Portland is a beautiful, eclectic, weird place full of great food, great beer, and an awesome vibe. It has a Downtown city feel but is Surrounded by water and trees. You really can get the best of both worlds here. Portland is exactly as fun and weird as you think it is. Street markets with booths full of handmade items, stores full of hipster-esque products, all the restaurants and breweries come with something unique, something different. You don’t find much “basic” stuff here and that’s what makes it so special.

See, they even like to remind the residents! lol!

I didn’t get to spend nearly as much time here as I wanted to. I really just decided to come for a day during my trip up north to visit my brother and sister-in-law. As they share my love for food and beer, they had an awesome day planned out for me! We started off the day with some coffee (the coffee here is amazing! doesn’t matter where you go, just get some coffee!) and bagels at Bowery Bagels. These bagels by the way are not just ordinary bagels… they are super delicious, scrumptious, take a dozen home with you on the plane type of bagels. You can’t have just one! After that we went walking around the area (we walked a LOT that day!!) There are so many cool and unique things to see in Portland. Even just simple stuff like this GIANT Chair on the sidewalk.

What I meant was that I’m actually in the land of giants and snuck up on their chair for a photo opp… just kidding. But its stuff like this that make this city so unique!

Next stop on the list was Rogue Brewery! As excited as I was to go here, I have to say it wasn’t the best for beer tasting. Most of their off the wall must try beers are only available in the bottle. But I still got to try some yummy beer and mark off Rogue Brewery from my brewery bucket list! SCORE!!

The next place on their list was Ice Cream!! They took me to this very unique and popular spot called Salt & Straw. And apparently they have a spot in LA too! This place was so good, we waited a good hour, hour and a half in line… it was well worth it. Just the flavor options alone will make you want to spend the whole day there trying samples!

And as far as most popular and well-known place that I had heard of before going to Portland, was Voodoo Donuts. They of course had that on the list too! But we decided to wait till later in the evening because that line will also take hours. I would definitely recommend going later, they are open 24 hours so you don’t have to wait with the rest of the crowd. And as there was still a line when we went it was way smaller than it had been earlier that day, perfect for an after dinner desert option!!

My brother got the famous maple bacon bar. Ohmygolly did it look scrumptious. I just had to get the Voodoo Doll one though. It’s cool because it comes with a pretzel and when you stab it into the donut, jelly comes out! it’s so weird and cool!

The next place we went was actually my favorite place yet. It’s called The Big Legrowlski.

It’s not a brewery or a bar, but a growler station. I’ve never seen a spot like this before. They carry all kinds of different beer and their list is ever-changing. You can get tasters for cheap and try each one if you want! I think I tried a fair amount there. If you like it, you can get a pint, and if you really love it, get a growler!

Besides the great beer options, what made this place so great was the owner. He was so friendly and really made the experience a fun one!

And that was my day in Portland! I definitely have to thank my brother and sister-in-law for planning out such a fun day! And I can’t wait to come back and see all the new places they have on their list! Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it and got some good ideas for your next trip to Portland! Have you been there before? What are some of your favorite places to go?

Cheers!