Finding the cheapest hotels in Oregon online has never been
this easy. View Oregon hotel room features, availability,
and pictures, or reserve a hotel room online. We can help you
find cheap Oregon hotels and rates online, the rest is up
to you!
For nineteenth-century pioneers, driving in covered wagons
over the mountains and deserts of the arduous Oregon Trail,
the Willamette Valley was the promised land. Rich and fertile,
it became the home of Oregon's first settlements, and the valley
is still the heart of the state's social, political and cultural
existence. Portland , the biggest city, has a cozy European
feel; Salem , the state capital, maintains a small-town air;
and Eugene , at the southern foot of the valley, is a likeable
college community.
East of Portland, waterfalls cascade down mossy cliffs along
the Columbia River Gorge , south of which the twisting path
of an old pioneer road leads through more beautiful scenery
around Mount Hood . Central Oregon, and its increasingly popular
recreation hub, Bend , is located on a high chaparral desert
with sage and juniper trees, with close access to the southern
Cascades, as well as numerous lakes and rivers dropping into
striking canyons. Further south, around Grants Pass the major
rivers drain to the Pacific, carving steep gorges and making
for some excellent whitewater rafting, while the liberal hamlet
of Ashland offers a splash of culture with its annual Shakespeare
Festival.
Several highways link the Willamette Valley to the rugged coast,
whose most northerly town, Astoria , enjoys a magnificent setting
strewn with imposing Victorian homes. South along the coast,
wide and protected expanses of sand are broken by jagged black
monoliths; white lighthouses look out from stark headlands;
and rough cliffs conceal small, sheltered coves. With its sand
dunes, dense forests, and sheer variety, the coast is every
bit as appealing as its Californian counterpart, albeit not
as warm.
The rugged deserts and lava fields of Eastern Oregon are more
remote and were only settled on any scale once the prime land
in the west had already been taken. The settling process involved
not only ferocious "Indian campaigns" but also the
bitterly violent range wars between sheep-farmers and terrorist
"sheep-shooters" (associations of cattle ranchers).
Sheep and cows now graze in peace, and some small towns still
celebrate their cowboy roots with annual rodeos.
Portland is well connected by train and bus along the I-5 freeway
to Seattle in the north and California to the south. Amtrak
(tel 1-800-USA-RAIL, ) runs its Coast Starlight train once daily
north to Seattle or south to LA, while its Cascades line runs
four times daily between Eugene and Vancouver, BC. Bus routes
radiate from Portland out to Spokane in Washington, across southern
and central Oregon and to the coast. There's also a twice-daily
service from Portland to San Francisco along US-101, and another
following the line of I-84 east from Portland as far as Pendleton,
and then south towards Boise in Idaho.
Local bus companies serve communities north of Lincoln City
in sporadic fashion, but the coast is also excellent for cycling
, if a bit windy. There are many great opportunities for hiking
, though having your own vehicle can make it easier to access
the more remote spots. Hitchhiking , inadvisable anywhere in
the US, is illegal in Oregon.
Ready to go? Reserve
a hotel room in Oregon today!