Monthly Travel Meetups in Portland’s Pearl District

The weather in Portland has been showing off moments of loveliness over the last few days, giving us a peek into what the spring and summer will deliver, but those moments are still bookended by the cold, gray, rainy days that are typical of this time of year. Nicer weather may be right around the corner, but dreaming of a sunny break is still perfectly understandable.

Because most BootsnAll employees are based in and around Portland, we’ve started having monthly travel meetups at the Popina Swimwear boutique in the Pearl District, and being surrounded by cute, retro swimsuits only fuels the desire to fly off to sunny locales. We focus on one destination each month, share travel stories, and chit-chat with other travel nuts. Oh, and there’s the Kona beer, too – that never hurts.

At this month’s meetup we highlighted Kona, Hawaii – we talked about 10 things you should know about Kona and offered tips on things to do on the Big Island. We gave away a $75 Alaska Airlines voucher, as we’ll be doing at each meetup for the next four months, and noted that even if people didn’t win the voucher there are still pretty great flight deals on Alaska Airlines to Hawaii on a regular basis.

While you can certainly go swimsuit shopping in Portland without any plans for a trip to Hawaii, chances are very good that if you’re in the market for a cute suit that you’re taking it somewhere other than Oregon (especially at this time of year). That’s part of the reason we focused on Hawaii for both of the first two Popina meetups – but in future meetups we’re going to focus on other locations, including Las Vegas and Italy. Cheap tickets to Europe from PDX may be harder to come by than cheap tickets to Vegas, Hawaii, or Mexico, but there’s only one Italy – and if you’re hitting the beaches of the Amalfi, you want to look good, right?

If you’re in Portland and you love travel, we hope we’ll see you at a future First Thursday meetup at Popina. Click the “like” button on BootsnAll’s Facebook page and you’ll be updated about each meetup beforehand, as well as learn what the topic for the month is.