On the go without a car: Getting there can be half the fun

PORTLAND -- When you aren't knocking around the riverfront, getting to Portland can be half the fun -- if you leave your car at home.

Amtrak is a popular no-driving way to get there from Puget Sound. But to add zip to your trip, fly. A year-old light-rail line to Portland International Airport makes getting into the city a cinch.

Do what I did: Pack a carry-on bag and hop a shuttle flight from Sea-Tac. If you're flexible and willing to watch fares, you can often nab a round-trip for under $100.

Arrive at the Portland airport by 9 or 10 in the morning, pay $1.55 to catch the MAX (Metropolitan Area Express) train, then relax as you breeze past traffic into town.

From the train, I used a cellphone to call my hotel for an early check-in. If your room isn't available, drop off your bag, grab some visitor brochures and a map and head for the nearest Coffee People cafe — Portland's homegrown challenger to Starbucks, with the pithy motto, "Good Coffee, No Backtalk."

Then sit and plan your visit, with time to burn. No road rage, no parking headaches, no rental-car hassles.

Tips from my trip:

• Horizon Air, the regional subsidiary of Alaska Airlines, is hustling for business, and they make a Portland trip pretty painless. I had a reservation on the 9 a.m. flight. My Metro bus from downtown Seattle (Route 174, free with my commuter bus pass or $2 during peak hours) got me to Sea-Tac at 7:20 a.m., giving me a bit less than the two-hour arrival window recommended for domestic flights under new security procedures.

No problem. I used electronic check-in to pick up a boarding pass, made a newsstand stop, a pit stop at a restroom, then whisked through Horizon's express security line (guaranteed 5 minute-or-less wait) and still got to my gate as they were announcing the 8 o'clock Portland flight. I asked if there was room, got a quick ticket change and boarded an hour early.

In 55 minutes, I stepped off the plane in Portland.

• The Portland airport hasn't yet realized what great service it offers with MAX, I guess; few signs indicate where to catch it.

No worries. Just find baggage claim. Right outside is the train platform.

• There was no live human being to instruct me how much to pay for the train or how to reach my hotel. There was a computer.

I typed in my destination. The computer recognized my hotel and knew its location.

Up popped an itinerary including when the next train would depart (in 5 minutes), where to change to another line, how long my waits would be, how to reach my hotel after getting off the train, and the fare. Couldn't be much easier, as long as you're computer savvy.

I hit "print" and stuck a copy in my pocket.

• MAX tickets are sold at a machine as you exit the terminal. Here, running to catch that train, I almost derailed. Instructions were murky. There were too many choices.

Finally, I fed the machine the $1.55 that the computer had told me to pay and the machine spit out a ticket. Later, I wished I'd known to buy an all-day ticket for $4, which would have been useful as I toured the town. It's also good on buses and on the new European-built Portland Streetcar. But small worries.

On a return train the next day, I met a businessman from Denver who wished he'd known about MAX when he arrived in town instead of spending $30 for a cab.

Caveat 1: Driving makes more sense than flying for families on a budget; but if it's just you and a friend or spouse, flying can be worth the splurge.

Caveat 2: If you avoid slow-downs on Interstate 5 — and that's a big IF — and you count door-to-door travel time, you can drive to Portland from the Seattle area about as quickly as you can get there by air. But how many times have you done that tedious drive? I'm betting you wouldn't miss it.

One problem. After you enjoy a weekend of modern, well-designed public transportation in the Rose City, Seattle smells decidedly un-roselike by comparison.

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