Top Portland Pop Culture

Want to see a bit of Portland, Oregon, and get some exercise while you're at it? Try a walking tour in the center of the city. Uncover Portland's weird and wonderful tales on every corner as you explore its buildings, parks, and streets. Your guide highlights the cultural evolution of the city and offers insights into its past, present, and future.

Discover the history and legends behind Portland’s Shanghai Tunnels on a small-group walking tour. Follow your guide beneath a restaurant to the tunnels, which once connected local businesses and hotels to the Willamette River. Learn about subterranean historic events and perhaps catch a glimpse of Nina, the resident ghost. Afterwards, resurface and enjoy three tastings and a full pint of locally produced beer.

Escape the hustle and bustle of the city for the day on this guided tour to Multnomah Falls and the Columbia River Gorge Waterfalls. Travel along the historic Columbia River Highway National Scenic Byway and stop at the magnificent falls of Multnomah, Latourell, and Bridal Veil.

Combine a fun night out with ghostly tales of the city during this Portland Haunted History Pub Crawl Experience. This pub crawl takes you to multiple pubs, including Kells Irish Restaurant and Pub and Shanghai Tunnel Bar as you pass by city highlights such as the Benson Hotel. Hear spooky stories of ghosts and paranormal activity from your guide during the evening.

Portland has long been known for its donuts, and with this tour, you'll get to visit some of the city's best donut shops. Your tour guide will take you not only to the most famous of them all, Voodoo Donuts, but also to lesser-known, but no less delicious spots that locals love.

Explore Portland’s dark side on this thrilling outdoor walking ghost tour through the city’s most haunted historic sites. Led by expert local guides, you’ll uncover chilling tales of restless spirits, eerie legends, and true crime events that still haunt the streets today. Visit infamous locations like the Shanghai Tunnels, Old Town Pizza, and the Roseland Theater while hearing spine-tingling stories of Portland’s shadowy past. This tour is fully outdoors and runs nightly year-round—perfect for history buffs, ghost hunters, and anyone who loves a good scare. Walk the haunted streets of Portland—if you dare.

In 1903 the Alberta streetcar line spurred the growth of this then-suburban neighborhood. Over the next decade, as the population of Portland doubled, Alberta thrived and its business district would mirror those streetcar districts throughout the city. In the 1940s, as the automobile took over, redlining created a thriving multicultural neighborhood that would become known for art, jazz, great food, and a tight community. We'll explore this now hip neighborhood, its ice cream, coffee, art, history, and find out what makes it so special. One hour, 1.25 miles (2 km).

Whether it's the stories of human trafficking described as the Shanghai Tunnels, the origin of the vampire tales in Twilight, or the crafty madam with the floating brothel, from fiery deaths to watery graves, we explore it all. The city of Portland Oregon was built on an ancient crossroads; known as a place to step into alternate worlds. What visit to the city would be complete without lifting the veil, for at least a minute, between the living and the spirit worlds? Weaving in historical tales with what fiction authors and filmmakers (including Twilight author Stephenie Meyer) with local ties have written about this place, we tell the stories of darkness, death and the liminal space that comes beyond. Our 1.5 mile (2.5 km) walking tour along the waterfront will include luminous views of the city lights along the river, encounters with our local corporeal spirits (the crows!), and plenty of recommendations to extend your gothic experience to restaurants, cafes and bars nearby.

Escape the city for an afternoon exploring some of greater Portland's most scenic falls. Travel along the Columbia River Gorge, home to the largest concentration of waterfalls in the country, stopping at the epic Latourell Falls and Multnomah Falls. Enjoy panoramic views from the Crown Point Vista House and hear about the local legends and natural history of the area from your guide.

Explore the eerie side of Old Town with this haunted pub tour in Portland. Learn about some of the city's scary history as you walk through 19th-century buildings. Sample local beers as you hear about Portland's era of kidnapping, gangs, prostitution and opium dens.

See the best of Portland's street art as you cruise around the city on a bicycle with this group tour, limited to 16 participants. After getting you fitted with a bike and a helmet, your guide will take you through the city's inner eastside, where you'll see gargantuan murals, check out interesting shops, learn about street art, and get the chance to take lots of photos.

Get out of the big city and explore the stunning beaches and beautiful towns along Oregon’s northern coast on this full-day, small-group tour from Portland. Visit the charming towns of Manzanita and Cannon Beach—home of the famous Haystack Rock—browse antique shops and art galleries, and stop at several beaches to maximize your time at the Oregon Coast.

Immerse yourself in the beauty of Columbia River Gorge on this full-day trip from Portland to Mount Hood! With your small group, take a guided tour of such iconic Oregon destinations as Multnomah Falls and the famous Timberline Lodge, and enjoy lunch in the charming city of Hood River. Your tour also includes pickup from over 60 hotels in Portland and a private or small-group option.

Visit the top attractions in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area and Mt. Hood National Forest on this day trip from Portland. After spending the morning chasing waterfalls and marveling at 500-pound fish at Bonneville Fish Hatchery, enjoy free time for lunch in historic downtown Hood River. After lunch, we will visit a vineyard in the region for a wine tasting and drive more than halfway up the side of Mt. Hood to explore Timberline Lodge

Discover Portland's storied past on a walking tour that explores its scandals, legends, and quirks. The perfect tour for those who like history with a wink, a shiver, and a dash of unexpected! This walking tour begins in Old Town, where we pull up the cobblestones to reveal the ghosts of rough-and-tumble early Portland. Once a lawless frontier outpost, the city was rife with scandal, from the infamous Shanghai Tunnels and floating bordellos to political intrigue and legends that grew as tall as the trees. Along the way, you’ll learn why Portland earned the nickname “Little Beirut,” how an Oregon governor once funded a rock festival, and how the city’s Naked Bike Ride became an unexpected symbol of protest and peace. We'll enjoy a stop for an iconic Voodoo Doughnut, a sweet taste of Portland’s weird side. Peak Tours is licensed and insured, local and family-owned, reliable and knowledgeable. We'd love to show you around!

From fiery deaths to watery graves: In this 1.5 mile cemetery walking tour, we weave what we know of the peoples who lived here for millennia with verifiable stories of recent centuries. We can only guess, based on our psychics’ readings and eerie coincidences we have observed, where people here before us feared to walk and canoe at night. As a wise person wrote, every story ends as a ghost story. Our ghosts are legion. We now call it Oregon; “ourigan” was ancestral home to hundreds of thousands. They have left a darkness here, expressed with stories from the earliest days of our written history to modern times. Starting with early disasters, we will tell ghost stories we have collected, from fiery deaths to those in the waters of nearby river; from self-inflicted to deaths brought by the state or a rich man’s guilt. Our route takes us through the inner eastside, where more of Portland’s disasters have happened than any other part of the city & where many early settlers are buried.

The Oregon Coast is an experience like no other and our guides have selected a quieter, slower approach to the day: a visit to Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach; hikes through old-growth forests to views beyond what the common tourist sees; up-close encounters with the iconic monoliths that make the Oregon Coast so unusual; a lunch stop in a sweet beach town; recommendations for our favorite cinnamon rolls, pie or ice cream; sand (if you want it) between your toes. Day tours can feel long but ours feels more like a just-right exploration with plenty of time to sit however you like with the majesty of the ocean -- or spend most of your time wandering in the forest as you listen to waves crash beneath you. If you choose to walk with us in the forest, your day will include some short but steep low-elevation incline hiking.