Jo Travis is glad to be sleepless in Seattle, America's friendliest city.

It’s 5am and I am, indeed, sleepless in Seattle. But it’s not because I am lovelorn a la Tom Hanks, it is because the dawn light is streaming through the windows of my hotel room and sleeping seems such a waste.

The Space Needle is right in front of me with the Olympic Mountains miles beyond that. Jet lag has given me the ability to get by on only four hours' kip and I have never been more grateful for sleep deprivation.

Let’s face it, when most Brits think of a holiday in the US their imaginations do not wander much further than Florida, New York and Las Vegas. But if you heed the 19th century expansionists and go west you will not be disappointed.

Seattle has entered our consciousness as the home of Frasier, grunge music and more recently, Grey’s Anatomy, but it has just got a lot easier to get to.

Seattle is the home of Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon, Nordstrom, UPS and, of course, Starbucks. It is the birthplace of dress-down Friday and is built on a foundation of hard work and innovation mixed with a good dose of laid-back west coast attitude.

Seattle markets itself as "Metronatural" – a thriving metropolis that is a stone’s throw from three mountain ranges, a rainforest and the Pacific Ocean.

It offers a fantastic standard of living and it regularly garners such accolades as "the most liveable US city", "most educated US city".

But it almost did not happen. Seattle became the state capital by accident. Port Townsend was due to get that honour but the railroad did not quite make it that far.

Settled in the 1850s under the unoriginal name of New York, its growth was pretty slow. Renamed as the uninspiring Duwamps, things did not get much better.

It was only when it chose the name Seattle in honour of the respected Suquamish tribe chief Sealth that things began to take off.

It became a boomtown during the rush for gold to the Klondike and was quickly established as the gateway to Alaska and the Yukon.

The name Skid Row is said to have come from the road, which separated the posh and the unsavoury sides of town, loggers used to slide the trees down to the docks.

Nowadays the docks have been cleaned up and are a centre of commerce as well as welcoming hundreds of Alaska-bound cruise ships. One of the main attractions of that part of town is the Pike Place market, which was established 100 years ago by eight disgruntled farmers who were fed up at the price they were getting for their produce.

They were inundated with customers and the market has thrived ever since. All of the traders are local producers selling their own goods and there has been a deliberate attempt to keep out multi-national companies.

Pike Place, considered by many to be the soul of Seattle, is also the site of the first Starbucks. This multi-national is only allowed to stay because it was founded there and it is the only outlet that still sports the original logo featuring a slightly racier mermaid.

The market takes its 10 million annual visitors very seriously and there are regular arts and movie festivals as well as street entertainers.

It is in this part of town that you notice the high numbers of homeless people in Seattle. They are drawn to the area by the mild year-round climate and tolerant society and they do not add an air of menace or danger to the streets.

Seattleites are a laid-back and friendly lot. During our stay we were regularly approached in the street by people who had overheard our accents and wanted to chat.

But one resident told us that this friendliness often belied a natural reserve that he called the "Seattle chill" and which he said was hard to penetrate.

However, this gentleman was from San Francisco and if there is one thing Seattleites despise it is a Californian.

They have lived in the shadow of their near-neighbour for years and now Californians are flocking to the city, forcing up house prices and making it one of the most expensive places to live in America.

During our stay Seattle held its annual Pig Parade. It is, as the name suggests, a fundraising procession featuring fibreglass pigs that have been decorated by the firms who sponsor them.

Macy’s pig is a glitzy number featuring the store’s five-pointed star. Boeing’s has a sky theme and Starbucks has created Andy Warthog.

After the parade the pigs are scattered across the city centre and it is very telling that none of them is vandalised, nor are they expected to be.

During our stay in the Emerald City we were totally spoiled in our choice of lodgings.

For the first two nights we stayed at the Hotel Deca – a recently remodelled homage to the 1930s housed in a genuine Art Deco building.

Sited in the university area, Hotel Deca is a 15-minute drive from downtown Seattle and it boasts views of the city skyline as well as the Cascade and Olympic mountain ranges. Quirky, bespoke Italian furniture graces the lobby, which is lit by oil lamps and a roaring fire in the evenings. It has a wine bar stocked only with tipples grown in Washington State as well as the obligatory coffee bar.

The rooms retain authentic period details which are enhanced by modern fabrics and stylings – truly Art Deco.

It was recently voted the people’s favourite lodging on the NW Source website, and it also ranks high in their most romantic hotel category.

Our final nights were spent downtown in the business-orientated Grand Hyatt Seattle. Located next to the conference and exhibition hub, the Grand Hyatt was designed to set the city’s standard for luxury accommodation.

Our executive suites contained laptop connection points, wireless connections, two flat screen TVs and all the toys that would make a business traveller’s stay easier.

I have to say that this is one of the most sumptuous rooms I have ever stayed in. It was bigger than some of the flats I have had and was decked out in muted, elegant fabrics.

The oversized marble and travertine bathroom was totally decadent, and if you could not be bothered to close the curtains, a button at the side of the bed would drop blackout blinds for you.

It is a great base for seeing the downtown area, which has all the named stores you could want side by side with quirkier independent shops and galleries.

Pioneer Square is the place to go if you want to get an idea of what Seattle was like in its lumber boomtime and as it is in the central zone all the buses are free.

The buildings are reminiscent of San Francisco and both cities benefited by being rebuilt after natural disasters.

Seattle was reborn with brick structures after a fire in 1889 destroyed the timber ones. When developers were excavating the foundations of a car park, they found an intact street underground. Now the Underground Tour lets you explore the old town exactly as it was.

The Seattle Centre house the city’s most famous sight – the Space Needle. The needle defines the Seattle skyline and is the legacy of the 1962 World’s Fair.

Set in a 74-acre park which is also home to the Experience Music Project (set in a Frank Gehry building), the Pacific Northwest Ballet and a host of other theatres and museums.

Eating dinner in the Space Needle’s revolving restaurant was one of the highlights of my trip.

The food was fantastic and if the service was a little slow it did not really matter because the view was constantly changing. As night fell the sunset over the lakes and mountains gave way to the bright lights of downtown Seattle.

We did not have a bad or indifferent meal while we were there – the ingredients seem fresher and everything (including the portions) is bigger than in the UK.

On Monday morning we breakfasted in Mae’s Phinney Ridge Café, which is a quirky eatery near to the zoo. Mae’s is a little off the tourist track but locals routinely queue up around the block for a table at weekend brunch – which tells you something.

I think most Brits struggle with American food simply because we have had it drilled into us to clear our plates at every meal. The waste not want not mantra can get you into a lot of trouble over here and at Mae’s it was a challenge to eat enough to reveal a chink of the china.

To add insult to injury the house speciality is the cinnamon bun, but the name does not really convey the loaf-sized enormity of this delicacy. It’s huge and sweet and you eat it with butter. In short, it is a heart attack on a plate and it is gorgeous.

Leaving Seattle was a huge wrench – I could really see myself living there – but one of its main advantages is its proximity to the country.

So after a few days of city living it was time for a change of pace and a trip to the wilds of Washington.

• FACTBOX

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines from Birmingham International Airport to Seattle three times daily, with partner airline Northwest, connecting via Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. Return fares start from as little as £530 per person. For more information, to book, or to take advantage of KLM's internet check in service and take save time at the airport, visit www.klm.com or call 08705 074 074.
Hotel Deca – www.hoteldeca.com  . Grand Hyatt Seattle – www.grandseattle.hyatt.com 

For free visitors' pack on Seattle phone 020 7978 5233 or click on www.visitseattle.org