Yesterday afternoon I arrived home from Portland, Ore., where I attend the 2006 WebVisions conference. I’ve posted more of my thoughts on the conference over there, but here are a few details from the trip.
- Beware of booking your trip through the Portland, Oregon Visitors Association (POVA) Web site. I booked the Portland “Big Deal” which included some city coupons and vouchers for free breakfast. I much rather would have preferred a hotel room, which I didn’t get when I arrived. (Somehow my reservation was booked for September rather than July, by no fault of my own.) Fortunately the manager at the Holiday Inn admitted their mistake and somehow found me a room in their oversold hotel. (When I got back to my room on Thursday and my key wouldn’t work, I feared, however, that I’d been kicked out and would find my belongings on the curb!)
- I had a chance to hang out with friend Kari of Mandate Media and Politics and Technology fame. We dined and drank at the cool retro Doug Fir, whose neighboring hotel, the Jupiter, claims to be the best place in Portland for your illicit affair.
- Portland gets it with the mass transit! I rode the “Max” for free all day Saturday in “Fareless Square,” from the Convention Center to Pioneer Square. Minneapolis has a long way to go.
- A trip to Portland can’t go by without a visit to Powells, one of the largest independent bookstores in the United States. I also took in the Portland Saturday Market where I shopped from unique vendors. And admittedly, I enjoyed the tax-free shopping at more familiar stores, too, in the Lloyd Center, Oregon’s largest shopping mall. (Why is it that I live 10 minutes from the nation’s largest shopping mall and still enjoy shopping the same stores in other cities?)
What a great weekend! I think if I had a choice to pick up and move anywhere in the United States, it might just be Portland.
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