Tacoma’s Best Kept Secrets: A Local Travel Writer’s Guide
Peggy Cleveland is our guest for this episode. Peggy is a travel writer who lives in Steilacoom and the author of 100 Things to Do in Tacoma Before You Die.
Peggy has moved 33 times. She grew up a Navy kid, served 12 years, starting in the Army Reserve as a photojournalist, and married into a military career that finally landed at Joint Base Lewis McChord. After years of trying to get stationed here, she and her husband fell in love with the South Sound and bought their forever home in Steilacoom.
We talk about how she got into travel writing and how the book came together: 100 picks for Tacoma, sorted into five categories, and how hard it is to leave anything out of a city whose locals care this much about it.
Her favorite? Point Defiance Park, which she calls the crown jewel of Tacoma, with old growth forest, gardens, a replica fort and a beach. Pair it with Point Ruston next door for restaurants, shops and ice cream, and walk Dune Peninsula Park and the Frank Herbert Trail that tie the two together.
Peggy also shares the places she sends friends: Tacoma’s neighborhood business districts like the Stadium District and Lincoln District, where locals actually shop and eat; the Lakewood International District for Korean barbecue and the food court inside Pal-Do World Market; Bob’s Java Jive, the giant coffee pot on South Tacoma Way that is actually a bar; and Steilacoom’s museums, Farrell’s Marsh and the Lewis Army Museum near DuPont.
And the best steak she has eaten anywhere in the world: Cuerno Bravo Steakhouse in downtown Tacoma, where the beef runs from American Prime to Japanese Wagyu and finishes on a sizzling stone at your table.
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Planning a visit? Start with our Tacoma guide and our guide to the best coffee in Tacoma.
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