15 Best Things To Do in Portland, Oregon, With Kids [Museums, Nature, Entertainment, and Food]

Portland, Oregon, is one of those perpetually up-and-coming cities that always seems to be getting cooler without ever outstaying its welcome. So when I had the chance to go there for the first time recently, I of course leapt at it, knowing I was sure to have a good time.

But what, I asked myself, if I turned the difficulty level up to expert and made it a personal challenge to explore a new city while keeping a notoriously energetic and easily bored first-grader happy and entertained for a whole week? Bonus points: In the middle of winter.

That’s exactly the situation I purposefully put myself in this past February. Here’s how that went, and here’s what you can do with your kids on your next visit to Portland.

1. Eat Doughnuts

I’ve written and covered food in various forms for nigh on 2 decades, and yet somehow, I never gleaned just how into doughnuts Portlanders are.

The king of the doughnut shops is clearly the original Voodoo Doughnut, in Old Town-Chinatown. It’s known for a dizzyingly wide variety of off-the-wall flavors, like maple-bacon (with a strip of bacon on top), and risqué and humorous doughnuts.

Hot Tip:

Flying into Portland International Airport (PDX)? Check out our comprehensive guide so you won’t be scared when you run into the Sasquatch statue.

Note that there’s a guard at the door who only lets in 1 group at a time — the store’s response to a 2020 incident in which a man with a hatchet threatened the workers, jumped over the counter, filled a box up with doughnuts, and fled (he was caught eating a doughnut a block away).

2. Stroll Around Downtown Portland

Downtown Portland is a densely packed neighborhood of businesses, plazas, public art, restaurants, food pods, bars, and people going about their daily lives.

It’s a good place to spend part of a day wearing kids out with local sights, towering architecture, and easy examples for kids to latch onto to make comparisons with their own hometowns or other places they’ve visited. You’ll come across interesting artwork, like Portland’s best-known sculpture, Allow Me, better known as Umbrella Man, in Pioneer Courthouse Square — though you should note that Portlanders famously eschew umbrellas.

3. Spend the Day at OMSI

As soon as you mention going to Portland with kids, everyone immediately suggests taking them to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, usually just called OMSI.

It has a submarine, movie theater, cafe and restaurant, a planetarium, and exhibits about fossils, the environment, and so on, as you’d expect, but the real star for parents of young kids is Turbine Hall, a yawningly big space with tons of interactive exhibits for kids to obsess over, from an earthquake simulator to a pneumatic-tube wall to a crane-freighter setup. It’s a lot of fun, and kids can easily spend an entire, happy afternoon here.

4. Go to the Rose Garden (In Season)

Though the roses are only in bloom from May to October, the 4.5-acre International Rose Test Garden is home to over 600 varieties of roses — more than 10,000 specimens of them. As the name suggests, it’s a testing ground for new cultivars, which are evaluated for several characteristics, sometimes before they’re available commercially.

It has served this purpose since World War I, when it was created as a place to grow and preserve hybrid roses endangered by the fighting in Europe, and it’s the reason Portland is sometimes called the City of Roses. It’s a great place for kids to run around while enjoying the natural beauty of both the flowers and, on clear days, Mount Hood.

5. Take a Day Trip to Mount Hood

About an hour and 45 minutes east of Portland by car and looming over all Portlanders to make their city one of the most picturesque in the country, Mount Hood is an inescapable part of the city’s physical and mental landscape. Mount Hood is an active but dormant volcano (it’s believed to have last erupted shortly before explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark came upon it in 1805).

Now, it’s home to ski slopes and facilities, a 41-mile hiking trail that circles the mountain and another that rises to 8,500 of its 11,249 feet, and several climbing routes to the summit. It’s also the centerpiece of the 1 million-acre Mount Hood National Forest.

Mount Hood is also where you’ll find Timberline Lodge, an alpine lodge and National Historic Landmark that was dedicated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937 and served as the exterior for the fictional Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film version of Stephen King’s “The Shining.” (In the gift shop, you can buy ties, handkerchiefs, and socks with the memorable carpet pattern from outside Room 237.)

There’s plenty for kids to do here, snow or not, including skiing and snowboarding on the mountain or sledding lower down on the mountain, checking out the hotel’s snowcats and massive central fireplace, hiking the trails, or going to one of Timberline’s restaurants for lunch and hot cider.

6. Pore Over Pages at Powell’s Books

Possibly the greatest and probably the largest remaining independent bookstore in America, Powell’s Books has over 1 million volumes for sale, including rare books. Its sprawling complex includes a large cafe and several specialized departments. It’s a bibliophile’s dream vacation day, and that includes the kids, who have their own big section on the ground floor.

Powell’s also buys used books in exchange for store credit, so you could theoretically finish the books you packed for your trip, go to Powell’s and sell them, then use that store credit to buy new books for the rest of your trip and the journey back.

For a smaller and more kid-focused bookstore experience, check out Musical Monsters and Budding Bookworms in the Woodstock neighborhood, which is purely a children’s bookstore and offers parent-child music classes.

7. Visit the Japanese Garden

The Portland Japanese Garden spans 12 acres and is made up of 8 separate gardens, each demonstrating traditional Japanese gardening techniques. It’s a beautiful, tranquil place that includes koi ponds and a grand pavilion house with traditional Japanese sliding doors and views of downtown Portland and Mount Hood. Japanese gardening experts have lauded it as the finest Japanese garden in North America.

Tickets are $21.95 for most adults and free for kids, and you must reserve a time ahead of your visit.

8. Seek Out Street Art

Portland is known nationally for its quirky and artistic culture, and you can find evidence of that everywhere you go, whether in the form of graffiti, performing musicians, public art pieces that seem to pop up everywhere, or episodes of “Portlandia.”

Just walking around the city, you’re bound to come across artwork that engages your children, piques their curiosity, or that you will shoo them away from, drawing their attention instead to — Wow! Look at the cool-looking pigeon eating that doughnut! — because some art brings up questions from children that you’re just not ready to tackle yet.

9. Visit Herman the Sturgeon at Bonneville Fish Hatchery

Herman the Sturgeon is an 11-foot, 500-pound, 90-year-old white sturgeon that has survived several kidnapping attempts and a possible attempted murder, nearly half a century of being driven to and shown off at the Oregon State Fair, and the final move to its forever home at a state fish hatchery about 50 minutes east of Portland.

You can catch a glimpse of Herman and other giant sturgeon in their murky pool through Plexiglas in a below-ground viewing area. You can also walk around the salmon nurseries, feed rainbow trout in the pools, wander around the grounds, or grab a coffee in the gift shop and cafe.

10. Tour the Portland Art Museum and Oregon Historical Museum

Right across from each other and separated by a tree-lined strip of park blocks downtown, the Portland Art Museum and Oregon Historical Society are solid cultural centers to while away a rainy afternoon.

The Portland Art Museum has over 22,000 pieces from the last 3 centuries, including works by Edgar Degas, N.C. Wyeth, René Magritte, Claude Monet, Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso, and Auguste Rodin. Admission is $25 for adults and free for kids.

The Oregon Historical Society is a research institute and library but also includes a historical museum that traces the history of the state from prehistory to the 21st century. It features important historical artifacts, such as items from the Lewis and Clark expedition and the Portland Penny, the 1835 copper penny that Portland’s founders flipped to decide the name of what was then just known as the Clearing. Heads prevailed, and thus, Portland, Maine, beat out Boston as the city’s namesake.

General admission to the Oregon Historical Society Museum is $14, but kids get in free.

11. Hike in Forest Park

Portland is home to one of the biggest city forest reserves in the country, Forest Park, a 5,200-acre wood that runs along the western hills overlooking the Willamette River.

It has over 80 miles of foot trails, 25 miles of trails accessible to bikes, 25 miles of trails accessible to horses, hundreds of species of animals and birds, and is part of the so-called 40-Mile Loop, the greenway trail that necklaces most of the city. You’re allowed to bring your dog, but it must remain leashed.

12. Shop for Trinkets at Portland Leather Goods

Yeah, I know, kids don’t typically get excited about shopping for leather goods, but the Portland Leather Goods outlet has reasonably priced leather doodads that actually appeal to children, like dragonfly-, candy-, dachshund-, and piñata-shaped tassels; fortune-cookie coin purses; charm clips; and pencil cases. Plus, there’s a kiddie unicorn ride.

13. Hike to Multnomah Falls

Multnomah Falls, in the Columbia River Gorge and about 45 minutes east of Portland, is an easily accessible and attractive waterfall. It has well-maintained trails (though they can become slippery when it’s icy) and a 2.4-mile hike to the top, about 600 feet up.

At the base is a visitors center and the Multnomah Falls Lodge restaurant, which offers hearty fare in a classic Pacific Northwest stone lodge. You can also indulge in an Oregonian classic flavor of ice cream here, marionberry, a type of blackberry developed at Oregon State University and adored by Oregonians even more than doughnuts.

14. Take in a Broadway Show

Though Portland’s theater district consists of just about a single block, they are actually on Portland’s Broadway, which has historically been the city’s entertainment center. It’s easy enough to book tickets for Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall or Antoinette Hatfield Hall. Keller Auditorium is a few blocks away on Third Avenue.

Of course, children may be less interested in “Hamilton” and more into “Pete the Cat” and similarly kid-themed shows at the Northwest Children’s Theater and School. It’s right on Broadway and also holds classes for kids from 4 to 14 in everything from movement and music to acting and musical performances.

15. Eat Lots of Other Good Stuff

Portland’s got a thriving restaurant scene, so there’s plenty more to eat than doughnuts. There are excellent places like Gabbiano’s for upscale but kid-friendly classics like spaghetti and meatballs, Dick’s Primal Kitchen for messy, greasy burgers, and Otto’s Sausage Kitchen, a butcher shop and local institution where people line up out the door for the sandwiches and sausages and there’s a grill going outside every day, rain or shine.

Food pods, what Portlanders call public spaces shared by food carts and trucks, are big in Portland, too. The Heist, on Woodstock, has a series of food carts but also indoor seating for diners. The building is a converted bank, and the vault still has its wall of safety deposit boxes, which children can rifle through to find fake gold bars and other surprises.

Final Thoughts

Traveling with kids is hard, but a city like Portland, full of creative ambition, outdoor activities, quirky stories, and wonderful food, sure makes it a lot easier to be a traveling parent. Be sure to bring a raincoat (not an umbrella), waterproof hiking boots, an open mind, and whatever medication your doctor prescribes for maintaining your glucose levels, and you should have a good time.