Getting around Portlandia

We have been staying in the city of Portland, more specifically The Pearl District since the beginning of July.  The first week was fairly consumed with the aforementioned Blues Festival.  We had some general plans that we would get out to the wine region, play a little pickleball, check out a few of our favorite food places and see what else came up for us to do.

Luckily, July and August are the time of year in the PNW when outdoor activities are most pleasurable.  No rain and sunny, moderate temperature days that we do not get in Florida. 

First things first, while we can walk to many places from our rented flat, and the public transportation services around Portland are plentiful (bus, light rail, streetcar), they are not the most efficient way to get from point A to point B and also only get you to close in suburbs.  But all we had was our feet, so we were glad to be able to buy 7 day unlimited bus passes.

Mike also searched around for rental cars for our long weekend plans away from the city.  OUCH, very expensive!  What gives Portland?  Mike began searching for other alternatives than the bus, Uber or a rental car.

When we lived in Seattle, Zip Car was just starting their "shared" car concept in Seattle.  If you live in the city and need occasional use of an automobile, you can pay a monthly membership fee and use their cars on an hourly basis.  Great idea, except we don't need a long term commitment.

We found 4 other potential car sharing options available in Portland for our use.  Car2Go, Reach Now, Getaround and Turo.  The services are not available in all cities.  The first two will show you, via their app, all available cars near you.  You also use the app to unlock the car, release the key and relock at the end of your use.  The last two, also via the app show you local a person who rents their personal car for hourly or overnight use.   You can select your vehicle and price range for the dates you need. 

S CarG

We had the most luck with Car2Go and Reach Now.  The apps were intuitive and their use instructions were easy to follow.  Just drive it to your location within their service area, park it and it then becomes available for someone else to use.  The one negative is that the service boundaries are limited, but as long as you stay within their service area, it is a good alternative. 

We ended up just using an Enterprise rental car for our other adventures outside the city and used the bus and streetcar at multiple times on most days.  You all may be way ahead of me on this topic and Uber/Lyft may be your first choice since you leave the driving to someone else, but I thought I would share these options in case they come in handy on your next trip.