Portland

Silver Falls: The Trail of Ten Falls

Oregon's most spectacular waterfall loop begins an hour southeast of Portland — ten named falls in a single 7.2-mile circuit through old-growth Douglas fir, including four you can walk behind. Silver Falls State Park is the largest state park in Oregon and gets overlooked in favor of the Columbia Gorge; that oversight is your advantage on a weekday.

Dundee Hills Pinot Country

The Dundee Hills are 30 minutes southwest of Portland and constitute one of the great wine landscapes of the American West — volcanic Jory soil, 600-foot hillsides, and Pinot Noir that shocked France in 1979. A day among the established estates and the newer family wineries covers the full range of what the appellation produces, bookended by the Newberg farmers market and a late lunch at the valley floor.

McMinnville: Wine Country & Aviation History

McMinnville is the capital of Oregon's Pinot Noir country and home to the world's largest display of flying boats — the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum houses Howard Hughes's Spruce Goose in a building sized around the plane. The town's Third Street galleries and farm-to-table restaurants round out a day that covers more cultural territory than most cities twice its size.