In a bookstore in Portland, Oregon, we spotted a book called This is Portland: The City You’ve Heard You Should Like. It pretty well summed up our experience in this popular Pacific Northwest city.
We didn’t dislike Portland. We found fun things to do with a tween, many of them would also appeal to older teens. And we found good, inexpensive places for families to eat. But as cities go, it was too low-key for us.
Tween Traveler said more than once that it didn’t feel like a city. I have to say, with the city’s focus on beer, coffee and live music, we might have had more fun on a couple getaway.
On the other hand, we stayed two nights and didn’t get to everything we wanted to do, so I wouldn’t rule out visiting again.
Here are fun things to do with a tween or teen, along with some things we think you can skip, and things a local millennial relative highly recommended doing that we didn’t get to.
2 Portland Hotels You Might Like
• There is a concentration of independent and chain hotels downtown. We opted for the boutique Dossier Hotel because its rate seemed like a good value for its central Downtown location.
It’s the sort of hotel where staff members are super-friendly to kids, but the amenities don’t cater to families.
There is complimentary coffee and tea but no juice in the morning. At happy hour there is local beer and kombucha (which Tween Traveler adamantly eschewed).
Guests have member access to the Knot Pines Wellness Club across the river. Had we come on a kid-free weekend, I would have made a beeline there for the yoga classes, sauna and hydrotherapy baths, but it’s definitely not for kids.
The double room we booked was fine for our needs with a big bathroom and very nice toiletries. The biggest food-truck court in Portland and a Target are both a block away and there’s a Whole Foods within walking distance.
It will work for you if location is a priority and you are traveling with a teen (or a baby). I think there are probably better picks for families with kids ranging from toddlers to tweens, who need more family-specific amenities.
• For something a little different, book a room at the Kennedy School, a former elementary school that McMenamin’s has turned into a hotel and lifestyle center.
You can enjoy telling your kids you’re spending their vacation at school. Sleep, eat and drink in former classrooms, watch a movie in the auditorium, or relax in the spa’s soaking pool (kids are allowed during the day).
Even if you don’t stay there, drop in to check it out for a meal or a drink to check it out.
Portland was the start of a Pacific Northwest road trip that included: Seattle • Olympic National Park • Vancouver & Whistler.
• You can also drive south from Portland, to explore the Oregon Coast.
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• This article is now featured on GPSmyCity. To download it or offline reading or create a self-guided walking tour, go to Walking Tours and Articles in Portland. Or read it in the app.
15 Things Your Tween Will Love To Do On A Weekend in Portland, OR
Explore These 4 Neighborhoods
Portland is a largely low-rise city that spreads across two sides of the Willamette River. We thought that the most fun and distinct neighborhoods were mostly on the east side of the river.
1. My local millennial nephew sent us to Division Street, between about SE30th Avenue and Cesar Chavez Boulevard.
It’s a fun stretch to walk along in search of food and drinks. It’s the sort of street where restaurants come and go with the trends, but you can always find something casual that looks good.
You can also admire some only-in-Portland stores, including one called Barber + Beer, and another selling growlers of kombucha.
We returned twice to Pinolo Gelato for its rich, classic flavors. Chocolate, coconut, bacio, and seasonal peach, honeydew and watermelon were all winners with us.
Also along this street, Olympic Provisions Public House features local beer and sausage and has other German food. They’re casual and definitely kid-friendly.
2. With its rose gardens and colorful Craftsman’s Gothic homes, Ladd’s Addition is a small planned community that’s worth a quick cycle or drive through.
It’s easy to find on a map because of its distinct X-shaped blocks in the middle of Portland’s east-side grid. Tween Traveler sat in the car and read during this brief excursion, but it was worth the short detour.
3. My nephew also sent us to leafy Sellwood and its namesake park, where wer found a so-so older playground mainly for younger kids and a big green field that’s ideal for kicking around a soccer ball or throwing a Frisbee.
Next-door, is the historic Sellwood Pool, which made us wish we had our bathing suits with us. It has a colorful slide, sprinkler area for little kids and plenty of room to swim. Admission is only a few dollars. It’s worth keeping in mind if you visit in the warm weather.
Sellwood’s main artery, SE9th Avenue, has appealing restaurants and a small food-truck court, but we visited between mealtimes and didn’t get to try anything.
4. My nephew has written off the Pearl District on the west side of the river as “too touristy,” but we wound up wandering through it a few times on our visit because it’s adjacent to downtown and has far better eating and shopping.
Most important, it’s home to one of Tween Traveler’s favorite stops on our Pacific Northwest road trip: Powell’s Books. The famous new- and used-book store takes up the entire block it sits on. Books are organized into rooms that are each assigned a color. The kids’ books are in the rose room.
It’s a good idea to agree on a meeting place in Powell’s because everyone in your family is going to wander off in a different direction.
While your kids peruse their favorite authors, you’ll want to stop by the rare book room with its 9,000 volumes that date as far back as 1480.
Neighborhood To Avoid: Downtown
My nephew encouraged us to avoid downtown, and indeed, there isn’t much to see or do there (Pioneer Square is the main attraction and pretty bland). Dining options are more interesting in other neighborhoods.
Also, this is where much of the city’s large homeless population congregates.
That said, Downtown has a lot of hotel options and is central to the rest of the city. If you stay downtown, and chances are good you will, think of it as a handy jumping off point for exploring all the other parts of the city.
An Afternoon at OMSI
Tween Traveler gets far more out of science museums now that she has some understanding of science from her middle school classes than she did when she was younger. And she really liked the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry for its wealth of good hands-on stuff for her age group.
We spent most of our time in the giant Turbine Hall, which is full of interactive activities that require math, awareness of spatial relationships and problem-solving skills.
There is also a robotics game, chemistry and physics labs, and a water-play area that’s a magnet for young children.
A temporary robot exhibit absorbed us enough that we never even got to the top floor with more interactive fun in paleontology, life-science and watershed labs.
An IMAX movie, planetarium show or submarine visit can round out your visit, but all the possible add-ons do add up. There’s always a special exhibit. If it appeals to your group, that one add-on plus OMSI’s regular activities could easily fill a day.
Tip With Teens: There is a nice river promenade outside OMSI with a bike rental nearby. It’s worth a stroll and is a good place to eat lunch if you bring your own. The bikes were a little too big for Tween Traveler. Had she been a bit older we would have rented them for a ride along the river.
Things We Wanted To Do
Portland has long, fairly flat greenways on both sides of the Willamette. And there are plenty of places to rent bikes (our hotel even lent adult-size bikes to guests). Seeing at least a bit of the city on two wheels seems like an essential and enjoyable thing to do.
On a longer visit, I absolutely would have visited Oaks Park, which sits on the river below Sellwood. It offers a classic roller-skating rink (this child of the ’80s loves her roller skating), go-carts, mini-golf and a small collection of carnival rides and games. We could hear roller coaster riders screaming from Sellwood Park.
We also regret not exploring Mount Tabor. With its scenic reservoir, many walking trails and a volcanic peak with great city views, it would have offered something for all of us.
The city’s biggest farmer’s market is at Portland State University year-round on Saturdays. Nearly 200 vendors rotate among 140 stall spots according to the season. Look for prepared foods, artisan chocolate, jam made with local fruit and pink organic popcorn anytime, plus produce like local marionberries in summer.
We also would have liked to have driven out of the city to see the Columbia River Gorge and some of its waterfalls, either on our own or with a guide.
Plan This Trip
• Live like a Portlandian in a vacation rental in one of the neighborhoods I mention.
• Or book a hotel and airfare package.
• Take a coffee & doughnuts tour to sample the best of Portland food
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• Buy This is Portland, the City You’ve Heard You Should Like,
• A more traditional guide like Frommer’s Portland,
• Or a downloadable, mapped version of this article.
Kid-Friendly Portland Restaurants
We liked almost everything we ate in Portland, partly because there seems to be a local coffee place or microbrewery on every block.
Best Breakfasts
We started one morning with cheap, freshly made chorizo and egg tacos from the food-truck court near our hotel.
Heading out of town, we stopped at Coco Donuts, another recommendation from my nephew with a few stores around the city. We loved its light, cakey, not-overly-sweet doughnuts that emphasize traditional ingredients like vanilla glaze, coconut, sprinkles, lemon or raspberry jam and Bavarian cream.
We also appreciated that they were a modest size, bucking the latest trend in elaborate, super-sweet doughnuts.
Your tween or teen will appreciate you stopping by for the mochi donuts they’ve added to the menu, their only nod to trendiness, but that fit their style.
A Nice Dinner
We weren’t sure Oven + Shaker would be kid-friendly because of its cocktail focus. But the staff was friendly to us when we went for an early dinner.
We shared rosemary-laced fried chickpeas and a margarita pizza. Tween Traveler drank local vanilla root beer while Rich and I drank regional wine and cider.
2 Good Brewpubs
We thoroughly enjoyed both the food and beer at Deschutes Brewery Public House in the Pearl District and Hopworks Urban Brewery on the East Side.
Deschutes has a large selection of beers that includes a few it doesn’t sell elsewhere. The burger, crab-filled egg roll, soups and charcuterie board were generous portions and excellent.
The kid’s menu is pretty standard but does have grilled salmon as an option. It comes with a soft drink, and you can add an optional scoop of ice cream to any kid’s meal.
Hopworks is popular enough with families that it reserves one side of the brewpub for them with booths, chalkboards and toddler toys. While we didn’t need these distractions, I liked the clear message that all ages are welcome.
I added mushrooms and jalapeños to my creamy mac & cheese made with a pilsner cheese sauce. Rich had a burger topped with local cheese and bacon.
The kids’ menu has the usual items, but they do make the grilled cheese with Tillamook cheddar, and all the kids’ items come with a homemade chocolate chip cookie.
Best Local Lunch… If You Can Find It
Our best lunch was at Teote House Café, which offered bowls of salad or rice and beans that we could top with any of its well-seasoned meats. The fresh arepas that came with everything were good, too.
It’s opened and closed a few locations since Covid-19, including a stall at the Pine Street Market food hall. Keep an eye out for their next home.
Underwhelming Food Trucks
Portland is known for its food trucks, but we found the scene underwhelming. It’s possible we didn’t find the right food truck court; there are a lot of them.
In a city known for its hip, local food, we expected the food trucks to turn out unique and creative dishes. Instead, we found the same Asian, Middle Eastern and Mexican offerings over and over again.
They’re cheap and convenient and the food is cooked to order (we enjoyed our egg tacos), but we can’t say we found anything special. If I went back, I would strongly consider a food truck guided tour that would hopefully lead us to the hidden gems.
Popular Portland Places We Skipped
We skipped trendy Salt & Straw, where the ice cream flavors were too esoteric for us. They’ve since added mainstream flavors like chocolate gooey brownie and cinnamon snickerdoodle to the more outrageous options, like pear/blue cheese or jasmine milk tea/almond/straccietella.
We saw plenty of people walking around the city carrying bright pink cake boxes filled with Voo Doo Donuts, but their neon colors and super-sweet flavors, like the blue-raspberry-dust-topped “Miami Vice,” didn’t appeal to us.
Tween Traveler (an apparent traditionalist when it comes to doughnuts) looked briefly at the revolving case, spotted a doughnut piled high with Froot Loops and announced, “That’s just wrong,” before turning on her heel to walk out.
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All photos by Eileen Gunn© except the farmers market (PSU Market) and the Dossier Hotel (Dossier).