BudgetTravel

Portland's new aerial tram opened in February to connect the South Waterfront District to the Marquam Hill campus of the Oregon Health & Science University. It didn't take long for locals and tourists to discover another benefit of the 3,330 linear-foot-long trip to the top of Marquam Hill: impressive views of the Willamette River, Mount Hood, and downtown Portland.

The tram has been such a hit that, as of May 20, service was extended from its original six-day schedule to include Sundays. The university responded by opening two outdoor terraces on the top of the hill as public viewing platforms (portlandtram.org, round-trip tram ticket $4). Even the city pitched in funds to build a streetcar extension directly to the tram station so that getting there is easy--and costs less than $2.

Portland Aerial Tram (Tim Jewett Photograpy)

We also learned about two new theaters and a hotel that all recently opened up within a five-block radius in downtown Portland. The Gerding Theater, home to the Portland Center Stage theater company, started things when it opened last October after a painstaking and environmentally-sensitive two-year renovation. A few months later, the Living Room Theater opened as the first all- and only-digital movie theater in the country--another environmentally friendly move--specializing in independent and foreign films.

And best of all, there's a new place to stay to check out all the other stuff: the funky and affordable Ace Hotel, which opened in March. The owners enlisted the talents of their artist-friends to decorate the hotel's 79 rooms, and--remember, this is Portland--furnished them with creative reuses of old materials, such as salvaged timber for desktops (acehotel.com, from $95).