The Amazon Spheres

Having grown up in Florida, I’m sure my first winter in Washington is going to feel long, cold and dreary. At least it will compared to my normal Christmas day ritual of tanning at the beach. But, turns out, a perfectly warm day surrounded by nature is found smack dab in the middle of rainy Seattle and it’s free!

The Spheres, aka my absolute house goals, are open to the public each 1st and 3rd Saturday of the month (unless noted on their website), but you will need to reserve a spot in advance online. Reservations open 15 days prior and they do fill up, as spots are limited, so don’t procrastinate.

You’ll get an hour to tour the building which consists of about 40,000 plants from cloud forests in over 30 different countries. Some of these plants are actually extinct in their natural habitats and were donated to the facility.

During open hours, The Spheres temperature ranges from 68-74 degrees and 60-65 perfect humidity, but afterhours the humidity levels hover between 80-85 percent. Hot yoga anyone?

The plants actually rotate between The Spheres and a nearby greenhouse throughout the seasons.

The building is basically an architecture lovers dream, but the 60 foot living wall is just as impressive as the building. The wall holds 25,000 plants which were all installed in only 2 weeks! Behind the plants is an irrigation system. Stick around and you’ll probably see the misters come on. I caught them a couple times while I was there, but I’m guessing they were also kicking on while I was exploring other parts of the building. My guess is they are probably coming on every 10-15 minutes.

A perk of booking a couple weeks in advance is you’ll have plenty of time to decide on the perfect lunch for after your tour. I’ve had a hankering for some curry chicken for a while so I picked up some Lil Red Jamaican (found on SeattleMet - Seattle’s 100 Best Restaurants) and it did not disappoint!