You can’t visit Portland, Oregon, the same way you visit other cities. You won’t appreciate the essence of Portland if you just book a nice hotel, eat at some interesting restaurants and then maybe go to a festival. Portland’s singular allure, rather, exists in its culture’s somewhat contradictory emphasis on both community and individuality. Everything wonderful about its restaurants, parks, businesses, transportation and so on originates in this wonderfully quirky peculiarity.
The aesthetics of Portland let you know right away: this place is different. The smallest park in the world, Mill Ends Park, covers a little more than 3 square feet of ground on the west bank of the Willamette River, while the 5,100 acres of Forest Park qualify it as one of the largest urban parks in the country. The world’s largest naked bike ride puts thousands of bare Portland butts on bicycle seats every summer (this year on June 7) and sends them careening through downtown. Telephone poles display pictures of lost chickens, hula hoops are bike-locked in front of restaurants, and Benson Bubblers are not to be called “water fountains.” Examples of Portland’s iconoclasm are everywhere.
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- https://www.flickr.com/photos/exalthim/
Lots of U.S. cities call their transportation system something like “rapid transit,” but Portland’s TriMet actually earns the moniker. The well-planned light rail component not only extends the entire width and breadth of the city, but also integrates with the streetcar and bus components of the system at many points in its network. TriMet tickets are valid for a set number of hours, rather than a set number of rides, which allows you to make transfers without extra expense (the minimum is two hours). After you disembark, you will find walking easy — city planners purposely shortened the length of city blocks for pedestrians. If you don’t want to rent a car during your trip to Portland, you certainly don’t have to.
Portland’s unique Urban Growth Boundary ensures the suburbs won’t endlessly sprawl, which has the nice effect of simplifying your choice of where to stay in the city. If you’re bringing the kids, the picturesque Nob Hill in the northwest part of downtown will put you close to the great Children’s Museum and Oregon Zoo. However, the Pearl District puts you close to upscale restaurants, Powell’s Books (the country’s largest independently owned bookstore) and art galleries. And if you’re in town on the first Thursday of any, you can check out the Pearl’s monthly celebration of art and live music. On the other side of the Willamette, the Central Eastside neighborhood bursts with interesting restaurants and microbreweries, and might be more appropriate for cost-conscious travelers.
Speaking of interesting restaurants, Portland continues to manifest its quirkiness through both its food and the way it is served. Start the day at one of Sterling Coffee Roasters’ two downtown locations, where, like at most other Portland establishments, everything is a little bit different. For instance, you’ll receive your espresso shot in a whiskey glass. (Unlike other places, though, Sterling turns into a wine bar at night.) Head east to HA & VL for a lunch of unconventional Vietnamese noodles and hope that the day’s menu includes the much-better-than-it-sounds snail and ginger dip offering. For dinner, Ned Ludd will surprise you with further Portland-esque innovation, all spilling from a central wood oven, and located east of the river on MLK Boulevard. For dessert, it’s no question: Salt and Straw serves the most creative ice cream in the nation, currently featuring flavors such as Double Bock Bacon Ale and one of their mainstays, Honey Balsamic Strawberry with Cracked Pepper.
All of that said, you should know that you could spend your whole time in Portland eating nothing but food from carts — and your taste buds would be perfectly happy. Equally unique as their brick-and-mortar counterparts, food carts such as EthelKays Grilled Cheese & Lemonade focus on bringing food to the foodies, rather than the other way around. A representative favorite is Eurotrash, serving squid fana and prawn baguettes somewhere downtown. (Check the website to see their current whereabouts.) Pepper Box’s Texas-style breakfast tacos can be upgraded to include chipotle crema and avocados. Mobile cuisine like these appears so frequently you don’t really need to plan your meals if you don’t want to. All you need is a smartphone to find a tasty bite at any time of the day.
While the kids will find all of this culinary ingenuity (and the accompanying visual stimulus) just as pleasing as you will, the adults-only nighttime scene remains aggressively hand-crafted, locally sourced and eclectic. First of all, the city of Portland allows dogs in bars, making it one of the few places in the world with this happy practice. As for the drinks, the best happy hour in town might be at Clyde Common on Stark Street south of the Pearl, where $5 cocktails, $3.50 drafts and $3-$6 snacks, such as their truffly popcorn, delight budget drinkers until 6 p.m. every weekday. But if you’re willing to spend a little more for quality and ambience, the black paints and dark woods of Expatriate Bar set an earnest tone for drinking seriously creative cocktails in a warmly hospitable environment. (Open every day at 5 p.m. at 5424 NE 30th Ave.)
No matter what part of the year you visit Portland, Oregon, be sure to leave your expectations behind. The folks that make up this city disregard convention at every turn, and you will be delighted at how beautiful its weirdness can be.
Travelocity Editors
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