Seattle

Seattle is probably the most confusing city I've ever been in. The streets go everywhich way, the addresses make no sense, and to top it all off the hills are as steep as those in St. John's, but twice as big.

An explanation of Seattle addresses stolen from Wikitravel states:

North-South streets are labeled "Avenues" (or occasionally "Boulevards" and "Ways") while East-West streets are labeled "Streets". The city is roughly divided into a 3 by 3 grid with 7 directional sectors (E, SW, W, S N, NE, & NW) Street addresses are written with the sector before the name, e.g. NE 45th Street or NE 45th. Avenue addresses are written with the sector after the name, e.g. 45th Avenue NE or 45th NE.

There are four major exceptions:

1. Downtown streets and avenues have no directional designation.
2. There is no SE section. Instead, the S section is extra wide.
3. East of downtown, avenues have no directional designation (streets are preceded by 'E').
4. North of downtown (between Denny Way and the ship canal), streets have no directional designation, but avenues are followed by 'N'.

All in all, it's probably worth a few dollars to buy and carry a map when you're trying to find an address. Seattle's street designations are fully explained in a Wikipedia article at