Come visit me!

[loveliberate]

Hello All!

I love to travel but don't get to do so nearly as often as I'd like to. What I've found to be almost as nice as traveling myself is to play host and/or tour-guide to cool travelers coming to my area. For me, meeting cool local folks and having them show me what they love about their area is always a highlight of my journeys!

I live in Portland, Oregon, USA, a city in the region I like to call Cascadia (basically the US Northwest and Canadian South West) which has many wonderful, extremely vegan-friendly cities and towns. Cascadia also has amazingly beautiful natural areas including ancient forests, snow-capped mountains, raging rivers, islands in many sizes and of course the Pacific Ocean. You can generally travel quite inexpensively in Cascadia and our public transportation systems are convenient and extensive.
I have traveled throughout much of the region and am fairly familiar with all of the larger cities, many smaller cities and towns and a good number of the natural areas.

As for me, I have a wide variety of interests mostly centered around travel, being outdoors and eating tasty, healthy (and of course vegan) food. I've met several folks from VF in person already and hope to meet many more of you as time goes on! And while I can rarely travel extensively, I can quite often get an afternoon, day or weekend free to hang out and show you around Portland and other parts of Cascadia! In many cases, I can offer you my home (at no charge, of course) as a place to stay while you are in Portland. Worst case scenario - even if we can't meet up I am happy to answer questions and offer suggestions!

So... Come visit me!

Also, keep an eye out for related posts from me which will be titled something to the effect of: "Can I come visit you?" and "Want to travel with me?" Any guesses what those posts will be about?

[fredrikw]

loveliberate is an excellent host, we had a great time when I was in Portland a couple of years ago.

[loveliberate]

And hosting Fredrik was a wonderful experience that I'd love to repeat!

Fredrik was one of 3 vegan Swede's (at least one of the others is also an active VF member) that I had the pleasure of meeting and sharing time with when they visited Portland. My time with them (and the movie Tillsammans ) greatly enhanced my desire to visit Sverige and the other Nordic countries. Well... that and the vegan chokladbolls Fredrik brought us!

On a related note, I am on a social networking ( ok, ok - it is an online "dating" site ) website where you answer a bunch of questions and then get shown the profiles of other people based on how similarly they answered the same questions. Recently they sent me a list of the top 5 countries where folks responses most closely matched my own and guess what? Both Sweden (#3) and Finland (#1!) were rated as being the top countries for folks like me!

[hakko]

This is such a good thread/initiative! I enjoy hosting people as well (too much work, too less spare time). Always interesting to see who rings the bell. :) All my acquaintances so far have been warm and friendly people except one whom I had to escape and go watch a movie instead. (she was nice but a bit OTT)

[loveliberate]

Thanks Hakko! Look, even the first folks to reply to this are Swedish - it is a sign I tell you!

[barnz2k]

I heard Portland is great for vegans..that alone puts it on my list haha.

Im almost the opposite - always traveling so cant host haha

Will pipe up if I make it down there at some point

Im in Toronto right now and may or may not be sticking around..

[loveliberate]

ilovecake,
Please do let me know when you are passing through! And yes, I am certainly up for hosting and/or playing tour guide to non-VF vegans. Where will they be coming from? What are their interests?


barnz2k,
Portland is definitely pretty darn good for us vegan folks! Let me know when you do make it out here. What keeps you traveling so often?

[xrodolfox]

I'd love to visit! Just sayin'.

[Flaming Monkey]

Hey cool! I live just outside Salem. Maybe I'll drive up sometime and pay a visit!

[loveliberate]

Rodolfo,
And I would love to host you and your family! If you do think you'll be making it out this way sometime please let me know in advance - I'll do my best to get some time off of work and see about getting some local folks together to hang out too. Plus there are some great day and/or overnight trips nearby both in terms of nature and city stuff.

Flaming Monkey,
Please do! So that it is said, I'm very much up for hanging out with local folks as well as travelers! Where outside of Salem do you live? There is so, so much of Oregon that I still haven't explored and/or haven't been to if far too long... One such place is Silver Falls state park and I'd love to have company whenever I do make it there! Any suggestions of things to do, places to eat, etc down your way?

ilovecake,
Yay for Alberta! Sadly, I still have never made it up there but have heard of some really cool projects and people - not to mention all the great nature! Too bad your friends won't be coming a little sooner - our VegFest http://www.nwveg.org/vegfest.php is happening in just a couple weeks... Please send me a PM with their info and/or to grab mine. I'd love to show off my favorite spots and keep 'em busy. Do they have a place to stay already? To get them excited, please share the following:

We have a good number of tattoo shops, including one that is vegan: http://www.scapegoattattoo.com If they wanted to get work done there they'd likely need to book now!

As for food, there is simply no way that they'll have time to try all that Portland offers up to vegans! Here are a few sites that cover many of the options we have:
- http://www.nwveg.org/restaurants.php
- http://stumptownvegans.com/index/
- http://www.foodfightgrocery.com (part of the vegan "mini-mall" along with Scapegoat Tattoo, Sweetpea Bakery, Herbivore clothes + the Red & Black Cafe around the corner)
- http://www.sweetpeabaking.com
- http://voodoodoughnut.com/menu.php (Voodoo has many vegan varieties)
- http://www.myspace.com/redandblackcafe

And on a special note, Portland has dozens of food carts spread out throughout the city. The carts represent a wide variety of cuisines from around the world and most allow you to stuff yourself silly with great food for as little as $4-$6 dollars! Most of the carts have at least some vegan options, many have more than half of their menu vegan or veganizable and then we have several that are completely vegan!
- http://foodcartsportland.com/tag/vegan-options/

As for comics, we got lots of places for them to check out! Here's a couple of places for them to get more info:
- http://pdxguide.org/browse/all/books-zines-comix/ - this site is a great general guide to Portland
- http://www.aboutus.org/list/portland-comics
Our public library system is considered to be one of the best in the country and has graphic novel/comics and zine sections at each branch library!

I look forward to meeting your friends!

ps. No buttering me up please as butter taint vegan!

Pps: Too bad their baby won't be coming... My kids and I love meeting other vegan families!

[Flaming Monkey]

Portland also has Powells - the biggest bookstore in the world. It's something like an city block and five or six stories high at the main store and they also have specialized stores three or four smaller stores also in the city (I think there's two at PDX? not sure...). It's a great place to get lost on a rainy day.

@loveliberate, I'm actually in Stayton, just south of Salem and right next door to Silver Falls (a buddy of mine loves to cycle there and back). The actually Silver Fall itself is pretty neat the first time you see it and there's lots of smaller falls that are cool. Also, plenty of trails for biking or running.

[loveliberate]

FM,
Will you be up here for VegFest this Saturday? Powells is definitely worth having a look through! Hopefully I'll get out to Silver Falls real soon...

[Flaming Monkey]

I was hoping to make it up for VegFest, but don't think I can this year. My dad and brother want to go target shooting and I've got a marathon in December that I really should get started training for.

[loveliberate]

FM,
Too bad you were not able to make it up, it was a great time! This years VegFest was the biggest and best Portland has seen yet. I enjoyed trying all the free samples, seeing so many folks I know in one place and meeting cool new folks too. Now if I'd rounded out the day with some target practice that would have been particularly nice!

[offense74]

I just have to second the others saying that loveliberate is an awesome host! Thanks for having me, man!