Portland: Long weekend trip
We took a drive down to Portland for the Easter long weekend trip with some friends. Here is everything we did while we were there for 3 days and 2 nights. Note that all prices in this review are in USD.
Getting to Portland
Portland is around a 5-6 hour drive from Vancouver so it’s not actually that close. With a 3 day trip in mind, you only get 1 full day since the other 2 days will be mostly driving. I recommend making a stop in Seattle for a breather and if you are hungry!
Accommodations
The Porter Portland
With 4 of us, we stayed at The Porter Portland, a boutique hotel as part of the Hilton hotels. It is located in downtown Portland and the room was actually quite nice. The hotel, lobby, and room had a very modern and chic design. Price per night for the Easter long weekend was around $250.
There is only 1 bathroom but it looked luxurious. My only complaint is that the doors for the bathroom are like barn doors (kinda finnicky) and they had these rolling glass doors for the toilet and the shower which made a really loud sound.
Amenities were quite nice. They have a gym, outdoor firepit area and a swimming pool and sauna. The pool even had special equipment to help you into the pool if you have certain disabilities, which I thought was really cool and inclusive.
Parking with the valet was $50 a night, which is pretty expensive but given that downtown Portland isn’t always the safest, we opted for this over open parkades, which were cheaper at around $12 a night.
Things to do
Shopping!
We mostly came to Portland for shopping and we hit up quite a lot of shopping areas in our limited time in Portland. The places we shopped at:
- Nordstrom for higher end brands (they have Chanel) and Nordstrom Rack for a good deal (a lot of shoes!)
- Pioneer Place – mall with H&M, Zara, Louis Vuitton, Yves Saint Laurent
- Woodburn premium outlet mall
- Individual stores in downtown Portland – include Nike, Muji, etc.
Top Golf
The guys were really excited about Top Golf because they’ve only been to the one at Las Vegas and we didn’t know there was a location in Portland. Top Golf is like a driving range but they make it fun with lit up areas, drinks and food.
Prices for a Saturday night are $50/hour and it doesn’t matter how many people are in your table. You just pay by the hour and get unlimited balls. Of course, the more people you have the less you get the golf since you are all sharing the same bay/spot.
I’m not a good golfer but it was pretty fun because they have these games you can play and every ball has tracking on it so you can view on the monitor where it actually landed and if you were close to a certain coloured hole.
They have a wide selection of food and drinks. We order the guac and chips ($9), injectable donut holes ($12), and our friend orders a burger for dinner.
They close at midnight so they were open pretty late!
Explore downtown on scooters
We noticed a lot of electric scooters just parked on sidewalks and random areas. You can actually download an app and rent a scooter so we downloaded the lime app to access these electric scooters. Downtown Portland can be really sketchy so I recommend using scooters when traveling at night actually.
Where to eat
Feel free to check out my individual blog posts on the restaurants we checked out!
Lechon
Lechon is a South American restaurant. We came here on our first night for happy hour. Read my full review here.
Jake’s Famous Crawfish
Jake’s Famous Crawfish is an old-school seafood restaurant that’s been in Portland for many years. Read my full review here.
Cheryl’s on the 12th
Cheryl’s on the 12th is a brunch spot we visited before we left Portland. Read my full review here.
Fried egg I’m in love
We had breakfast in a plaza where this food truck was located called Fried Egg I’m in Love. It was the only food truck open for business at 10am on a Sunday lol. We got their signature breakfast sandwich, the yolko ono for $8 and it was so good! Loved the pesto with the egg and patty.
Jack in the Box
Our friend really wanted us to try Jack in the Box, which is a fast food burger chain. It was actually pretty good and we liked the spicy chicken burger. Nuggets were good too.
Final thoughts
We had a nice trip in Portland even though we actually didn’t do much lol but that was our itinerary. We spent a lot of time shopping and we wanted to relax at the hotel pool, eat some good food and not stuff too much into one day.
I have to say downtown Portland really felt like a ghost town. The malls and restaurants we went to were bustling with people, but in general just walking around the streets it was pretty dead. Quite a lot of homeless/crazy people who will yell at you and punch the walls so I can’t say I felt the safest walking around at night (hence scooters).
Aside from the no tax for shopping, I don’t think Portland is really a bumping time at least in this time of year. Maybe just come for the tax-free shopping and expect to still drive around even if you are staying in downtown Portland.
Sincerely, Loewe