How to get there, how to get around, where to find stuff and how to ask for it. These are tips from the local insider to make your stay here a breeze
If you own or operate a Portland hostel, budget hotel, motel or any other budget accommodation – or if you know someone who does – you (or they) should consider entering the information into the new worldwide Hostel Directory . This will be a huge worldwide directory of budget accommodations, including hostels and motels. You shouldn’t worry about spam from this but you should expect some extra bookings.
The site is new but is part of a big travel network, so it should be worth couple of minutes of …
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When the weather gets nice, we love to head out to sit in the sun and enjoy some food or drinks. A few unique places to do this is at the 2 rooftop bars that we’ve been able to find here. So when you’re in the mood to sit above the traffic downtown and in the sun, you might check out one of these:
On Deck Sports Bar
Jax Bar
I’m hoping there are more and we just haven’t found them yet, so if you know about a rooftop bar or restaurant in Portland, …
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Several weeks ago, the husband and I were walking around downtown Portland doing some shopping. We wanted to stop at a food stand for a quick lunch, but I had to go to the bathroom - and seeing as how it’s a little frowned upon to use the sidewalk as your own personal toilet, we ducked into a fashionable downtown department store to use the facilities before heading back out again for lunch. Thankfully the store wasn’t out of our way; but all the same, I wish MizPee had been available then.
MizPee is an ingenious service where you can use your cell phone to find out the nearest public toilet to your location. It’s available in several US cities, including Portland, and it’s completely free. MizPee comes to us from Yojo Mobile and is available via the internet, mobile phones, and soon via text messaging as well. From the MizPee website:
MizPee finds the closest, cleanest toilets in your area. You can add and review toilets, get some cool deals in your area and challenge your knowledge of toilet trivia.
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Portland has long been recognized for its efforts in innovative public transportation, and the newest transit method is just another feather in the city’s cap. Well, kind of. Now that it’s finished, the Portland Aerial Tram is actually quite a striking addition to the skyline of the emerging South Waterfront district. During its construction, however, there were plenty of controversies along the way.
The Portland Aerial Tram, sometimes called the OHSU Tram or just simply the Tram, connects Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) on the hill with the South Waterfront neighborhood below. OHSU has expanded into the South Waterfront area, so most of the people using the tram on a regular basis are those who work, go to school or get treatment at the hospital complex. But even people who have no reason to ride the tram have found excuses to make the round-trip journey - the views from the car are spectacular.
The distance the tram covers is roughly 3,300 feet (about one kilometer), and the trip takes about three minutes to complete. Each car can carry up to 78 passengers, and a car leaves each station every five minutes. The tram’s lower terminal at South Waterfront connects with the Portland Streetcar, which provides easy access to downtown Portland. In addition to ferrying people up and down the hill in a new and interesting way, the Portland Aerial Tram is also innovative in environmental ways - for instance, the car which is traveling down is generating energy which is used to propel the car which is traveling up.
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Portland residents know how good they’ve got it when it comes to the options available for dining out. This city has quietly become a real foodie heaven, with something for everyone at all budget levels and representing damn near all cuisines, too. And it’s not only diners who are enjoying it - chefs are coming from all over the place and settling here, which only adds to the delicious mix.
The New York Times recently featured a piece about all the chefs making their Portland pilgrimage, calling Portland a “full-fledged dining destination.”
This is a golden age of dining and drinking in a city that 15 years ago was about as cutting edge as a tomato in January. Every little neighborhood in this city of funky neighborhoods now seems to be exploding with restaurants, food shops and markets, all benefiting from a critical mass of passion, skill and experience, and all constructed according to the gospel of locally grown ingredients.
One of the restaurateurs in the article says that a huge reason there’s such an innovative restaurant scene in Portland is that it isn’t financially impossible to contemplate going out on a limb the way it might be in cities like New York or San Francisco. Portland, which has also recently been called America’s Eden for the same reason, has a relatively low cost of living for the quality of life that’s enjoyed here.
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While you probably will want to use the public transport in downtown Portland, when you are heading to the suburbs you’ll soon realize that the Land Rover is exactly what you want. This powerful British vehicle never goes out of style and is highly prized by collectors. Here’s a cool site that has nothing but Land Rovers for sale on it. It also features free listing if you want to sell a Land Rover yourself. Check it out if you want to buy a Land Rover or just want to …
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When you’re hunting for the cheapest airfare out of Portland International Airport, you may be tempted to spend lots of your precious time searching every airfare booking site you can find. You’re hoping for that magical and elusive rock-bottom price on an airline ticket, the one no one else can find, that’s hiding on one of those sites that never gets used… That random hunting and hoping could get you a great fare, but more than likely all you’ll find are the same fares over and over again. So, how do you know which sites offer the best prices? …
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When you’re thinking about visiting a place, one of the key questions is often, “What’s within walking distance?” Every hotel or hostel you check out is going to say it’s within “easy walking distance” of something, but you never quite know if they’re trying to sell you a bill of goods. Well, one website can help you figure out if what they’re telling you is the truth.
Walk Score is actually designed with real estate in mind - the idea is that you’re thinking of moving to a new neighborhood, and you plug in potential addresses to see what’s nearby. Some of it, therefore, isn’t really relevant to those who are just playing tourist - but much of it is very useful. Just to test it out, I put the address of BootsnAll headquarters into it, and found this map.
Some of it’s stuff I already knew - the Wild Oats two blocks away, the Acadia restaurant across the street, and Irving Park a couple of blocks in the other direction - but I didn’t know, for instance, that there’s a used bookstore nearby or an Ethiopian market not far from that.
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There are lots of ways to see Portland’s sights, including several which take advantage of the river running through the city’s center. One particular tour company not only shows you the sights from the river, they also take you up on land as well - in the same vehicle.
Portland Ducks Land and Water Tours offers tours that go from land right into the Willamette River and back out again in amphibious vehicles based on the old DUKW trucks used during World War II. There are several cities around the world which use such vehicles to ferry tourists around in a unique way, including Dublin, London, Singapore and Boston. Duck Tours turn amphibious vehicles from war transports into tourist attractions, although the ones used by Portland Ducks Land and Water Tours are modern Hydra Terra vehicles and are deemed “unsinkable” (at least by the company).
Each bus/boat in the Portland Ducks fleet can seat 46 passengers, and tours are offered three times a week on a regular basis. Private tours can be arranged as well - can you imagine your next company meeting taking a Duck Tour over lunch? The tours themselves begin at the Oregon Convention Center in SE Portland and go through downtown before driving straight into the Willamette River. The trip lasts around two hours, and if you’re thinking that a wintertime tour doesn’t sound fun (it rains here during the winter, after all), don’t worry - each vehicle has windows and heaters so trips can be fun - and dry! - year-round.
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When you’re not traveling, one of the best ways to nurture your travel bug and keep dreaming of your next destination is by watching travel TV shows. Some of the best ones comes from the folks who bring you Globe Trekker, so it’s no surprise that they’ve upped the ante now with the GlobeTrekkerChannel.
With the GlobeTrekkerChannel you can download excellent travel TV shows to your computer and watch them whenever you want to - and they’re already offering more than 350 hours of first-rate travel programming, with more on the way. Want to …
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