By Living Room Realty, October 7, 2024
Having just turned 50 and moved to Portland in 1999, I’ve officially lived here for half of my life. I’m not going to argue my native status, but I can say with certainty that my teenage boys are. I am telling them constantly how luck they are to be growing up here. I grew up in Maryland equidistant to Baltimore and D.C. in a town called Frederick; they called it Fred-Neck. It was pretty country and rural at the time; as I understand it now, it is a bustling suburb of the larger cities mentioned above.
On the east coast, yes, there are recreational things to do, but it is a matter of scale. For instance, there are ski areas, but they are a joke when compared to anything in the west even the humble resorts that we have on Mt. Hood.
Lately I’ve been working with a lot of buyers who are moving here from out of state. As a part of our initial conversations, I’ll ask if they have any recreational interests and would they like to be closer to accessing those. That will usually prompt the question: “what kind of options are out there?”. Where do I start!!
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and I think that Oregon, specifically Portland, is uniquely positioned to have more world class activities within a close radius than just about any other place in the country. Sure, Utah has better skiing and trout fishing, but can you windsurf?
Speaking specifically for myself and my interests…in a two-day period, I could conceivably surf at Pacific City in the morning, stop at home for lunch in Portland then kiteboard Hood River in the afternoon, camp outside town then snowboard fresh powder in the morning at Timberline Ski Area then fish for steelhead on the Deschutes River in the afternoon. Where else in the country, or the world for that matter, could you do that?!? On top of that, our airport (PDX), is one of the most user-friendly ones that I’ve ever visited. Direct flights to Hawaii, Mexico and the East Coast. Europe and just about every other international destination can be reached through Seattle. That Portland/Seattle flight runs day and night on the hour!
Where else could you possibly want to live after reading all of that!
