Oregon Travel Forum

I am trying to convince my fiance to travel to the USA again later this year and we would love to see some of Oregon and possibly Washington. Not super keen just to be stuck in the big cities and feeling like we might try to drive over in your fabulous country (challenging for some small town Aussies who consider 2 lanes either way a big road!).

Anyway what cities/towns have airports that fly to Anaheim/LA? (We will finish our trip at Disneyland/Supercross at Anaheim.) Also which airports/airlines can we get cheap flights between San Fran and whereever we end up in Oregon and Washington and then on to LA/Anaheim?

I am just after some local knowledge not massive lists of the best options just some links in the right direction would be great. I am thinking at this stage flying to San Francisco from Brisbane then driving (maybe?? or flying) up to Oregon or maybe Washington then flying back to LA.

Any tips would be appreciated. Thanks

You might wish to look at the web site for Virgin America Airlines. They have San Francisco to Seattle flights, and also Seattle to Los Angeles flights. You can check to see if Portland flights are, or will become available. They are still expanding their flight network. Gary

Portland will be the cheapest to fly into from LA.
Personally, I think that Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho is one of the more under-appreciated parts of the country. The Palouse region near Spokane is very, very pretty in the summer, and so unique and full of interesting towns, and the mountain areas in Idaho and the eastern side of the Cascades are isolated and full of beauty.
If you want to get to the isolated parts of Oregon, Redmond would be a good place to fly into, but it's a very small airport. You can also fly into Boise, Idaho, which is only about 50 miles east of the Oregon state line. From there, you're close to Hells Canyon, and the desert areas of Eastern Oregon. You can also fly into Eugene, which is between Portland and the California state line, but still close to the coast, or Medford, which is very near the California state line and close to Crater Lake. There are also a few passenger air terminals along the coast. Take a look at this list for more detail, concentrating on the "Commercial Service" section: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Airports
But, if it's your first time in Oregon, you really should spend a good amount of time on the coast, even though it's full of tourists. You can start in Portland and head south. There's lots to see. On the way back north, more into the mountains, there's stuff like Crater Lake and Mount Hood to see.
North of Portland and west of Seattle is the Olympic Peninsula, which includes Olympic National Park and the only rainforests in the continental United States (Hoh and the smaller Quinnault). The coast along that stretch is also pretty amazing.
You can make a really good trip and still stay out of the cities. Portland is really the only large city in Oregon, so it's fairly easy to get out of it.

You'll probably find that most flights in the LA area are from BUR ( Burbank, a city in northern LA county ), LAX, or SNA ( Santa Ana, a city in Orange County, the closest airport to Disneyland ). Avoid LAX if you can, it is big, ugly and crowded.

In the SF bay area, Oakland is often cheapest. Most international flights seem to use SFO.

Most flights into Oregon go to Portland, and most flights into Washington go into Seattle/Tacoma.

Check Southwest Airlines.

If you want to avoid bit cities then I suggest you fly into the Eugene, Oregon Airport (EUG) instead of Portland (PDX). You can pick up a rental car at the airport and drive away into some of the most beautiful parts of Oregon within a few hours of the airport. EUG is very centrally located in the heart of the state. Eugene is a progressive university town which has managed to retain some of its small-town feel.

I would do:

San Francisco, CA - Santa Barbara, CA - Las Vegas, NV - Zion National Park, UT - Los Angeles, CA (Santa Monica)- All by driving

Major Airports:

Seattle, WA
Portland, OR
San Francisco, CA
Los Angeles, CA
Las Vegas, NV

Thanks for all the great answers. Very helpful. I think Salem is looking like a possible stop for a few nights. We have stayed with Howard Johnson Inn before and I see there is one in Salem. Is it within walking distance of many interesting things (just the usual touristy - parks, monuments, etc)? Would you recommend any other accomm in Salem? I would like to book over the net but would like to stick with chain hotel/motels. Thanks again.

We went there few weeks ago.

I suggest:

- take the r/t flight to LA. Do not waste much time in LA (besides Anaheim).
- take Amtrak (economy roomette is the best deal) one-way till Portland. If you are lucky (most people are) the Coast Star"Late" will be late and you see Mount Shasta in it's all glory
- in Portland rent a car one-way and drive it to LA

Highlights (in OR):

- the Coast Starlight route itself
- Klamath Falls with it's Klamath Lake
- Crater Lake
- Cascades
- Oregon coast

You can spend easily few weeks.

You may look at my Amtrak page (separate from European/Asian trains).

brother's suggestion is a good one! Eugene (EUG) is a mid-sized regional airport that is VERY easy to navigate (one terminal in use) and Eugene is centrally located. It will generally cost about $100us more to fly in/out of there verses Portland (PDX)and there are way fewer flights, but I think that is outweighed by other factors.

Salem is less than 1 hour up the freeway from Eugene, the central Oregon coast is about 1 hour way and central Oregon (Bend) is about 2.5 hours.

As for lodging in Salem, there are far nicer accomodations than the HJ. I'm staying at the Phoenix Inn north right now and it's a fine facility. The Mill Creek Inn, Comfort Suites and Shiloh Inn are a couple others I can recommend.

hmmm ... I don't know where to start with recommendations ... they would depend on a number of things:
1. how much time would you like to spend? 1 week, 2 weeks, or ??? That's going to set lots of parameters.
2. What most intrigues you about the northwest? any specifics? The mountains? the rugged coast? the huge tall forests? Puget Sound and all of its islands? history? the high desert? the columbia gorge? gardens?
3. what sort of things do you like to do? sightsee via auto? short hikes? long hikes?
4. would you be interested in spending a little time in the cities? all of them offer some great things.
5. Would you want to see things similar to Australia, or the complete opposite? or ???

Flying:
Unfortunately, the airlines in the US are in the midst of raising prices and cutting flights. The smaller airports are being hit hard. And its likely to get worse in the coming months. So ... *IF* money and flight availability mean more to you than avoiding traffic, your best bets are limited to flying into Portland and Seattle.

For airlines ... the cheapect into both of those cities from California are Virgin America and Southwest. Warning?: netither of them are on most of the sources like Expedia, Travelocity, etc. ... you have to look specifically at their websites. Alaska Airlines is trying to fight them off, so is trying to match some of their fares on the same route.

If you are worried about traffic, fly into Portland rather than Seattle ... its still a big city with lots of traffic but not nearly as bad as Seattle's traffic .. and since its smaller, you are out of it a bit faster. And its centrally located

Why are you considering stopping at Salem? That would be very far down my list of potential stops. Nothing much to recommend it except for the state capitol and possible friends or relatives.

Once I know more about your time and likes/dislikes, I can give you my take on it. Certainly spend at very minimum 1 week, better 2, preferably more. If you have 3 weeks or more, and like trains, and don't mind it being up to 6 hours late, the train trip is interseting. But you see more and do more by driving.

Thanks for your suggestions so far.

I saw a few write ups on VT that made me think that Salem could be interesting but I have since decided Portland might be a better option. Probably only 3-4 nights in each of Seattle and Portland. We definitely wouldn't be driving. Our interests are seeing stuff out of the cities if that makes sense. We would love to see snow but not skiing. We realise that to see stuff out of the city without a car is a bit tricky and that is why we were more interested in tours or maybe public transport. We loved the drive to the Grand Canyon and seeing the Grand Canyon on our last visit. We are small town people and not overly wanting to shop shop shop or see the highlights of the cities. We would rather see the areas around. Does that help with what we are interested in????

Portland is a great city, the downtown area is a nice place to get a hotel, eat dinner and shop. You can also check out Ashland, OR there are caves not to far from there. Cannon Beach is also a nice area of Oregon, very scenic! Whale watching is good in Newport, OR.

You could spend a week in Portland easily, but you could also see quite a bit in 3-4 days. Hit Multnomah Village while in Portland. It's much more like a small town than anywhere else in the city. Same with Saint Johns, which is on the northwest side of town. Also, maybe get down to Oregon City. It's a suburb, but also very separated from Portland.
Head east out of Portland on the old Lewis & Clark Highway to Multnomah Falls (several other falls on your way out), then head south to Mount Hood. On Mount Hood, you'll be able to see snow for much of the year.
I really like Salem, but people in Oregon look down on it. The capitol area itself is nice but there's a cute park with a carousel along the river that I thought was great. The Downtown area is a little run-down but there are restaurants and businesses still nonetheless.
If you're looking for small town Oregon, it's getting more and more difficult to find because of the money coming in from California. However, you can head east or south from Portland and still generally find it. Pendleton is nice, but has gotten money pumped into it. Hood River is really pretty, but the same thing: gentrified. The Dalles, on the other hand, has, for whatever reason, not seen any of that money it seems.
South of Portland, near the Oregon Gardens, you've got the farming region with cute little towns like Independence. It depends on how willing to get off of the main roads you are.
Also, north of Portland, in Washington, there's Centralia. It's a really pretty small town, but there's also an interesting McMennamin's location there. You should stay in at least one McMennamin's while in the region.
Then, to the northwest, there's Astoria. Always been a bit touristy, but the architecture and town itself is just so gorgeous.
hth