assembly line in North America. The center has its own gallery of cockpits, components, and Boeing history. Tour times sell out — book ahead.
The Hood Canal Bridge floats across the saltwater channel between the Kitsap and Olympic peninsulas; at about a mile and a half it is the longest floating bridge in the world over tidal saltwater. Because the canal is deep and the tides large, the roadway rides on hollow concrete pontoons with a draw section for marine traffic. A 1979 windstorm sank its western half, which was rebuilt.
The Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, opened in 1917, lift boats between saltwater Puget Sound and the freshwater Lake Washington Ship Canal; they are the busiest locks in the United States by vessel count. A fish ladder beside them carries salmon upstream past the dam. The locks hold back the lakes, which sit about twenty feet above the Sound.
Lake Union sits right in the middle of Seattle and is one of the busiest seaplane bases in the country. Kenmore Air and others fly scheduled floatplane service from the south end of the lake out to the San Juans, the Gulf Islands, and Victoria, taking off and landing on the water with the downtown skyline behind. Floatplanes have worked off this lake since the 1940s.