Notice the large pig. Now these are things you wouldn’t necessarily know about a lodging option in your future without all the photographs TravelPosters are uploading along with their hotel reviews. You can view all 13 pix of this hotel at Silver Cloud Seattle Lake Union.

For the foodies out there, the San Francisco-based Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture (a.k.a. CUESA) is planning a fall Farm to Market tour to Seattle that takes participants to see organic farmers and then onto farmer’s markets. Pike Place Market, Seattle’s famous farmer’s market, is part of the tour. Along the way, participants chow down on gourmet meals cooked using fresh local products. The tour is scheduled for the weekend of October 1, 2006. Future tours to Portland, Ore. and Spain are also in the works.

The price of the three-day tour (airfare not included) is $699 per person based on double occupancy and $890 for single occupancy guests. Hotel accommodations at the Silver Cloud Inn University are included.

Seattle Farm to Market Tour

Tip #3: Chances are, you don’t have to drive hundreds of miles to achieve that “I’m on vacation” feeling. Instead of spending your funds on gas, try heading somewhere closer to home and using your savings on something that will actually enhance your trip, rather than just move you from point A to point B.

A great place to look for easy getaway suggestions? Check out blog posts from other TravelPosters who’ve visited destinations near your hometown. Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

New England

Take TravelPoster azergo’s advice in this Westminster, Massachusetts blog post and head to Wachusett Mountain, which is located within an hour and a half of Boston, Providence, Nashua, Hartford and Worcester (20 minutes):

If you hike, cross country ski, snow shoe, or walk the mountain’s seventeen miles of trails, you will come across vibrant three-hundred-year-old trees, making it the largest known area of old growth forest east of the Connecticut River. Upon reaching its summit, a treat is in store: a 360- degree view of southern New England including Mount Monadnock and the Boston skyline. Thoreau remarked: “there lay Massachusetts, spread out before us, in its length and breadth, like a map.”

Azergo suggests snagging accommodations at the Wachusett Village Inn.

Pacific Northwest

TravelPoster ShirleyRuble wrote about how taken she was with Sechelt, British Columbia (about 40 miles from Vancouver and three hours from Seattle) in her blog post Princess Louisa Inlet, British Columbia, Canada. The small town sits between Porpoise Bay and Georgia Straight and has only about 8,000 residents, many of who are outdoorsy, artsy types. Her description of the Driftwood Inn sounds like the perfect mellow weekend getaway:

Waves lap lightly on the shoreline. We watched boys diving off a raft while their mother read under a beach umbrella. Six Canadian geese floated placidly by, nibbling at an occasional insect that hovered on the waves. The Driftwood Inn’s owners had prepared a delicious feast for us. We left the serving table with heaping plates of salad, warm sourdough bread, salmon, roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, steamed veggies, and strawberry jam cake with coffee or tea.

Mid-Atlantic

For outdoor adventure within a few hours’ drive of Washington, DC, TravelPoster Neecee suggests Virginia’s Skyline Drive (pictured above), which winds through the Blue Ridge Mountains, passing such sites as Shenandoah National Park and the Luray Caverns:

The views from the drive are awesome. Each bend had a new vista to check out. We made several stops at the various lookouts. While the trees were not in their full fall color, the colors were beautiful!

You can read more about the drive and the caverns in Neecee’s blog post Shenandoah National Park - Skyline Drive. For lodging, you can camp in the park during summer months. There are also inns and lodges in the area.

The newly opened Hotel deLuxe brings a little Hollywood to its otherwise very un-Hollywood Portland environs. The decor is designed with Hollywood’s Golden Era (1920s-1940s) in mind - think black and white portraits of classic movie stars on the walls, furnishings with art deco flair and rooms with names like feature and premier. The hotel’s aesthetic sensibilities may look back to an earlier era, but the amenities are otherwise modern. Rooms feature wi-fi, iPod stations, pillow menus and HDTV flat panel televisions. The hotel also features 24-hour room service, a fitness room, business center, as well as a brand new restaurant called Gracie’s and the Driftwood Room, the only feature still left from the hotel that operated here before $10 million in renovations.

The You and Toto package offers guests and a pet a night’s accommodations complete with food and water bowls, doggie poo bags, a dog bed, and treats for $169/night. Don’t have a furry friend? The Stuff that Dreams are Made of package offers overnight accommodations for two in a King or Queen room, rose petals, candlelight, a Champagne toast and two one-hour in-room massages for $329.

Hotel deLuxe official site

‘Tis the season for food and beverage festivals around the country. As spring arrives and gives way to summer, festivals featuring good eats and drinks are popping up with gusto. One of the most popular genres of these events is the beloved beer festival. Should you be looking to vacation with some fine brewskies in the next few months, you may want to consider one of the following events happening around the country:

April 8: Repeal of Prohibition Festival, Schlafly Bottleworks, Maplewood, MO

April 11-14: Craft Brewers Conference and World Beer Cup, Seattle Sheraton, Seattle, WA

April 29: World Beer Festival, Raleigh, NC

April 29: 23rd Annual International Beer Festival, Fort Mason, San Francisco, CA

May 6: 10th Annual Boonville Beer Fest, Mendocino County Fairgrounds, Boonville, CA

May 12: Long Island Beer Festival, Hilton Long Island Hotel, Melville, NY

May 13: 5th Annual Virginia Beer Festival, Town Point Park, Norfolk, VA

May 13: NOToberfest East Atlanta Beer Fest, Atlanta, GA

June 17-18: Summer Brewfest, St. Edward State Park, Kenmore, WA

June 23-25: Old Dominion Beer Festival, Ashburn, VA

July 22: Made in the Shade Beer Festival, Flagstaff, AZ

July 22: 9th Annual Summer Beer Festival, Riverside Park, Ypsilanti, MI

July 27-30: 19th Annual Oregon Brewers Festival, Portland, OR

Sept. 28-30: Great American Beer Festival, Colorado Convention Center, Denver, CO

If you plan to go, check to see whether you need to purchase tickets in advance. Some of these events are combine with concerts and other performances and will have limited ticket sales.

For more information about beer festivals and related events, check the Real Beer Events Calendar.

A good Top 10 list from Sherman’s Travel, this round-up of foodie must-visits includes some places that might surprise you. For example, Hanoi and Vancouver made the top 10, along with no-duh places like New York and Rome. Here they are (in alpha order):

Barcelona
Brussels
Hanoi
Las Vegas
Lyon
New York
San Francisco
Rome
Tokyo
Vancouver

To read why each city made the list, click over to Top 10 Cities For Foodies on MSNBC.com.

What are your favorite foodie cities? I’d have to add New Orleans, Bangkok and even London to my list.

Climbers and mountaineers with plans to strike out for Alaska’s Mt. McKinley, located in Denali National Park, next year may be in for a surprise. Authorities have decided to cap the annual number of climbers allowed on North America’s highest mountain at 1,500. No word yet on how park officials will control the numbers or how interested climbers can secure access to the mountain. The cap comes after significant increases in traffic up the mountain have caused problems - like, for example, what to do with all the waste and debris humans leave behind. Read details in Mount McKinley Getting Dangerously Crowded.

Denali National Park & Preserve official site

TravelPoster marula posted this shot of an Edmonds, WA public fishing pier on the Puget Sound in the blog entry By Puget Sound.

A recent Puget Sound Business Journal story points out an interesting trend in Seattle: boutique hotels are booming. Boutique properties are hot in a lot of cities right now, but the surge in Seattle is notable:

Over the next few years, six new hotels with fewer than 200 rooms will open in Seattle and on the Eastside — the 160-room Pan Pacific Hotel near South Lake Union, the 120-room Hotel 1000 in downtown Seattle, the 150-room Marriott Courtyard in Kirkland, the 149-room Four Seasons Seattle, the 165-room Sierra Suites in Bellevue and the 160-room Hilton Garden Inn in Issaquah.

If you enjoy staying in boutique hotels, you’re going to have a lot more options for Seattle accommodations within a few years.

The Majestic Inn and Spa in Anacortes, WA (90 miles from Seattle and 50 miles from Vancouver) underwent extensive renovations last fall, and TravelPost.com hotel reviewers report that the results make this destination well worth a visit:

It’s super luxurious, with all new furniture, bathrooms, everything. We had a suite with 2 outdoor decks, a walk in shower, jacuzzi tub, and a plasma screen TV. The staff was friendly and professional. The restaurant was great and the bar was fabulous. We might visit Anacortes again just to stay at the hotel!

Another reviewer writes:

It had just reopened three weeks before so we were very lucky to get it at such a cheap price, but the regular prices are worth every dime as well. The rooms are romantic, clean, the bath robes are wonderful, dinner was lovely and staff were very kind.

The 21-room hotel has queen rooms starting at $99/night. The most expensive suite is $229/night, and features a Jacuzzi tub, two plasma TVs and two decks.

Majestic Inn and Spa official site