Cowen Park

If you ask locals which park has the best swings in Seattle, Cowen Park comes up constantly — and honestly, they’re not wrong. The playground skews younger, so toddlers and early elementary kids tend to get the most out of it, especially with the water feature to keep them occupied when the swing lines get long. Shade trees cover the picnic tables nicely, which makes it a solid spot to actually sit and eat instead of squinting into the sun. The real draw for a lot of families, though, is how quickly you can slip from the open grass into the forest trails that border the park — kids find the creek almost immediately and that’s usually the end of any structured plans you had.