i can’t believe three years ago i sat inside the floor to ceiling windows of stumptown coffee, looking up to the empire state building peaking through ironcast buildings of manhattan and catching my mind slowly drift away to a place. a place, an artist hub colorful as berlin, with the great outdoors of the mystic and wild pacific northwest. portland, oregon, the city of roses and good coffee. a place i have dreamt about visiting for a long time.

who would have believed here we are. crossing over columbia river into oregon after three days of adventures up north and a dreamy sunrise in the washington countryside. we arrived in portland a bit before noon, and here is how we made the most of a day in town!

things we did in portland, oregon

grab a cup of good coffee downtown

oh i could talk about good coffee for hours. the more i was excited to get coffee at the place known as a paradise for independent third-wave specialty coffee roasters. get ready to hipster about the complex and delicious nuances coffee cherries from around the world have to offer. evelyne and i sat down inside the re-opened o.g. stumptown coffee roasters in downtown. seeing downtown slowly coming alive after reading about how it was hit by covid and riots was a wholesome and promising experience.

i did made some remarks on visiting downtown at the end of the blog post. please read it first before you plan your visit.

white stag sign by the waterfront park

if you walk down the waterfront park in spring, it is covered in a fresh breeze of pink. cherry trees decorate the park along willamette river, and people come here for romantic wedding pictures and pretend to be in japan for sakura blossom. we came in late summer, so the trees were wearing thick green leaves instead. we parked our toyota 4runner inside a garage nearby and walked to the waterfront park to have a little picnic and to take a few pictures of the infamous white stag sign. we say hey, we made it to portland, oregon!

powell’s city of books

there is no visiting portland without visiting powell’s city of books. did you know powell’s books is the worlds largest bookstore for new and used books? the store that takes up of an entire city block offers more than 4 million books in 10 rooms and is a true landmark of portland. for bookworms like evelyne, the place itself was worth spending a day. but also frank, who admittedly likes books rather because of its aesthetics had a blast exploring hiking and anti-capitalist books.

we got ourselves a blue guide book to camping, which talks about the national parks, and of course some good ol’ merch!

shopping in pearl district

looking for a lovely new fjällräven backpack or fancy gear for the great outdoors? pearl district has a variety of indie and not so indie stores for you to explore, and the best part about it? oregon doen’t have sales tax! while we found prices in the u.s. generally high, despite both of us living in switzerland, it might make sense to get things here. we found that apple devices are more expensive overseas, so were evelyne’s professional binoculars.

we headed to deschutes brewery for a nice lunch of fries and salad, and of course helped ourselves with black butte beer, it’s our favorite!

Stroll down northwest 23rd avenue

while we did have mixed feelings walking through the streets of downtown, i felt more like i was back in soho of new york or prenzlauer berg of berlin when we walked down the cute indie shops of “trendy-third” avenue.

we sat down inside a vegetarian restaurant, harlow, for dinner. evelyne got herself a BISCUITS & GRAVY and i got a betty bowl and maaaan that was lovely and delicious! we also helped ourselves with some bubble tea, and got pizza from escape from ny pizza for our next adventures outdoors.

a friend told us about the ice cream shop with unorthodox, creative flavors, salt & straw. it’s also found on the same street, however the ocean was calling, so we drove away into the sun down.

if we had more time

on the actual road trip, we then ended up shopping for groceries in whole foods in the suburbs, and tried to find a travel guitar for me.

if we had more time, we would have visited the japanese garden with the international rose garden inside for a sunset. we would have checked out much more coffee shops and indie concept stores. we would have headed out for the nature around portland. here are the things we haven’t seen, but would love to visit when we come back:

• the hood river lavender farms

• mount hood

• silver falls state park

• multnomah falls

finally,

i feel dishonest to everybody here if i romanticized the city unconditionally and not talk about the very real issues we got to see and experience with our very eyes when we were walking through the streets of portland. as tourists, we did not feel safe walking the streets of old town.

homelessness is over the roof in old town. a lot of stores are closed and there aren’t a lot of tourists. instead, there are homeless encampments everywhere. it is disheartening to see the contrast between the rich driving through in luxury cars, and the poor sleeping on the same streets. moreover, we were shocked in what fragile state we felt like the society was in. parts of old town seemed post-apocalyptic on the brink to a civil war. the insane cost of living (we were wondering how people even pay for necessities), housing prices, corporate greed and an utter lack of perspective all come together here. in the richest country, it doesn’t have to be like this, and every human being deserves a life in dignity.

bottom line, touring through downtown was eye opening, and unless fundamental societal issues are addressed properly, you need to decide for yourself whether you want to experience it or not. there is a lot of nature to explore around portland, and you will not run out of things to do, i promise.

read more

this blog post is part of our one month usa west coast road trip blog series. be sure to check out the other posts:

useful information

feeling inspired? here are some resources you might find useful if you would like to follow our footsteps:

• waterfront park & white stag sign

• the place we got coffee from, stumptown coffee roasters - also available at other places in the country

• powell’s city of books (website)

• the legendary brewery, deschutes brewery

• a great place we shopped outdoor gear, REI

• a sweet indie gift shop, tender loving empire

• the place we went to for dinner (legendary), harlow