It’s constantly a chunk strange for me to spend time in Portland, Oregon.

It’s the primary city I lived in after I moved out west and it’s the metropolis now portrayed in a amusing and fractured way in the IFC show Portlandia and in Portlandia: A Guide for Visitors, a e-book that says to explain “all that this magical, dreamy town has to provide.”

This visit I become a guest of Travel Portland – and most truly a vacationer.

I stayed one night in the Hotel deLuxe, which gives a Pilgrimage to Portlandia bundle, and nights at the Heathman Hotel, which won my heart via sending a person to my room inside 5 minutes of my arrival with a duplicate of my Oregon Curiosities e-book for me to signal so it is able to be delivered to the on-site library packed with books via authors – lots of them really, simply famous – who've stayed at the inn.

Most of the weekend changed into spent racing across the town – on foot and on public transportation – traveling hot spots inclusive of Powell’s Books, the Peculiarium and the Lan Su Chinese Garden, and attempting to find all of the venues supplying the loose treats that come with the Portland Passport site visitors receive after they book a room via the Travel Portland site before March 31st.

The really Porlandia-ish list of treats consists of a doughnut from Voodoo Doughnut (wherein the far-out offerings consist of a doughnut covered in Fruit Loops and one blanketed in bubble gum dirt and embellished with a wrapped piece of gum), a excursion of Widmer Brothers Brewing (loose anyway, but passport holders get a loose complete-sized memento glass), a scoop of ice cream at Salt & Straw (sorbet at 10:30 inside the morning? Why not?) and five other gadgets, a number of which were inspired by way of the ‘what-to-do-in-Portland-in-the-winter‘ tips accrued from Portland insiders.

The most puzzling location at the passport is the ten-piece meatball plate: a reward for traffic who make the trek out to IKEA.

“Pacific Northwesterners love IKEA, specifically while it’s tax-free,” is the way Courtney Ries, client advertising manager for Travel Portland explained it. “And seeing that we can’t supply all and sundry a bookshelf or a new kitchen, we idea it would be some thing fun for the humans that make IKEA a must-visit place when they arrive to metropolis – or for people who have a special hankering for meatballs.”

Fair enough. But IKEA is just one forestall at the MAX light rail line earlier than my preferred region inside the metropolis – Portland International Airport – and there are lots of a laugh and specific shops and restaurants there – in conjunction with artwork and leisure. And, at the same time as I arrived in town on the teach, it is probably amusing for visitors coming to city by aircraft to get their last passport stamp – and engaging treat – as they head domestic.