A Week in Portland: My Journal of Food Carts, Bookstores, and Rain
Someone told me Portland was "Austin but with rain." That's wrong. Portland is Portland. It doesn't need a comparison. It's a city that put a giant donut on the roof of a donut shop and then debated whether the donut shop is actually any good.
Day 1: Arrival and Powell's
Flew into PDX. The airport has been voted best in the US so many times it's becoming a personality trait. And honestly, it earns it — the carpet is famous (they made merchandise), the food options are decent, and the MAX Red Line gets you downtown in 38 minutes for $2.50.
Checked into a hotel in the Pearl District: $140/night. Clean, walkable to everything.
Went directly to Powell's City of Books. The world's largest independent bookstore occupies an entire city block. Three floors. Color-coded rooms. Over a million books — new and used mixed together on the same shelves. I grabbed a free map at the entrance and still got lost.
The rare book room on the top floor has first editions behind glass. A signed Hemingway. A 19th-century atlas. I spent 2.5 hours in the store and bought four books totaling $38. I could have stayed all day.
Dinner: walked to a food cart pod on SW Alder. Thai basil fried rice from Nong's: $12. Ate it on a bench in the light rain. Nobody around me had an umbrella. Note to self: buy a rain jacket.
Day 2: Food Cart Education
Portland has 500+ food carts across 50+ pods. This isn't casual street food — these are full kitchens producing restaurant-quality meals from converted trailers.
Breakfast: The Egg Carton pod. Chilaquiles with two eggs, crema, and cotija: $11. The cook, a woman named Maria from Oaxaca, told me she'd been running the cart for eight years. "Rent for a food cart is $800/month. Rent for a restaurant is $8,000. The math is obvious."
Lunch: Portland Mercado, a pod dedicated to Latin American carts. Pupusas from El Salvador ($4 each), a Colombian arepa ($6), and a horchata ($4). Total: $14 for a feast.
Afternoon: walked through the Alberta Arts District. NE Alberta Street has independent galleries, vintage shops, and street murals. Salt & Straw ice cream (single scoop: $6) had a 20-minute line. I waited. The sea salt with caramel ribbons was worth every minute.
Dinner: Cartopia pod on SE Hawthorne. Open late. A Korean-Mexican fusion burrito from a cart called Koi Fusion: $13. A Belgian-style frite cone from Potato Champion: $7. Everything about Portland's food cart culture is designed to make traditional restaurants nervous.
Day 3: Japanese Garden and Forest Park
The Portland Japanese Garden in Washington Park is considered the most authentic Japanese garden outside Japan. Entry: $19.95. The Cultural Village was designed by Kengo Kuma, and the five distinct garden styles are immaculate — raked gravel, moss, maples, a strolling pond garden.
I visited in light rain, which the garden staff told me is the best time. The moss glows green in wet weather. The stone lanterns collect droplets. It's like walking through a watercolor painting.
Afternoon: hiked the Lower Macleay Trail in Forest Park to Pittock Mansion (3.5 miles, 2 hours). Forest Park is one of the largest urban forests in the US — 5,200 acres of old-growth Douglas fir and western red cedar. The trail follows a creek through a narrow canyon that feels more Olympic Peninsula than major city.
Pittock Mansion at the top has panoramic views of Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens, and downtown Portland. On a clear day (I got lucky), the view is incredible. Entry to the grounds is free. Mansion tour: $14.
Day 4: Craft Beer Day
Portland has 70+ breweries within city limits. More than any city on Earth. I planned to visit three. I visited five.
Started at Great Notion (NW location). Their hazy IPAs are nationally recognized. A tasting flight of four beers: $12. The Blueberry Muffin sour tasted exactly like a blueberry muffin. Unsettling and delicious.
Culmination Brewing: industrial-chic taproom in a warehouse. Their Czech-style pils ($6/pint) was the cleanest, crispest beer I had all week.
Hair of the Dog: Belgian-style ales in a tiny taproom. Adam, their 10% ABV dark ale aged in bourbon barrels, is legendary. One glass: $8. One glass is enough.
Brewers Guild "Brewvana" bus tour ($90, 4 hours): hits three breweries with behind-the-scenes access. I didn't do this because I was already three breweries deep. But it's the recommended move for a structured experience.
By evening, I was sitting at Base Camp Brewing with a campfire-smoked lager and a plate of nachos, wondering how Portland sustains this many breweries. The answer, a bartender told me, is that Portlanders drink a lot of beer. Simple economics.
Day 5: The Weirdness
Portland's unofficial motto is "Keep Portland Weird." I'd dismissed this as marketing. I was wrong.
Morning: visited Voodoo Doughnut on SW 3rd. The line at 9AM was 15 minutes. The signature bacon maple bar: $4.50. It's a raised doughnut with maple frosting and two strips of bacon. Is it good? It's... an experience. Honestly, the doughnut itself is average. But the spectacle — the giant pink building, the velvet paintings, the suggestion box labeled "put your soul here" — is pure Portland.
Then I went to Blue Star Donuts on SW Washington. No line. A blueberry bourbon basil doughnut ($4): extraordinary. This is the donut Portlanders actually eat. Voodoo is for tourists. Blue Star is for breakfast.
Afternoon: stumbled across the Unipiper — a guy in a Darth Vader costume riding a unicycle and playing flaming bagpipes. He's a Portland celebrity. Nobody on the street looked twice.
Visited the International Rose Test Garden in Washington Park. Free entry. Over 10,000 rose bushes with 650+ varieties, plus a Mt. Hood backdrop. Peak bloom is June, but even in shoulder season the garden is beautiful. The Shakespeare Garden section features only roses mentioned in his plays.
Day 6: Neighborhoods
Portland is a city of neighborhoods, each with its own character.
Morning: SE Hawthorne. Indie bookshops, vintage clothing, and the Hawthorne food cart pod. Breakfast at Jam on Hawthorne: mushroom scramble ($14) with house potatoes and sourdough toast.
Afternoon: Mississippi district in North Portland. Micro-distilleries, record shops, and the ReBuilding Center (a warehouse of salvaged building materials that's oddly fascinating). Mississippi Studios — a small music venue — hosts live shows most nights ($10-20).
Evening: NW 23rd Avenue ("Nob Hill"). The upscale shopping and dining strip. Dinner at Andina (Peruvian-inspired, ceviche $16, lomo saltado $28). The pisco sours ($14) are among the best I've had outside Lima.
Day 7: Last Day and Regrets
Things I ran out of time for: the Lan Su Chinese Garden ($12, a classical Suzhou-style garden in Chinatown), the Columbia River Gorge (30 min east, Multnomah Falls), and a day trip to Mt. Hood (60 min drive).
Spent the morning at the Saturday Portland Farmers Market at PSU (free entry, March-December). Local vendors selling hazelnuts, artisan cheese, mushrooms, and Oregon berries. Bought a bag of chanterelle mushrooms ($8) that I couldn't take on the plane. Gave them to the hotel front desk.
Final coffee at Stumptown Coffee Roasters on SW 3rd. Pour-over: $5. Stumptown started in Portland and is one of the reasons American coffee culture shifted toward quality. The original location is small, unpretentious, and the coffee is impeccable.
MAX back to PDX. Dropped the rental rain jacket I'd bought at REI into my carry-on. I'd used it every day. Not once did I see a Portlander with an umbrella. Rain jacket or nothing. That's the code.
Would I Go Back?
I'm going back in June for peak rose season and dry weather. Portland from June to September is supposedly a different city — warm, sunny, long days. I want to see it. For more insights, check out our complete guide to Portland. For more insights, check out our Portland travel tips.
But even in the rain, Portland earned its place. The food carts alone justify the trip. Add Powell's, the breweries, the Japanese Garden, and the general commitment to being unapologetically strange, and you have a city unlike any other in the US.
Damage Report:
Total spent: approximately $980 for 7 days
Best meal: pupusas at Portland Mercado ($4 each)
Best free experience: Forest Park hike to Pittock Mansion
