Guides · United States
Portland tickets
Ticket and booking rules for Portland: timed entries, closing days and official links, checked September 2026.
Checked September 2026 against official sources
Portland
Bookings and opening rules
Follow the official link before you buy. Full walking days: Portland itinerary.
Downtown museums and gardens
- The Portland Art Museum is open Sunday and Tuesday to Saturday from 10:00 to 17:00 and is closed on Mondays, as well as on 1 January, 4 July, Thanksgiving and 25 December. Admission is $27.50 for adults, $24.50 and $22.50 for concessions, and entry is free from 10:00 to 19:00 on the first Thursday of each month.Source: Portland Art Museum — Hours and admission · checked Sep 2026
- Lan Su Chinese Garden is open daily from 10:00 to 17:30. Admission is $18.00 for adults, $17.00 for seniors and $15.00 for students, with a $5.00 rate for EBT and WIC cardholders covering up to four tickets per cardholder; members enter free during regular hours except at special ticketed events.Source: Lan Su Chinese Garden — Visit · checked Sep 2026
Washington Park: the zoo and Pittock Mansion
- The Oregon Zoo runs seasonal daytime hours: open daily 09:30 to 17:30 with last entry at 16:30 in the summer season, and 09:30 to 15:30 with last entry at 14:30 in the winter season, dropping to Friday-to-Monday opening in the quietest winter weeks. It closes on 25 December and on selected days for private events, and asks that tickets be purchased in advance online.Source: Oregon Zoo — Hours and Tickets · checked Sep 2026
- Pittock Mansion is open 09:00 to 16:00 with the last admission 30 minutes before closing, and opens at noon on Tuesdays. Admission covers the mansion, the Gate Lodge and the current special exhibit, and costs $17.00 for adults, $15.00 for visitors 65 and over and for students, and $14.00 for youth aged 6 to 18. It closes on New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Juneteenth, Thanksgiving, Christmas and its January maintenance days, and hikers using the main car park must also pay for parking.Source: Pittock Mansion — Visit · checked Sep 2026
On the day
What to watch at each stop
The Pearl District and Powell's City of Books
- Powell's is open daily, generally 10:00 to 21:00, and admission to the Pearl is free; Oregon charges no sales tax, so the price on a book is the price you pay; the streetcar loops the district and is cheap
Portland Art Museum
- Open Tuesday to Sunday 10:00 to 17:00 and closed Monday, and closed on 1 January, 4 July, Thanksgiving and 25 December; admission is $27.50 for adults with concessions at $24.50 and $22.50, and entry is free from 10:00 to 19:00 on the first Thursday of the month
Portland Japanese Garden
- Open daily with seasonal hours, generally 10:00 to 17:30 in summer and shorter in winter, with member-only hours from 08:00; buy timed tickets online to skip the queue, and the shuttle from the park entrance saves a steep walk
Oregon Zoo
- Open daily with seasonal hours: about 09:30 to 17:30 in summer with last entry 16:30, and 09:30 to 15:30 in winter with last entry 14:30, dropping to Friday-to-Monday opening in the deepest part of winter; buy tickets in advance online; the MAX train stops at the zoo
Pittock Mansion
- Open 09:00 to 16:00 with the last admission 30 minutes before closing and a noon opening on Tuesdays; adults $17.00, visitors over 65 and students $15.00 and youth aged 6 to 18 $14.00; closed on New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Juneteenth, Thanksgiving, Christmas and January maintenance days
Multnomah Falls
- Free to visit, but in peak season a timed-use permit is required for the site and for parking, booked in advance online; the Interstate 84 exit fills first and the Historic Highway lot is often easier; the top viewpoint is an hour return
Questions
Quick answers
How much does Portland cost per day?
Oregon charges no sales tax at all, which quietly takes 8 to 10 per cent off everything you buy compared with most American cities. A hostel bed runs $40 to $60, a mid-range hotel $160 to $250. The gardens are the main tickets: the Japanese Garden about $22, Lan Su $18, the art museum $27.50, Pittock Mansion $17. Against that the rose garden, the arboretum, the waterfront and all the Gorge viewpoints are free. Food carts do lunch for $10 to $15 and a good dinner runs $50 to $80 a head.
Do you need a permit for Multnomah Falls?
In peak season, yes. The Forest Service runs a timed-use permit system for the Multnomah Falls site and separately for parking, booked in advance online through recreation.gov, and the dates and details change from year to year, so check before you drive out. Outside the permit season the limit is simply the car park, which fills by mid-morning at weekends. The Historic Columbia River Highway lot is usually easier than the Interstate 84 exit, and the shuttle bus removes the problem entirely.
Is Powell's City of Books worth the hype?
Yes, and not only for readers. It fills an entire city block over several floors, holds more than a million volumes, and shelves new and used copies of the same title side by side, which is unusual and changes how you browse. Colour-coded rooms and a printed map are necessary rather than a gimmick. The Rare Book Room upstairs is open to anyone who asks. Combined with Oregon having no sales tax, it is the one shop in America where visitors routinely have to buy an extra bag.
The days these rules belong to
3 days in Portland
Portland is a city of about 650,000 at the meeting of the Willamette and the Columbia in northern Oregon, hemmed in by hills to the west and looking east at Mount Hood on any clear day. It was named on a coin toss in 1845, the loser having wanted to call it Boston, and it grew as the port that shipped the Willamette Valley's wheat and Oregon's timber. What makes it unusual now is a series of civic decisions: an urban growth boundary that stopped the sprawl in 1979, a riverside expressway torn out in 1974 and replaced with a park, a light rail network built when no other American city its size was building one, and no sales tax at all. The result is a compact, walkable centre with one of the largest urban forests in the country behind it, and the Columbia River Gorge, seventy-seven waterfalls along one stretch of cliff, forty kilometres east.
