Hey guys
In June I am flying to Portland to do a road trip on the west coast, mostly Oregon and hopefully some of California/Washington
Trip will be 12 days
Will spend a day and a half in Portland
Then know for sure I want to spend a day or two at Crater Lake
Other than that we have no solid plans, any suggestions or cool stuff to do around the area would be appreciated
>>1115898
General Oregon:
Astoria
Ramona Falls
Timberline Lodge
Silver Falls/Oregon Gardens
The Gorge (Multnomah Falls & Hood River)
Willamette Valley/Dundee hills wine country
Oregon Coast (Depoe Bay, Newport, Cannon beach)
Breweries (prob not worth the drive out to Bend unless you want to go white water rafting, but Rogue on the coast, portland breweries, etc)
Oregon Caves
Crater Lake
Golfer? Pacific/Bandon dunes
Portland:
Japanese gardens/Rose Gardens
noodle bowl at shanghai tunnels
Breweries (you'll get lots of opinions, I actually like lucky lab in NW although it gets poor ratings because it's a nice place to chill)
NW 21st/23rd artsy fartsy shit
All of the neighborhoods in SE
Some of them in NE (Alberta, Mississsippi)
Pok pok, etc food
food trucks (everywhere)
ground kontrol near chinatown (if you like drinking and classic games)
omsi is fun but geared younger
Catch some live music at doug fir/crystal ballroom/anywhere really
Tea Chai Te on 23rd is my favorite tea shop in the world but getting pretty crowded (try zhen qu golden buds or coconut oolong), Steven Smith Teamaker shop in NW is pretty cool too but more highbrow
Pearl district is basically full of californians at this point but powell's books is worth a trip
NW Coffeehouse has the best cup of coffee (and drinking chocolate) in the city
NorCal:
Shasta
Yosemite
Redwoods
Sonoma/Napa (prefer sonoma)
SF
Wouldn't go much further south unless you are beach hopping or doing the Hwy 1 thing
SW Washington:
Ain't a whole lot
Only worth the drive if you are going all the way to Seattle
I'd skip it desu unless you really want to see the space needle, ranier
>Then know for sure I want to spend a day or two at Crater Lake
do you already have your camping reservations? because if not you won't be staying in the park. and you'd better hurry and find a motel before everything within an hour and a half is booked. not exaggerating.
if you like /out/ bend has a lot of cool stuff nearby-hiking, mountain biking, climbing, river rafting/tubing, lava tube caves. pic related: smith rock state park. good food in bend, too-check out the food trucks.
mt hood's lodge (forget the name) is cool to check out. fair warning: last time i was there in june there was 3 feet of snow on the ground (roads were plowed, though)
>>1115903
>do you already have your camping reservations? because if not you won't be staying in the park. and you'd better hurry and find a motel before everything within an hour and a half is booked. not exaggerating.
Yeah this. Tourists think they can just waltz up and get a camping spot whenever they want, when in fact your typical Oregonian would be considered a professional camper anywhere else in the U.S., possibly the world. We book that shit up early. Your only shot of doing an impromptu camping trip is camping illegally (which is usually fine if you're by yourself and know where to go...which you don't) or camping on BLM land. Best shot as a walk-up is in Mt Hood National Forest or Rogue River if you are willing to backpack in a few miles to the first permitted site. it's really not about the forest service being dicks, every year there are dozens of hikers/campers that go missing (http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2013/06/lost_in_oregon_hiker_who_vanis.html) and we have to foot the bill to find them
>>1115922
>expecting to get a spot in yosemite in june less than a month in advance
>mfw
shit nigga, that place books up literally 6 months in advance, and the only reason it's not sooner is because that's the earliest you can make a res.
only thing you can do now is find a motel or private campground outside the parks or completely change your destinations. might still get a spot in north cascades in wa, if you're really insistent on camping at a national park. but even state park in ca book quick.
>>1115922
rent a car/truck/suv/rv that you can sleep in and park it at the nearest wal-mart parking lot or rv park
most of the campgrounds have some first-come sites so just hit one up first to see if it's booked up and when the next vacancy will be and then get there EARLY (I would get up at 3AM if I wanted to camp around Portland/Tillamook w/o reservations) and wait until someone packs up and leaves
It's not out of the ordinary to drive around the campground in the morning to the first-come sites and politely asking if people are leaving that day
>>1115926
>first-come sites
camp 4 in yosemite. you'll meet an interesting crowd there... ;)
3 am is not an unreasonable time to get in line for there. and don't sleep in your car in yosemite-rangers there patrol aggressively for people doing that, and you will almost certainly get caught and popped with a $150 illegal camping ticket.
>>1115922
>>1115926
Wait, what?
I'm not OP. I'm from Michigan and we have our fair share of wilderness in the Upper Peninsula. When I was a kid and would go on hunting and fishing trips with my dad, we'd usually just tromp around a state or national forest and set up our tent in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. Are you telling me that you have to stay in a public site in Yosemite and elsewhere?
Seems pretty ridiculous to me. I'd rather camp away from all the other drunken yokels.
>>1115934
Yeah
Guess this comes with the territory for no reservations roadtrips, would be cool to actually camp inside the parks, but worst comes to worst well sleep in a parking lot just outside the park, or pay someone to sleep in their yard for a night. Whatever.
>>1115937
Yeah thats what Im used to where I am from, I guess the west coast ones are a lot more commercialized than elsewhere
>>1115939
>sleep in a parking lot just outside the park
not around yosemite. sleeping on the side of the road withing 30 miles of a park entrance (hwys 120, 140 and 41, iirc) and the f.s. rangers will bust you, try it in a parking lot in groveland, mariposa or oakhurst and it'll be the sheriffs. sorry to shit on your plans, just want you to know what's up.
>>1115937
>>1115940
national forest or blm land-drop camp wherever.
national parks-if you want to be in the main corridor you need a campsite, otherwise a $15 wilderness permit will let you sleep just about anywhere a couple miles into the backcountry.
when you're an international destination that gets ~4,000,000 visitors a year (most of whom are useless city dwellers who think you need to do shit like rescue baby bison) you need a bit more management and accountability of people.
>>1115937
>>1115940
You can do backcountry/dispersed camping but we usually call that backpacking over here (don't know if the terminology is different) since you need to hike in 1-2 miles from the nearest campground or trail to camp (either at a backpackers site or your own).
The difference is probably that the rangers here are MUCH stricter on following regulations than anywhere else because Oregon weather, terrain, and wildlife isn't a fucking joke and 15 people a year just go *poof* in Oregon (never to be seen again, that's not counting the bodies that are found or the people rescued, which is a daily thing).
So when OP said he wants to "spend a day or two at Crater Lake" it wasn't clear that he wanted to go backpacking and primitive camp somewhere at the base, that's a completely different type of vacation than driving the coast and seeing the sites by campground, which is what 99% of people do.
>>1115944
So what, you just cant go to Yosemite without reserving 6 months in advance period?
>>1115949
Not him, but, as he mentioned, it does appear that you can camp wherever you'd like in Yosemite if you purchase a Wilderness Permit for $5 ahead of time.
>>1115949
not if you want to easily stay in the park or be lazy about your bandit camping.
you have a few choices:
>private campgrounds ~1 hr away
>motels 45-60 minutes away
>airbnb or similiar
>backpack and camp in the back country
>get in line early as fuck (3 am was mentioned before-good time) at camp 4 and hope someone's leaving
>mfw i have a family cabin in mariposa
not that i go to the valley this time of year anyways. place is a fucking zoo.
>>1115951
>you can camp wherever you'd like in Yosemite if you purchase a Wilderness Permit
you can camp in 99% of the park, but hardly anywhere
>You must camp at least four trail miles from Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite Valley, Glacier Point, Hetch Hetchy, and Wawona, and at least one air mile from any road.
>https://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/wildpermits.htm
so be prepared to carry your shit a ways.
slight side note, i also hope you weren't planning on hiking up half dome, op. those reservations are also guaranteed to be full.
>>1115954
>poopenaut valley
kek
>>1115925
>>1115930
>>1115934
>>1115944
>>1115952
>>1115953
just to be clear, i'm not on a
>tourists go home!
tirade, i jut want you to be aware of the situations so you don't get turned away when it's too late or get slapped with a $150 tickets. i know i sound like an asshole, but i'm really just listing other assholes actions and rules. i live 4 hours away, so i don't really give much of a shit about how many tourist flood the area around ynp.
>>1115958
>>1115954
>>1115946
>>1115926
>>1115908
And I don't want you to get there, realize you don't have anywhere to stay and think that hiking two miles into the wild without proper experience or gear is a good idea or your only option either. At best it is not an efficient way to see the sights and can possibly ruin a vacation, and at worst people end up dying. You can easily die from hypothermia in the Oregon summer if you come unprepared. If your OP had said, 'hey I'm flying into Oregon to go backpacking in the parks and forests' then I would be less concerned.
>>1115960
>You can easily die from hypothermia in the Oregon summer
dumb as it sounds, oranon is right. i took this pic in oregon in midjune a couple years ago.
Well besides the parks, any tips for no reservation traveling in general?
Never done anything like this before, but Im not opposed to sleeping in weird places if it comes down to it
>>1115958
>>1115960
I might go in September with three other guys, how is it then? Expensive, busy, hard to get in? We are thinking about going to Yellowstone, and the Grand Canyon. Also we're stopping at Sacramento/Los Angeles where we know a few people and somewhere in Colorado. Probably will stop for a bit at Vegas, Salt Lake City and anywhere else obvious. Any ideas?
This is an open question too of course. We would be driving, we're not into partying and are looking for outdoor stuff, sightseeing, good food, stuff like that. I might break off in Denver and try to take a bus to see Canada and New York. Suggestions?
>>1116048
>somewhere in Colorado
>I might break off in Denver and try to take a bus to see Canada and New York.
you do realize the size of the area your trip will encompass? and there's no fucking reason on god's green earth to bus it from Denver to NYC
fuck slc, go to park city instead and see arches, bryce canyon, and zion
>>1116052
It'll be closer than Houston where we'll start and it is the closest point from any other place we'd be. Besides I have family in Chicago. I fogure it'll be the best chance I will get in a while.
Where and what is park city?
Note about the Washington/Oregon area: Mts. Rainier, Hood, St. Helens, and a couple of others have been reporting clusters of earthquakes recently, so keep an eye on earthquake/volcano reports from USGS.
>>1116048
september is often the best time of year in the sierra but because school's started the crowds have backed off a bit. or you might hit an indian summer and it'll be 97 degrees for a week straight. might be early enough to get a campsite in the valley, but i wouldn't put it off too long. same with grand canyon and yellowstone.
>>1115898
>>1115902
Without reservations, staying at shitty hotels for >$50 a night isn't so bad. Space needle is overrated, unless you're into the whole cedar point wait an hour for a pointless ride thing. Maybe try the Jimi Hendrix Experience if you're into sound? If you've been to any major city, Seattle not worth it. Mt. Olympia and Puget Sound is decent for the sights. Stick to the Oregon coast, and at most NoCal for the Redwoods. Mount Hood only worth is decent if you're a fan of skiing/snowboarding or The Shining. Crater Lake is legit, though. Really though, the Pac 1 is absolutely magnificent.
>>1116081
So there will still be crowds and reservations will be necessary in September? I'm not too worried about the heat. We're all young guys and in Houston it gets pretty hot. I'm sure we might be uncomfortable but hey that's nature.
>>1116052
>>1116056
Park city looks pretty. What kind of stuff is there to do there? It looks like a skiing place but would that be available in September.
Still wondering on the feasibility of bussing myself solo from in between Yellowstone and Denver to Chicago, and then getting to Canada (particularly Quebec) and going to New York. I wouldn't be working and I think and hope I will have enough money. If and when I do that, I'd be alone because my companions are slightly more responsible than me.
>>1116095
>there will still be crowds and reservations will be necessary in September
yes and yes, but not as bad as during summer vacation months.
and if you want to do the cable route up half dome reserve that further in advance than you think you need to, too.
>denver to nyc
if you're going that far take a train. not too much more expensive, and way more room to move around.
>>1116100
>train
I didn't even know that was an option. I'll definitely look into it.
>>1116102
amtrak>greyhound
it's been a decade or since i was on it, but (at least back then) we were allowed to take a whole cooler of beer on with us. made the trip from la to san jose about a thousand times better.
>>1116092
Science Fiction Museum
>>1116113
Yes, that as well.
>>1116092
>>1116113
>>1116116
EMP sucks donkey balls.
I'd recommend going to the Dale Chihuly museum, possibly stoned, it's a pretty cool art museum regardless of whether you're into art. I'd also recommend taking the ferry out on some day trips to the various san juan islands and their little towns, pretty fun. Some of the neighborhoods in Seattle are fun to just go walk around in, maybe stop for some food and drinks. The waterfront is getting a makeover, not sure if it'll be done by then but it wouldn't be that bad to tack it into Pike's place, etc.
