Thanks to many suggestions from PDXPUG‘s mailling list and Gabrielle Roth‘s patience with Google Maps, we have a great map of the area around the conference. She was kind enough to put the nearest parking garage ($9/day) on the map as well. If you’re looking for some parking that’s a bit more affordable but a further walk away, try Smart Park. You could also park on the East side of the river, and walk across one of our beautiful bridges or hop on a bus or the Max (you’ll need to transfer to a Bus or the Street Car from the Max to get to PSU campus). To figure out where and when to ride public transit, you can call for live help at 503-238-RIDE, or use the Trip Planner.
Portland has great food. If you’re going to be in town for a couple of days, there are great restaurants walking distance from the downtown hotels (Higgins, Typhoon!, Saucebox, many others), on the waterfront (Three Degrees, McCormick and Schmick’s), and over on NW 23rd/21st (Paley’s Place, Lucy’s Table, Serratto, Muu Muu’s). You can get directly to NW on the Streetcar, which has a stop one block from the conference. And of course there are many food carts throughout the city. If you want even more suggestions, check out the Willamette Week’s top 100 restaurants in Portland.
Those of you who have come to Portland for OSCON the last couple of years probably know about a few of the great places on the East side of the river. We’ll be on the west side, and there’s a ton of great places to explore.