Back to the OP's question: If you're a single guy or gal and don't mind having a roommate, or a tiny apartment, I would check out West Seattle. Easy and fast to the employee lot and lots of good restaurants and bars. If you need to find somewhere that suitable for a family, Gig Harbor is a good spot. There are also a decent amount of pilots who live on Bainbridge Island, but that could get tricky on reserve. Also, places south and east of seatac seem to be up and coming: Renton, Kent, Auburn, Maple Valley and eventually you'll end up at the other pilot ghetto...Lake Tapps. Good luck.

Thanks for the recommendations. I have a young family with a 3 years old daughter.

Without additional qualifiers and looking to the future after reserve, I would recommend looking South of Olympia, ... Little Rock, Tenino, Chehalis , Centralia, even Napavine, or slightly east.

Way more house for the money, great school districts ... reserve will only last so long ..., unless you need the big city environment?

Then I would look at Kent or Tacoma, ... both being gentrified as we speak, ... Good Luck and take care.

I second Mukilteo in the north end. That or Mill Creek or Edmonds. Very good schools, especially in the first two. Close to the water. Expensive, but hell it’s Seattle. Only downside is the drive to SeaTac, definitely not a place to do day trips from. Still well within reserve limits though.

Bellevue. Good schools/Safe/no bums and not too far from SeaTac.

You forgot "super expensive."

Alaska has a base in both of those cities. Why would you want to commute it instead of living in base?

Maybe he plans on living and being based in SEA but can’t hold it yet. LAX is a Jr. base. Lots of new hires are going there with the intention of coming up to SEA. I commuted to a few of our other bases before being able to hold SEA. I’d recommend getting outside of King County. Lower taxes, housing costs and overall cost of living. That generally puts you about 45 mins to an hour away from the airport (no traffic).

Washington: no state income tax.
California:

So basically it’s about a $25,000 a year difference in taxes, since sales taxes and property taxes are roughly the same...

That's not how income tax works.
Those are buckets.