Paying It Forward: Portland from a Locals Perspective
 

Greetings and Happy Holidays!

I am an avid traveller who has lived in Portland almost all of my life. I have met wonderful people during my travels, especially during my last trip, which was 5 weeks solo through Laos, Vietnam and Thailand.

I had a family in a remote village in NW Laos host me for 4 nights, I met a young student through www.hellohanoi.org who showed me around hanoi and hosted me at her house for lunch and I stayed with a couple of host families, one in Bangkok and one in Chiang Mai.

In keeping with the spirit and "paying it forward" I would like to propose an offer similar to one I found on the forum for Argentina.

If I have time, I would be happy to show you around the city for a couple of hours and help you get your bearings within the city.

Let me know what you are interested in and I will figure out what we can work in within a couple of hours time. I may be able to spend more time with you depending on my schedule.

What is the catch? Well, I am doing this because I enjoy traveling. If I end up in your city I would appreciate reciprocity in the same form; show me around YOUR city for a couple of hours!

Portland has numerous parks, ethnic restaurants, great microbreweries, quaint wine bars and many beautiful sites within an hour or two of downtown.

I travel a fair amount so I can't help you if I am out of town. Sorry.

If your are interested, leave me your email but replace the "." with "dot" and the "@" with and so spammers don't capture your email and fill your box with junk.

I am a frequent poster on this forum so if you want to check my validity, click on my name and you will learn a bit about me and my travel history.

I hope to see more postings of this sort in the future! Pay it forward!

Cheers!

Tamara

I was thinking of coming to Maine this summer. That's great.

What a sweet offer! I should probably do the same for Seattle, except I'm really not as savvy about the city as I should be. Maybe this will give me the incentive to learn more!

Yikes, Patrick! Thanks for pointing out that I need to clarify. I did post this under Oregon but many won't search that way.

Portland, Oregon.

What a wonderful idea, Tamara. I know many people have taken advantage of AVRooster's Real Buenos Aires tour.

LOL, Neo...

eurotraveller, I live in Portland and I am sure you could show me SO much about the city :)
I like the idea..
And maybe we will meet up in Argentina soon :)

Yeah, Scarlett. I breezed over your post on the Argentina forum. We will spend a week in BA, for sure!

Cheers!

glad you got my "hint" eurotraveller. I think "microbreweries" may have been the giveaway, but otherwise and maybe even with that it COULD be Maine.

Well, Patrick, I haven't found your posts to be exactly subtle! :-)

Thanks for the reminder, though. I do tend to forget about the other Portland from time to time.

There is <i>another Portland</i> ??? :O lol

Hi Tamara,

I'm visiting Portland at the moment and it would be great to meet you. I'm here in Portland for the next couple of weeks. I live in Tokyo and write on the Asia board. It would be great to have someone to go out with to all of the interesting Portland restaurants. Hope you're still checking this thread. If you are, please let me know how to reach you. Thanks!

Hi Mealea! I am glad you found this thread and welcome to Portland!

You can reach me via email at tkoedoot at prunw dot com. Take out the words &quot;at&quot; and &quot;dot&quot; and replace them with the symbols and take out the spaces.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Cheers!

... but you say you're in BA, not P.

No, I don't say I am in BA. Please reread so you understand that I was referring to someone else's post on the BA forum.

I am in Portland, OR.

Hey eurotraveller,
Plenty of microbreweries in Portland Maine!

No plans on heading to the pacific nw, but give me a shoutout if you're coming to Boston.

Nice idea - pay it forward fodorites! I like it.
'lani

Thanks kealalani!

But does Portland, Maine have a microbrewery on almost every corner? ((B))

:-))

eurotraveller - we're going to be in Portland Aug 31 &amp; Sept 1. I've been following your posts on BA and would love to chat with you about that if you're around then. And of course, pick up any hints about Portland from a local.

yestravel, if I don't go away for that 3 day weekend (Labor Day) I would be happy to meet with you. Go ahead and send me an email to my email address that is posted in this thread and I will contact you.

Portland is such a great city and I love to show it off to visitors!

sent u email

Just wanted to let everyone know I had the chance to met Tamara when I was visiting Portland in July. She's so nice and we had a great time having a delicious Thai lunch and talking about travel. I really enjoyed meeting her. Portland is a great city!

Thanks Tamara!

I have offered a couple of people the same thing in Dallas, but it seems they think I am some sort of stalker. They typically ignore the offer on the post.
I am a long time Fodors poster and travel professional. I have hosted Japanese and German families in my home, which worked out just fine.
I LOVE Texas and I love meeting new people.
I work and travel a lot, so obviously my time is based on availability.
I wish I could meet up with someone local in Berlin in a couple of weeks!

TxTravelPro, put up a profile in couchsurfing.com or hospitalityclub.org and you will have the opportunity to meet many locals should you have the desire! Check them out and let me know what you think.

Cheers!

You might add to that list GlobalFreeloaders.com for meeting and/or staying with locals. I've hosted Australians and Indians and enjoyed the experience.

wintersp, I have heard of that one. Do you need to pay a fee to be a part of it. The two I mentioned are free. I have hosted people and also been hosted in Thailand, Canada and Seattle. It is a great way to travel as you have a built in tour guide, too!

If you're in Portland, try and take eurotraveller up on her gracious offer. Tamara was a delightful tour guide and her enthusiam about her city is so evident. It was enlightening to hear her thoughts on her many years living there. She took us to several places where we had never been in Portland and we enjoyed a nice lunch with her. And of course, we talked about our travels...loved hearing about some of her past adventures and her upcoming trip to Argentina.

Greetings! I have enjoyed meeting a few people since posting this and have even developed some friendships with people I keep in touch with. It is really fun to show people this gorgeous city and get to know people from other places!

I do have to to say the last person tested my faith a bit.

She contacted me about a month prior to coming to Portland and I offered a lot of advice and spent time helping with her itinerary. I don't mind doing that so that isn't a problem.

The problem was she completely stood me up. We had made plans to meet on a Friday evening. I called and left her a message to let her know where we would be. I specifically asked her to call me if she wasn't going to make it so I wouldn't have to sit waiting for her. The call never came and she never showed so we left after about 2 hours. [-X

I figured she was tired or got distracted so I called her the next morning and even left a mesage offering to drive her from the hotel she stayed at her first night to the one she was staying at the rest of her stay and give her a tour of Portland. She didn't have the courtesy to return my call during her entire stay.

Will this affect my offer to extend this invitation to others? Absolutely not! Meeting the kind and considerate people I have make it all worth while! I will continue to pay it forward! :-)

This is a really nice thread! What a great idea!