The Best Summer Activities in Portland

The summer sun and heat have arrived. What do we want to do before the season ends? We asked you for your ideas for a Portland summer bucket list — and we’re sharing some of our own:

⚾😆 Fun at Festivals and Outdoor Events ⚽🎵

• “Going to Pickles games.” — M.B.
• “I go to Pickathon every year. I volunteer there. So that's always on my bucket list: Listening to live music in the woods.” — Renata
• “Go to a Thorns game, support Sophia Smith after she recently was engaged (we saw the engagement; we were trying to be undercover, but we were congratulating her from afar).” — Jeff
• “Waterfront Blues Fest, I haven't been to it for a while.” — Allison

🏕️ 🌲 Get Outside and Into Nature

• “Go camping!” — Allison O
• “Catch multiple sunrises at spots like Skidmore Bluffs, Mount Tabor, Wintler Park, and more!” — Erin M
• “I'd like to take a hike through Forest Park. I haven't been there for a little while and I'd like to go back and enjoy the summer there.” — Meg
• “Explore Mount Hood during the summer. Specifically to take a scenic sky chair ride, ride the alpine slide, or ride the railbikes along Hood River!” — City Cast Portland host Claudia Meza
• “Drive the entire Rogue-Umpqua Scenic Byway (a.k.a. ‘highway of waterfalls’).” — City Cast Portland producer Giulia Fiaoni

💧 🛶 Play in and Around Water

• “Kayaking at Willamette Falls!” — Marjorie R
• “Find the best swimming holes.” — Izzy E
• “Social Security beach at Sauvie.” —SH
• “Swim a lot.” — Soren
• “I have to get in the water and fully submerge myself, especially if it's a plus-95 degree day.”
• “At least one day trip to Seaside… it is reminiscent of the East Coast beaches I grew up going to with the closest thing Oregon has to a boardwalk, carnival games, soft serve, and those ridiculous four-person bike vehicles.” — Julie S

🚲 Get in a Bike Ride — or Many

• “To go to all of the [Sunday] Parkways.” — Jane Black
• “Blow the dust off of my bicycle and start riding again.” — Mark M
• “Bike the full length of Leif Erikson Drive in Forest Park.” — City Cast Portland executive producer John Notarianni
• “I celebrate the beginning of the summer by going on a bike ride to the river. And I call it the beach. … I ride Marine Drive, and just spend a day on the beach, on the river, swimming around.”

🫐🍨 Eat Delicious Food

• “Berry picking!” — Adrienne S
• “Enjoy an old-fashioned soft-serve ice cream cone, made with amazing Hood River Valley fruit, at The Old Trunk in Hood River.” — City Cast director of digital strategy Bryan M. Vance
• “Find something to sit on top of — and eat a burrito — that you're not supposed to be sitting on top of. [One time there was a transmission shop that had a box truck that was really easy to sneak on top of, and at some point somebody snuck a couch up there, and 10 out of 10 — great place to eat a burrito.” — Gram
• “Visit the PSU Farmers Market many, many times. And eat Oregon berries by the flat.” — Hey Portland editor Rachel Monahan

📚 And More:

• “Summer reading.” — Christine V
• “Relax and reduce my anxiety.”
• “I am nine months pregnant, so I want to have this baby ASAP!” — Jenna