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Oregon

No matter what you're looking for in a vacation, few states offer more than Oregon. Within a 90-minute drive from Portland or Eugene you can lose yourself in the recreational landscape of your choice: uncrowded ocean beaches, snow-silvered mountain wilderness, or a monolith-studded desert that has served as the backdrop for many a Hollywood Western. In the Willamette Valley wine country scores of tasting rooms offer up the fruit of the vine. Food lovers find that Oregon produces some of the nation's best fruits, vegetables, and seafood, all of which can be enjoyed in fine restaurants throughout the state. Plenty of attractions keep the kids busy, too, from the Enchanted Forest near Salem to the exceptional Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport. And shoppers take note—there's no sales tax in Oregon.

Although Oregon is notorious for rain, and winters can indeed be wet and dreary, the rest of the year more than makes up for it. Much of the state is actually a desert, and most of the precipitation falls west of the Cascades. At its eastern end, Oregon begins in a high, sage-scented desert plateau that covers nearly two-thirds of the state's 96,000 square mi. As you move west, the landscape rises to 11,000-foot-high alpine peaks, meadows, and lakes; plunges to fertile farmland and forest; and ends at the cold, tumultuous Pacific.

Central Oregon

The arid landscape east of the Cascades differs dramatically from that on the lush, wet western side. Crossing the mountains, you... (more)

The Columbia Gorge and Mt. Hood Area

Volcanoes, lava flows, Ice Age floodwaters, and glaciers were Nature's tools of choice to carve a breathtaking 80-mi landscape... (more)

Crater Lake National Park

Crater Lake National Park covers 183,224 acres. Located in Southern Oregon less than 100 mi from the California border, it's surrounded... (more)

Eastern Oregon

Travel east from The Dalles, Bend, or any of the foothill communities blossoming in the shade of the Cascades, and a very different... (more)

The Oregon Coast

Oregon has 300 mi of white-sand beaches, not a grain of which is privately owned. U.S. 101, called Highway 101 by most Oregonians... (more)

Portland

What distinguishes Portland, Oregon, from the rest of America's cityscapes? Or from the rest of the world's urban destinations... (more)

Southern Oregon

Approached from the north, southern Oregon begins where the verdant lowlands of the Willamette Valley give way to a complex collision... (more)

The Willamette Valley and Wine Country

During the 1940s and 1950s, researchers at Oregon State University concluded that the Willamette Valley—the wet, temperate... (more)