Discover a youthful Portland. Credit: Travel Portland.
By Derek Brown
Through the eyes of a child, Portland is a city teeming with opportunities for exploration. So round up your little Lewis and Clark and experience all the City of Roses has to offer: museums, fountains and an aerial tram. Here are 5-kid friendly attractions in Portland.
- The 3D Center of Art and Photography is a museum and gallery combined. Learn the history of 3D film making and the different ways to view 3D. Among the current exhibits is a show of 3D medical illustrations and a 3D film using blacklight and paint. Admission is $5 for anyone 15 years and older and free for kids. Tours take about 45 minutes.
- Fountains abound in downtown Portland (and they are all free). Splash around in the fountain at the plaza for the Portland Saturday Market. The market claims to be the biggest “continually operating outdoor arts and crafts market in the nation.”
- Discover the World Forestry Center Discovery Museum and all about trees. Learn how the Pacific Northwest forests provide water, recreation and tons of wood for our lives. Ride the canopy lift to get a bird’s-eye-view of what’s in the tree canopy. Also, check out Peggy the Train, a retired locomotive that was used to haul logs. Admission is $8 for adults and $5 for kids.
- Explore at Lewis and Clark National Historic Park. It’s a daytrip from Portland to see where the dynamic explorers wintered in 1805 at Fort Clatsop. Reenactment programs occur during summer months until Labor Day.
- Get a panoramic view of the skyline and new perspective of Mt. Hood from the Portland Aerial Tram. It rises 500 feet and travels at 22 miles per hour for 3,300 feet during the three minute trip. Roundtrip fares at $4 and children six years and younger ride for free.
Insider tip: Oregon has no sales tax.
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Derek Brown, a member of the Orbitz editorial team, is making 2011 a summer of travel from coast to coast.