[Read all of the articles in our Portland Fun Guide HERE! Looking for a print copy? Look at this handy-dandy map!—eds.]

Portland is not known for big-ticket tourist attractions. We have a few, to be sure, but the real draw of the city is its approach to life—creative, independent, unhurried, and green. 

So if you have friends or family coming into town, ditch the typical tourist stops and consider treating them—or yourself!—to an unorthodox few days in Portland, with activities that speak to the things that make our city the treat it still is. 

Have a raspberry fool!

Rimsky-Korsakoffee House, located in an old bungalow in the Buckman neighborhood near Revolution Hall, is not what your typical tourist might think of when they picture their late-night vacation entertainment. 

But since 1980, Rimsky’s—named for the master composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, who died a stone’s throw from here in the Russian town of Luga in 1908—has been delighting a wide range of Portlanders with their confections, coffees, and teas served against a backdrop of piano music and string lights. 

Rimsky’s stature in the city is such that it raised over $20,000 from fans to stay afloat during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is now open until midnight, five days a week. The raspberry fool, a dessert made of raspberries, whipped cream, and chocolate, is a favorite. 

Rimsky-Korsakoffee House, 707 SE 12th

Get some hardware!

“Keep Portland Weird,” you say? Try Hippo Hardware & Trading Co., 40-plus year-old hardware emporium on East Burnside in the Central Eastside where you can buy doorknobs, bathtubs, nails, old furniture, house numbers, light fixtures, and a wide variety of hippopotamus-adorned merchandise.

You can often find the dapper owner, Steven Miller, presiding near the cash registers, holding forth on all manner of hippo and hardware-related subjects and browse an extraordinarily eclectic array of Northwest ephemera on display throughout the cavernous store. 

Hippo Hardware has faced its share of difficulties in recent years, beginning with the COVID-19 pandemic, but the business has said it remains here to stay. It’s currently open Wednesday to Sunday, from 10-5 PM.

Hippo Hardware, 1040 E Burnside

Visit the other rose garden(s)!

Portland is a neighborhood town, and there are few finer neighborhoods than Ladd’s Addition, sandwiched in all its hexagonal glory between SE Hawthorne and SE Division. 

The neighborhood’s layout revolves around a center circle featuring a variety of flowers like rhododendrons and azaleas, but the real draw for rose-hawks is the four diamond-shaped rose gardens situated in all four directions extending out from the center circle. 

Those roses are, at their peak in the late spring, absolutely sublime. There are more than 3,000 roses of 60 different varieties in the neighborhood in total, which are viewable at any time, free of charge (preferably with a snack in hand from either of the nearby Hawthorne food cart pods).

Ladd’s Addition, SE 16th & Harrison 

Go pick berries!

One of the most important aspects of any visit to Portland is a little time spent outside the city—but if you don’t have the time or means to travel far, a morning or afternoon spent picking berries on Sauvie Island is an ideal way to experience one of the many non-urban delights that are so close by. 

There are a number of U-Pick farms on the island, offering visitors the opportunity to pick everything from strawberries to pumpkins to lavender, while also enjoying hayrides, prepared food, and plenty more. 

The summer berry season is a particular highlight, with farms offering not only strawberries but a dizzying variety of blackberries, raspberries, marionberries, and blueberries through July and into August. If you’re used to buying your berries in grocery stores, brace yourself—you’ll never be able to go back. 

Do the Albina Soul Walk!

They might not make it plain in all the guidebooks, but one of the best things about visiting a new place (or exploring in a familiar place) is learning a little something. 

One way to do that in Portland is by enjoying the Albina Soul Walk, a self-guided audio tour created by artist Megan Hattie Stahl to help people learn about the musical culture of the Albina neighborhood in the period between the 1960s and 1980s before the forces of disinvestment and gentrification took hold. 

The walk begins on North Vancouver Avenue and covers about a mile, with stops along the way at the sites of old music venues and community hubs, accompanied by clips of songs from the Albina Music Trust archive, stories from musicians, and narration from venerable Portland musicians Calvin Walker and Norman Sylvester. 

Albina Soul Walk, albinamusictrust.com/albina-soul-walk

Hang out at a truck stop!

Oh, but not just any truck stop! Jubitz’s flagship truck stop, located off I-5 at Exit 307 in North Portland, has a little something for everyone. 

In addition to the 300 parking spots that service more than 2,000 drivers each day, this Jubitz boasts The Portlander Inn hotel, a lounge and grill with a weekly line-up that includes country music, trivia, and line dancing, two delis, a banquet hall, and a movie theater where films are screened three times daily for the modest price of $9 per ticket ($7 for kids!). 

That’s not all, either. Drivers can take advantage of the facility’s car wash, take a shower, get a haircut, do laundry, get a massage, and ship a package. Buc-ee’s is officially on notice.

Jubitz Truck Stop, 10210 N Vancouver Way

Go canoeing!

If you’ve had enough fun at the truck stop, or if your berry-laden stomach is crying out for mercy after your morning at Columbia Farms, consider retiring to Kelley Point Park at the very edge of North Portland—one of the most isolated, peaceful parks in the city. 

Portland has its fill of great parks, and they’re all worth your time, but there’s no park quite like this one. Kelley Point Park is located at the confluence of the Columbia River, Willamette River, and the Columbia Slough, the latter of which is a prime resting place for steelhead trout and Chinook salmon. 

The park is also home to a wide variety of other non-human Northwest inhabitants, including freshwater mussels, beavers, turtles, and deer. Kelley Point has picnic facilities, trails, a beach, and can be the ideal place to launch your canoe or kayak on a sunny day.

Kelley Point Park, N Kelley Point Park Rd