Today we are wrapping up our posts about Portland, Oregon with the second edition of what we wore in Portland. My packing was very light and minimal, so I ended up packing lots of dresses. Cece packed light as well. These are the outfits we wore on our last day. I wore my favorite (and only) pineapple dress and she wore some awesome striped shorts she found at a vintage store. We went down to a little spot by the river to dip our toes in and catch some rays of sun. Afterwards, I was told I looked red. Go figure.
What we wore in Portland (last day … sad)
I scored this dress on Zulily. How many opportunities do you have to wear a pineapple dress? It has become the perfect bathing suit cover up. Its comfortable and easy to slip off. I decided to pair it with a simple red statement necklace that I’ve had for years, some bright red shades that I found on the trip and the black sandals I’ve been wearing all summer. Each season, I seem to buy one pair of shoes in a neutral color such as black or brown and wear them with everything. This season was no different.
God my hair was all over the place that day
I look like I’m trying to be a model here. That’s funny.
What Cece wore in Portland
I am just loving these shorts. They are so much fun and can go with all sorts of things. They’re definitely one of those finds that you can get a lot of wear out of.
natureBecause naturally you do a bridge by the bridge
So this outfit was from the day before but it is also awesome!
About two weeks ago, I stayed in a hostel in Portland, Oregon with one of my best friends. I’ve always thought that hostels were better than hotels and have even stayed in a few during my trip to Spain last year. However this past week solidified for me that hostels are better than hotels. Now don’t get me wrong, I do love a hotel stay too. I love the comfy bed, the maid service, the little shampoo bottles and everything else that comes along with a good hotel stay. However with this trip, the Portland Hawthorne Hostel was a better option for our wallets. It was between a hostel and airbnb. After looking at this particular hostel’s website, I went with the hostel.
For those of you unaware, a hostel is a place to stay for travelers just like a hotel. However you often share a room with strangers in addition to sharing bathrooms, the kitchen and other communal rooms. The price is often between $20-$40 per night. Depending on the hostel, there are often options for you to have your own room as well. You just pay a bit more for that vs. a dorm room with say six-eight beds.
Hostels are extremely popular in Europe and are sought out by the backpacking community. However in the United States, you’d be surprised to find more hostels than you think. Websites such as hostelworld.com make it very easy to look up hostels all over the world. In fact, that was how I found the Portland Hawthorne Hostel. So we booked two spots in the co-ed six bed dorm. We were ready and excited.
After spending more or less a week in a hostel, I am now a full hostel supporter. So I decided to make this short list for you. Next time when you’re planning a trip, look up the hostels and see if any strike your fancy. It really is a neat way to travel. So without further ado, here are five reasons why hostels a better than hotels.
Our hostel had a tree house thing
5. A real kitchen
Traveling can get expensive. One of the biggest ways that travelers burn through money is food. Eating every meal at a restaurant can be expensive, especially when you are traveling for a while. However when you stay in a hostel, you have access to a real kitchen complete with everything you’d need to cook a meal. You are free to go out and buy your own groceries, and store things in the communal refrigerator as long as you label with is yours. We were literally a two-minute walk from a Safeway grocery store. So at the beginning of the week, I picked up an assortment of food to munch on for the week. I bought things like fruit snacks, hummus, bananas and canned soup. It helped us live a bit more economically.
Additionally, each morning the hostel has free breakfast complete with tea and coffee. Also the Wednesday during my stay they hosted a community meal where each person paid $3. Super affordable, if you ask me.
location location location
4. Lots of resources
Hostels always seem to have a lot of information about things going on locally. When I’m sure hotels do as well, hostels give you more of the heartbeat of a city. For example, our hostel had flyers up about local festivals and open mic comedy nights. Additionally, there was information about public transit and city tours. Basically, hostels seem to gather up any information that may be helpful to travels and put it out. It makes figuring out plans for the day so much easier. Furthermore everyone on staff was friendly and helpful. They consider helping travelers experience Portland as best as they can to be a very important part of their job.
3. Affordability
I think we paid around $32 a night in Portland. Some hostels are a little as $10-$20 per night. Hostels will always be less expensive than a hotel room. The reason they can charge less is that they host more people for their space than a hotel. So in turn, you exchange a bit of privacy for price. But honestly when you’re out exploring a city all day, all you really need is a bed and a nice shower.
2. Cross-cultural interaction
You end up talking to so many people when staying at a hostel. It’s kind of hard not to start conversations when you all have to eat breakfast at the same dining room table or share the same kitchen. During my stay I met people from South Korea, France, the UK and Australia. You end up talking and swapping stories about your cultures. Meeting people from other cultures is my favorite way to learn about the world. And you can do that by simply staying at a hostel instead of a hotel.
1. Friendship
Hostels encourage social interaction like no one’s business. Our hostel for example had a community dinner night, a pub crawl and an open mic, in addition to breakfast every morning. It’s not at all uncommon to form friendships and go explore the city with people you met at your hostel. I ended up befriending a traveler or two during my stay in Portland. It was great. If you’re looking to do a solo trip, hostels are awesome because you can find people to do stuff with. You can find people to go explore that really neat part of town with or go to the pub with. It’s wonderful.
Have you stayed at a hostel before? What was your experience like? If not, have you considered it?
For those of you new to A World of Dresses, I spent about five days in Portland, Oregon, with one of my best friends last week. It was good to have a little vacation after a year of both good and bad. The year of 28 was definitely an interesting one for sure.
When traveling, you want to have some comfortable outfits. I call these my Portland outfits. My Portland outfits are a mixture of trendy yet cute. I’ve also included my friend Cece’s Portland outfits. I absolutely love personal style. Mine and Cece’s are both very unique in different ways. I packed a lot of dresses and she packed a lot of rompers. I wore sandals and she wore combat boots. All of our Portland outfits were uniquely us and comfortable.
Our Portland outfits
I packed light for this trip for several reasons. First, we were staying at the Portland Hawthorne Hostel. When staying in a hostel, you trade money for space. And honestly, who needs a lot of space when you’re out exploring a city each day? I did not want some big bag that I had to lug up two flights of stairs and store in a room I would share with five other people. A backpack was the perfect thing.
The second reason I took only a backpack is because of my mission to not give any more of my money to Spirit Airlines than necessary. Spirit Airlines is a low cost budget airline with amazingly cheap flight deals. We got both of our round trip tickets Chicago-Portland for something around $400. The catch is that they charge for everything. You pay to check a bag and you pay to carry a bag on. You even pay $10 if you need to print your boarding pass at the airport (what?!?). You pay for any food on board. We even joked that they’ll ask us to pay for our emotional baggage. You just never know.
There is a loophole, my friends. You are allowed one personal item free of charge. It has to be under the dimensions of 16 inches tall, 14 inches wide and 12 inches deep. I have this LLBean backpack from like high school that still functions well. It has all these compartments and fits those dimensions. It was perfect.
So I simply rolled up my Portland outfits and stuck them in. Everything fit quite nicely. When thinking about ideal Portland outfits, sundresses came to mind. So I picked three and packed them in.
The Old Navy Sundress
This is a new find from this past summer season that I was excited to wear. I love how simple it is and I love anything in the color green!
It was hard to pick which outfit of hers I’d post first. They were all unique and dynamic … just like she is! This one from the first day, though, just seemed fitting. It’s the perfect example of mixing several things together so well … a fun t-shirt, boots, a skirt and some purple lipstick to top it all off!
Outfit details
T-shirt: Go browse your local Thrift Shop
Boots: similar
Skirt (can also be worn as a dress): similar
Those were a few of our outfits. What do you like to wear while traveling?
Also have you seen our latest all about our 5 Portland favorites? Check it out here!
I’ll admit that it was very hard to pick just five. Last week, a good friend of mine and I spent some time exploring Portland, Oregon. It was my second time to Portland and her first. We did everything from eating doughnuts to laying out in the sun to visiting a nearby winery. So after much thought, these are my 5 favorite Portland spots from this trip. Portland seems to have something for everyone … museums, doughnuts, swimming, shopping, beer, Indian food and so much more. If you are looking to visit an American city that’s accessible, pretty and friendly, Portland is the place to go. Everyone … literally everyone is nice.
So without further ado, here are my 5 favorite Portland spots:
5. The ScreenDoor Restaurant
Cece and I were looking for a good brunch spot and were recommended the ScreenDoor Restaurant. We were staying at the Hawthorne Hostel over in the South East area of town, so it was not far for us at all. The ScreenDoor was an easy maybe 5-10 minute Uber ride. We were on vacation, so why not take Ubers everywhere?
The ScreenDoor describes itself as “the best southern cuisine in Portland.” I would have to concur. I ordered shrimp n’ grits. My best friend lives in Charleston, South Carolina, and I’ve had shrimp n’ grits many a times while visiting her. I was wondering how it would stack up to what I’ve eaten where shrimp n’ grits originated. I was very pleasantly surprised. It was perfect.
Cece ordered the freshly baked short cake with fruit and whipped cream to start. I had a little bit and it was amazing. You honestly could fill up on just that alone.
Oh she’s readyand SO good
I myself stole a few bites and I have to say that it was AMAZING. If you go to the ScreenDoor, you want to make sure you order this as at least an appetizer to share with your group.
Here are a few photos of my shrimp n’ grits. It had pieces of bacon in it and some vegetables too. It was absolutely perfect.
Coffee was very important to us. We kept drinking it and they kept refilling it. A brunch spot that understands my need for coffee is my kind of place.
For the main course, Cece ordered a sandwich that had some curly fries on it. I think it was the beef brisket, but I cannot remember exactly. We laughed that it was as big as her head.
If you are planning a Portland trip, make sure you stop at the ScreenDoor Restaurant.
4. Sidestreet Gallery
On our walk home from brunch that same day, we stumbled upon a fun and quirky shop called the Sidestreet Gallery. It was everything you think when you think of Portland being weird. Outside they were selling baby doll heads for 50 cents and sunglasses for $5. That was what initially caught our attention. As we made our way inside the shop, we found all sorts of little trinkets, model sets, Christmas decorations, other decorations, jewelry, masks, costume items and so much more. If Portland were just one shop it would be this shop.
I bought these rockin’ sunglasses for only $4!
My dress here is from Old Navy, necklace is Charming Charlie and shoes Target. I wore either these or my Chuck Taylors the entire time. I like comfort while still looking cute.
3. Voodoo Doughnut
So if you want touristy, Voodoo Doughnut is your place. There’s literally a line at all times of the day, I’ve heard. We went on I think a Tuesday at like 11 a.m.
The whole idea behind Voodoo Doughnut is that they make ridiculous doughnuts with all sorts of craziness on them. I got one with fruit loops on top, for example. If you have nut allergies, be warned right now. There are a lot of doughnuts with peanuts, peanut butter or other nuts. I myself have a peanut allergy and thus stuck to two doughnuts I knew I’d be absolutely safe with.
These were Cece’s doughnuts. Yummmm.
And MINE!
The wait was … fun?
Life is interesting and fun for sure. While at one of our 5 favorite Portland spots, we ran into the ALS people. Do you all remember the ice bucket challenge a few years back? Everyone was making those videos and posting them to social media where they would get dunked with a bucket full of ice/water. Well that was to raise awareness for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, a disease that affects about 5,600 people in the United States and I’m sure many others world-wide. There was a group of people traveling the country to raise awareness. For their Portland stop, they felt that Voodoo Doughnut was fitting. They also felt that dunking the dunkee in icing and sprinkles was even more fitting, so they did just that.
If you have interest in contributing to their campaign, you can go here.
2. Swimming/laying out by the bridge
This place just had to be in my list of my 5 favorite Portland spots. Just off of the Hawthorne Bridge, which connected the neighborhood we stayed in to downtown, is a little spot that people go to lay out in the sun and swim. I love that people just swim in the river in Portland. In my hometown of Cincinnati, many people would scoff at swimming in our river.
The flight we took home left at like 11 p.m. at night. So we for sure had a few hours to kill on our last day. This just seemed like the perfect way to spend our early afternoon.
Okay, so this technically is not Portland at all. It was a good 30 minutes- 1 hour drive from the city. But it was so amazing that I just had to include it with my 5 favorite Portland spots.
Last year around this time, I spent about a month in Nicaragua doing volunteer work. I befriended Jana who was a Peace Corps volunteer there at the time. When you are overseas, you just have this way of finding people from your culture. It can be comforting and also inhibiting if you really want to immerse yourself in the culture. That, however, is a rant for another time.
Since then, Jana has returned from the Peace Corps and is living back in her hometown of Portland. I just had to see her while I was in town. It turns out that her parents are members of Brooks Winery. They were having a members night our first evening in town and brought us along. It was such a nice treat.
The story of this place is fascinating as well. It all started with the founder Jimi Brooks. He spent some time overseas in Europe traveling. Thus when he ran out of money, he found himself with work at a winery in France. After spending time in Europe learning all about wine and how it was made, he returned to Oregon to start his own winery and farm. He sadly passed at the young age of 38. However Brooks remains in the care of his family and they keep his legacy going by producing quality wine and carrying out biodynamic farming practices. You can read the full story here.
We for sure had a great time trying out the different types of wines and appetizers.
Thanks for reading all about my journey. Have you been to Porland? What were some of your favorite spots?
