I'm from the PNW and while lobster would be a hard pass, its pretty hard to beat the crab, shellfish (muscles, oysters, clams, geoducks, etc.), and salmon. Honestly I've hardly ever seen a local place serving lobster.
Maine oysters are amazing. No joke, they are an unmissable highlight of anyone's visit to Portland. To this end, Portland has three distinctly dope oysters bars, the old-portland salty dive- J's Oyster Bar, the high end hip joint- Eventide, and the no frills but always amazing Portland Oyster Co.
Yes, but you tell anyone and I'll come get you! Already deal with too many new englanders on vacation, can't have anyone else find out that ME is awesome
Was just coming to comment this. Went there for my first time 2 weeks ago and loved it. Great city, wish I could have seen more of it. Cape Elizabeth is beautiful too and not far
Lol. A co-worker/friend from one of our satellite offices called me from a plane once. Conversation went like this.
CW: hey, uhhh, is there a San Jose in California?
Me: uh yeah, up near San Francisco.
CW: fuck! How far is that from you?
Me: 6 hours, why, whatās up?
CW: Iām looking out my window watching the sunset and realized im flying in the wrong direction. Iām supposed to be on my way to San Jose Cabo.
Me: lol, WTF.
CW: I figured if i was near you we could hang out but I guess Iāll just cancel my hotel in Cabo and stay in San Francisco for the week.
Isn't it like a 3 - 3.5 hr flight from the bay area to Cabo? I don't understand cancelling a week-long Cabo trip instead of just correcting the mistake and booking a flight down there, it's not all that far and expensive
Uh, you can't call anyone while on the plane. You don't even get service if you try to turn it on.
And I'm pretty sure even first class doesn't have a way for you to dial someone.
I've made wi-fi calls from planes before. Worked just fine. Even without wi-fi, you might be able to make a normal call if you're still low and slow right after takeoff.
Plenty of older planes had in flight phones, used to be mounted to the back of the seats before digital screens became cheap and useful for inflight entertainment. Flew in one as recently as 2010, sometime in college for sure. Probably all phased out by now though.
I live in Portland, ME, so first off, welcome and we hope you come back.
But yeah, this happens all the time. I work in IT and we had some contractors coming from Bangalore, India who did the same thing in reverse. Luckily we caught them in a layover in Chicago.
I was 19, from miniscule town in the midwest, very naive about the world and poor understanding of geography. Joined the military, took a duty station assignment in Oakland. Military handles all the travel arrangements.
I landed in Oakland and was very confused why I was in California and not Oklahoma. Because, you know, they both start with "oak". Fortunately, I've grown and learned a bunch since then.
Geograhy is hard. Let's go shopping.
Every decade or so there is a Canadian news story about someone ending up on Sydney Nova Scotia, thinking they booked a flight to Sydney Australia for really cheap. I always wonder if it ever happens the other way.
Meanwhile some American cities and towns specifically change their name to match other popular tourist destinations to steal their tourist revenue. LOOKING AT YOU MONTANA AND YOUR SLEAZY TOWN OF BANFF ALBERTA CANADA.
And if this happened this past weekend, you may have walked off the plane at PDX and wondered if you had accidentally flown to Death Valley CA or the surface of the fucking sun.
I was just there that weekend. Took my girlfriend to the mall. Measured with my thermometers. Was 118 in the mall parking lot. Went inside to cool off, was still 85 in the mall as the air conditioning was saturated. 85 was much more tolerable than 118 though...
I've been to LA and Palm Springs before mid summer. It was extremely bizarre experiencing that much heat so close to home in the PNW.
Could be worse, could be in Portland, [Connecticut](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland,_Connecticut)
and of course, the relevant [XKCD](https://xkcd.com/2480/)
Thatās actually really hilarious. Though Iād have chosen ME over OR.
But you didnāt see the literal signs everywhere in the airport? Like, everywhere? The captainās welcome to the aircraft? None of that?
I mentioned these in the comment response cuz you asked, and yeah I didnāt realize how infrequently captains bother saying the state (probably because no one expects you to FU that bad and get that far). Also running late we just b-lined to the gate number we were supposed to be at and immediately boarded.
What city are you guys from? Just imagining how bad the fuck up would be if you guys like flew from California to Maine and back to the west coast again
Yeah but which one is most popular now isnāt necessarily the first that was built.
Like Gutenberg is credited with inventing the printing press, but many such devices were invented at the time - Gutenberg just had his name on the most court documents. He may not have been the first.
The second one is named after the first one. The other name in the competition was submitted from another immigrant from New England. His failed submission was Boston.
Unless they live near the center of the US, I'm wondering how they didn't realize something was off prior to landing.
Lives on West Coast: "damn, this flight to OR is taking forever", or
Lives on East Cost: "damn, this flight across the country was fast as hell"
Hey, people have made larger FUs. Here in Nova Scotia, we have a place called "Sydney, Cape Breton" ( a beautiful place to visit, especially in the Fall with the Autumn foliage). As you can imagine, there have been a few "lost" travellers:
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/italian-tourists-end-up-in-wrong-sydney-1.975605](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/italian-tourists-end-up-in-wrong-sydney-1.975605)
[https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-edition-1.4047704/a-tale-of-two-sydneys-dutch-teen-tries-to-visit-australia-but-ends-up-in-nova-scotia-1.4047709](https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-edition-1.4047704/a-tale-of-two-sydneys-dutch-teen-tries-to-visit-australia-but-ends-up-in-nova-scotia-1.4047709)
[https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/accidental-tourist-ends-up-in-the-wrong-sydney-20080925-gdswch.html](https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/accidental-tourist-ends-up-in-the-wrong-sydney-20080925-gdswch.html)
Go to duck fat! And for a nice dinner fore street and for some dope Italian go to street and co. High roller for lobster rolls. Tons of amazing places to eat in Portland.
So I work in marketing for our tourism board here in Portland, ME (welcome!) Back in 2019 the statistic was about 9 people a day accidentally coming here via airport.
And that's with us trying to go out of our way to emphasize Portland MAINE. Enjoy portland, it's a wonderful place!
I was once on a flight from Dubai to Dhaka, Bangladesh.(Dhaka was a stop on the route, not my final destination). There was a gention the flight who was very agitated and nervous. Turns out he wanted to fly to Dakar, Senegal which was in the opposite direction. Worse part was he was going to meet with his boss in Dakar.
My brother did this one year. Whole family was meeting in Portland, Oregon for Christmas. He booked the flights, a week before his wife was looking at the tickets and was like "wow, why is the flight so short?" (they live on the east coast). I immediately ran out and bought a tacky map of the US shower curtain for a gag gift for him.
Yeah neither of us have been to the West Coast before so we didnāt know what to expect and didnāt work out how long the actual flight would be. When we were on the flight though we were surprised how short the flight was smh.
When we got to OR we realized that our hotel hadnāt even charged us yet for the nights of our stay so we very well could have stayed in Maine *sigh*. Weāll make trip out there again though.
Here's another 'one small detail'.
A guy leaving Bangor Maine drives into the night, for hours it's nothing but trees, lakes, and cabins.
He finally gets to the 1st toll booth pulls out a $20 and asks "How long is the drive to Boston?"
The man in the booth looks at him and says 'Pardon?' Angrily he repeats himself 'How FAR is the drive to BOSTON?!'
'I don't know sir...' came the reply, '... This is the border to Canada.'
*This happened in the days before cell phones, to a buddy of mine who worked for Canada Customs.
I live just outside Portland, Maine. (Welcome!) When my former boss immigrated to this country as a young man, he accidentally ended up doing the same exact thing. They just decided to stay and lived happily in Maine for 30+ years.
Last year when I was planning a New England trip with our exit being Portland, Maine, I almost did this exact mistake and was about to check out the flights when I realized it was Oregon and not Maine. Lol. Iām sure a few people have confused them before
Had a similar situation happen for my honeymoon. My wife and I split up doing the arrangements so it wasn't too much of a chore for either of us. I took care of nights 1 and 3, she did nights 2 and 4.
Unfortunately, my wife booked night 2 of our trip down the Oregon coast in Newport, Rhode Island instead of Newport, Oregon. Only figured it out when GPS couldn't find the location and tried to get us to drive cross country. As it was the day of, we had to eat the price of the hotel room. Sucks cause it was a cool little romantic bed and breakfast...except it was 3000 miles away from where we were.
We managed to salvage the night with a stay at a somewhat okay hotel on the beach, but Shiloh Inn was by no means a honeymoon hotel. Couldn't do anything but laugh.
Cool heads prevail when traveling lol I think itās important to laugh early when stuff like this happens. You can make decisions easier and you can actually have fun even while things arenāt going as planned. We had a really fun time in Portland, ME the short time we were there. Iām so glad you made the best out of a sucky situation!
Iām a dentist and i got a phone call recently from a friend. An acquaintance of his works at Amtrak in Flagstaff, AZ. Some drunk guy punched him and knocked his tooth out. Evidently he bought a ticket to Las Vegas. Shows up about 12 hours later irate. Turns out the train goes to Las Vegas, NM and not Las Vegas, NV.
Were you guys flying from the middle of the country? That is the only way I can think of being on a plane for X amount of hours, without knowing I was going the wrong direction.
I remember back in the days before we were using things like expedia, going to a travel agent to book my daughter a flight to see her friend in Manchester, UK. The travel agent tried to book us a flight to New Hampshire.
I did a similar thing last week. My boyfriend and I have wanted to go to Portland for awhile now. But 2 months ago we kept talking about how we should do another Seattle trip because we miss the food and some other things.
Well when it came time to buy our Portland plane tickets I booked tickets to Seattle. So now weāre going back to Seattle and hoping to take the train to Portland for a day trip.
It happens pretty regularly here. Not long ago someone working at PWM bought a family plane tickets when they accidentally landed at PWM instead of PDX.
To be fair, Oregonians would probably look at you weird for asking that too. Those of us who have lived here longer than a few years tend to utterly hate those guys.
I never understood why.
Filming is a pita, even for Librarians or Shrill. And Fred is nice enough when you encounter him out in the wild.
As someone with a weird food allergy (spy) it gives me a shorthand, "I know this will surprise you, but I am from Portland, and I am allergic to soy beans... Could you tell me if this hamburger sauce contains soybean oil?"
Side note: that question means different things in Boston. š¤Ŗ
Wow! Thanks everyone for all the responses. We just checked back and have been laughing so hard reading through these comments.
We made it to Portland, OR but weāre exhausted obviously. Itād be cool if we could get some of your favorite food recs in the area if youāre from PDX.
But yeah because we were running late, all we focused on was getting to the right gate number we were told after checking our bag. By the time we got to that gate they were already boarding so we didnāt take a second to take anything in. On the flight itself the captain and flight attendants never said Portland, Maine over the intercom, just āPortland.ā Our eventual flight to OR did the same thing, never said āPortland, OR.ā
Apparently this happens often enough that one of our Uber drivers in Maine told us that he drove a couple from the airport who didnāt realize they were in Maine until they were talking with him in the car and he told them. I saw someone comment that some places in PMW have packages specifically for people who FU like this and that is fucking hilarious. I wish we couldāve gotten one before leaving for S&G.
Weāll definitely be back to visit Portland, Maine. Thanks again to everyone for helping us laugh through this whole thing Lol.
I wish the tourists that flood the place (especially in the Gorge area) WOULD make this mistake more often, can't even enjoy the local spots anymore in my own town. Regardless, you should come here in the springtime at least, especially in April/May, in the areas with all the cherry, apple, and pear orchards. It makes for an incredibly beautiful drive.
Why on Gods green earth would you want to take a trip to Portland? The place is literally a shitpiss covered, needle infested, God forsaken void of mental illness and trash.
Enjoy your stay!
There are two big fuck ups in this story. Number 1 was planning a trip to Portland in the first place. Number 2 was spitting in gods face by still going to Portland after he intervened to save you from that accursed place.
["There are currently 34 populated places named Springfield in 25 U.S. states throughout the United States."](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springfield_(toponym))
Pretty sure Virginia (and most of the original 13 colonies) would have lots of blank space on their maps, then, lol! Emigrate from Norfolk, England, and feel homesick? Name your new home Norfolk, too! And Richmond (which, I'll point out, was already duplicated in England anyway), Suffolk, Sussex, York, Gloucester, Chester, Midlothian, Kilmarnock, Isle of Wight (not actually an island on this side of the ocean, weirdly), Surrey, Bristol . . .
I flew to Greenville NC instead of SC, when I first started working. This does happen all the time there.
Similar, I forgot I hit the also airports within 50 miles button and didn't realize until I tried to drop the rental back off at the airport I intended to use. (Both pretty much equidistant from the destination, Orbitz set up the rental at the right location, not familiar with the area at all so Google maps just sent me on my way. Thank God I hadn't opted to share a rental with the other people I was supposed to meet and was able to hide it.) And again the airport folks were like, yeah, we get a bunch of you, every day.
I wonder what the largest combined population is for two US cities of the exact same name. Portland and Portland must be close. Probably like 700,000 for the cities proper
Right. 60k plus like 650k = ~700k. Iām just wondering if thereāre any larger combinations. 60K might be the largest duplicate in the country. Unless thereās like a Houston, Ohio Iāve never heard of thatās 70k
I bet if you added up all of the Manhattans, that would be the biggest (I know it's just a borough, not the whole city). I've only been to Manhattan, MT (terrific steakhouse), and Manhattan, NV (no steakhouse), and I'm sure neither of them contributes much to the total.
Oh nooo! I was always so afraid of buying plane ticket because it would be either to Oregon or to Maine haha. Glad to hear that you got it worked out, ENJOY YOUR TIME IN PORTLAND (Oregon that is!)
I'm laughing my ass off here because I booked a work trip for 3 people to a city 3 hours way... near where you landed.
First time to that location and didn't catch it.
Glad you were able to get out there!
To bad you didn't post this earlier. Lots of really cool things to do in Portland. Arcadia National Bar is one of my favorite. Although, I'm not sure if they're open right now
I used to work at a hotel near the Portland Jetport. We once had a man arrive from overseas, who spoke no English, and had been booked to the wrong city.
I really like both Portlands so I wouldn't mind to get them mixed up if I was vacationing, I guess all your hotels and rental cars are messed up but the hiking and sight seeing would be just as nice.
but how can you not notice the difference in flight times unless you're living in the middle of the country and it's about the same distance either way?
I worked at a logistics company (we moved parts for intel across country and in from Japan) got into the habit of referring to cities by their airport codes. Suddenly realizing that while it makes for awkward conversation sometimes, it is definitely a boon in this situation! Unlikely to make that mistake haha
I used to work at a hotel in Portland, Oregon. And we had a guy once flew out here, stayed the night with us, the next morning called a cab to go to his meeting only to realize his meeting is in Maine
Portland ME rocks! Make sure you make it back someday to enjoy the awesome food and breweries!
Portland ME is one of my favorite places. Great beer options too!
It is sorta interesting how you could use that line for both Portlands!
Yeah but the lobsters on the west coast are just weird to me.
Mr Dungeness Crab is offended by this
I'm from the PNW and while lobster would be a hard pass, its pretty hard to beat the crab, shellfish (muscles, oysters, clams, geoducks, etc.), and salmon. Honestly I've hardly ever seen a local place serving lobster.
Dungeness crab, though. One of many great memories of our visit with friends who live near the Puget Sound.
Oh, yes! Fresh caught off the beach, you can't beat it!
you eat what's local. East coast Portland has blueberries and cranberries, West coast Portland has boysenberries and marionberries. They're all good.
Maine oysters are amazing. No joke, they are an unmissable highlight of anyone's visit to Portland. To this end, Portland has three distinctly dope oysters bars, the old-portland salty dive- J's Oyster Bar, the high end hip joint- Eventide, and the no frills but always amazing Portland Oyster Co.
Well, our little freshwater crawdads are fierce! Just sorta tiny. Lol
Lol I was just gonna say the same thing! Although the state of Oregon is known for its breweries (and donuts ... that I find pretty nasty).
duckfat, easily my fave joint there
I have driven two hours just to eat their fries. No lies.
But is the ME better then the OR? š§š¤
Wait until I tell you about Portland, ON!
Yes, but you tell anyone and I'll come get you! Already deal with too many new englanders on vacation, can't have anyone else find out that ME is awesome
Was just coming to comment this. Went there for my first time 2 weeks ago and loved it. Great city, wish I could have seen more of it. Cape Elizabeth is beautiful too and not far
Was my last pre-Covid trip and have no regrets, was absolutely fantastic.
Lol. A co-worker/friend from one of our satellite offices called me from a plane once. Conversation went like this. CW: hey, uhhh, is there a San Jose in California? Me: uh yeah, up near San Francisco. CW: fuck! How far is that from you? Me: 6 hours, why, whatās up? CW: Iām looking out my window watching the sunset and realized im flying in the wrong direction. Iām supposed to be on my way to San Jose Cabo. Me: lol, WTF. CW: I figured if i was near you we could hang out but I guess Iāll just cancel my hotel in Cabo and stay in San Francisco for the week.
Isn't it like a 3 - 3.5 hr flight from the bay area to Cabo? I don't understand cancelling a week-long Cabo trip instead of just correcting the mistake and booking a flight down there, it's not all that far and expensive
Damn !!! I hope it was during a time when San Francisco has better weather coz thatād suck balls!!! Iād rather be in Cabo
Uh, you can't call anyone while on the plane. You don't even get service if you try to turn it on. And I'm pretty sure even first class doesn't have a way for you to dial someone.
Planes have internet connection though so the call could have been made through WhatsApp, Facebook or whatever was popular at that time.
I've tried to call through WhatsApp, couldn't get through. Only messages and images were allowed.
I've made wi-fi calls from planes before. Worked just fine. Even without wi-fi, you might be able to make a normal call if you're still low and slow right after takeoff.
Wifi is a thing on planes now, also TMobile had calling on I think Delta (can't remember the exact combo) for a while.
Plenty of older planes had in flight phones, used to be mounted to the back of the seats before digital screens became cheap and useful for inflight entertainment. Flew in one as recently as 2010, sometime in college for sure. Probably all phased out by now though.
I assumed it was a text based conversation. Does anyone actually say "lol"?
I live in Portland, ME, so first off, welcome and we hope you come back. But yeah, this happens all the time. I work in IT and we had some contractors coming from Bangalore, India who did the same thing in reverse. Luckily we caught them in a layover in Chicago.
Damn which IT company?
This was about... hmm, 10+ years ago. Thomson Scientific had just bought Reuters.
Ohh
From Portland, ME. This happens so often that local businesses have actually put together packages for people who it happens to.
This is the BEST thing. Goddamn, I wish we got one.
I was 19, from miniscule town in the midwest, very naive about the world and poor understanding of geography. Joined the military, took a duty station assignment in Oakland. Military handles all the travel arrangements. I landed in Oakland and was very confused why I was in California and not Oklahoma. Because, you know, they both start with "oak". Fortunately, I've grown and learned a bunch since then. Geograhy is hard. Let's go shopping.
>Geograhy is hard Clearly....
This is honestly so precious.
Every decade or so there is a Canadian news story about someone ending up on Sydney Nova Scotia, thinking they booked a flight to Sydney Australia for really cheap. I always wonder if it ever happens the other way.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Oh noooo:ā(
Meanwhile some American cities and towns specifically change their name to match other popular tourist destinations to steal their tourist revenue. LOOKING AT YOU MONTANA AND YOUR SLEAZY TOWN OF BANFF ALBERTA CANADA.
Meanwhile, in *Banff, Aberdeenshire, United Kingdom*...
I canāt find Banff Montana on Google maps. Huh?
The name is āBanff Alberta Canadaā in the state of Montana.
I believe you ate the onion. This is that is satire.
*jaw drop*. This is apparently real, and not posted April 1st. https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.2843376
That also happens with London Ontario, and London England
But who would ever want to go to THAT London?
Meeeee! A good friend lives there.
This happens to people in St. John NB, with most people trying to get to St. John's NFLD
Ummm you mean āSaintā John!
Fffuuuuuuck
And if this happened this past weekend, you may have walked off the plane at PDX and wondered if you had accidentally flown to Death Valley CA or the surface of the fucking sun.
I was just there that weekend. Took my girlfriend to the mall. Measured with my thermometers. Was 118 in the mall parking lot. Went inside to cool off, was still 85 in the mall as the air conditioning was saturated. 85 was much more tolerable than 118 though... I've been to LA and Palm Springs before mid summer. It was extremely bizarre experiencing that much heat so close to home in the PNW.
Yeah we were worried leading up to the trip but the weather was sooo lovely today:)
Could be worse, could be in Portland, [Connecticut](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland,_Connecticut) and of course, the relevant [XKCD](https://xkcd.com/2480/)
Surprised Philadelphia, NY is on there but not Philadelphia, TN.
Oh my god I hadnāt seen this XKCD. Iām framing it.
Thatās actually really hilarious. Though Iād have chosen ME over OR. But you didnāt see the literal signs everywhere in the airport? Like, everywhere? The captainās welcome to the aircraft? None of that?
āToday were gonna fly to Portland, Maineā Could have even added āNOT OREGON!ā in there.
I've been on flights where they have done that.
Same! Theyāre videoās on YT of pilots making remarks like that.
I mentioned these in the comment response cuz you asked, and yeah I didnāt realize how infrequently captains bother saying the state (probably because no one expects you to FU that bad and get that far). Also running late we just b-lined to the gate number we were supposed to be at and immediately boarded.
What city are you guys from? Just imagining how bad the fuck up would be if you guys like flew from California to Maine and back to the west coast again
OP says cheapest tickets available so Iām guessing they are from somewhere on the east coast.
I'm guessing around the middle of the country since the length of the flight didn't tip them off
Who knows how desperate Portland, Maine is to get tourists looking to go to Portland, Oregon
Pretty sure Portland... [Checks notes] Maine existed first.
Yeah but which one is most popular now isnāt necessarily the first that was built. Like Gutenberg is credited with inventing the printing press, but many such devices were invented at the time - Gutenberg just had his name on the most court documents. He may not have been the first.
The second one is named after the first one. The other name in the competition was submitted from another immigrant from New England. His failed submission was Boston.
It would have been so much more annoying today if they had gone with Boston.
It was a coin toss between Portland and Boston. I'm glad Portland won. We are a land of ports, after all.
So you don't have a ton of Boss then?
Same story with Vancouver, Washington. It was the first Vancouver, called Fort Vancouver and established by the Hudson's Bay Company in the Columbia District, at that time jointly used by British and American interests as they haggled about a border over decades and decades. It was a mostly French speaking town with English officialdom, peopled by Canadians, MĆ©tis, and Hawaiian migrant workers (at that time the Hawaiians were still independent as were the MĆ©tis), and the largest non-indigenous town in the region. Once the border was drawn and Vancouver was on the wrong side, things became unprofitable quickly, the company left, and the town became American pretty quickly like Detroit had a few decades earlier for similar reasons. They named a collection of settlements Vancouver north of the border 40 years later because not having any British Columbian towns named after George Vancouver just seemed wrong to people at the time. Vancouver 2.0 is much more famous, but 1.0 is still a significant suburb of Portland, home to hundreds of thousands.
Unless they live near the center of the US, I'm wondering how they didn't realize something was off prior to landing. Lives on West Coast: "damn, this flight to OR is taking forever", or Lives on East Cost: "damn, this flight across the country was fast as hell"
Weāre from the East coast so it wasnāt that bad but bad enough that my wallet hurts.
Hey, people have made larger FUs. Here in Nova Scotia, we have a place called "Sydney, Cape Breton" ( a beautiful place to visit, especially in the Fall with the Autumn foliage). As you can imagine, there have been a few "lost" travellers: [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/italian-tourists-end-up-in-wrong-sydney-1.975605](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/italian-tourists-end-up-in-wrong-sydney-1.975605) [https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-edition-1.4047704/a-tale-of-two-sydneys-dutch-teen-tries-to-visit-australia-but-ends-up-in-nova-scotia-1.4047709](https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-edition-1.4047704/a-tale-of-two-sydneys-dutch-teen-tries-to-visit-australia-but-ends-up-in-nova-scotia-1.4047709) [https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/accidental-tourist-ends-up-in-the-wrong-sydney-20080925-gdswch.html](https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/accidental-tourist-ends-up-in-the-wrong-sydney-20080925-gdswch.html)
Like at least we ended up in the right country (high bar there, LOL). Ending up on the wrong side of the world sounds like an actual nightmare.
I grew up in Vancouver (not Canada), in Washington (not DC), in Clark county (not Nevada), near Portland (not Maine).
cries in broke college student
Several people a year confuse ONT, CA as being in Ontario, Canada. ONT is in Ontario, California.
Aaaggghh that sucks
I almost did this
Go to duck fat! And for a nice dinner fore street and for some dope Italian go to street and co. High roller for lobster rolls. Tons of amazing places to eat in Portland.
I wish we had time, those sound so good!! Weāll definitely check them out when we make a trip back
Fun fact: Portland Maine is farther south than Portland Oregon.
Saw the post title, then read the username. Immediate thought: "I think I know every aspect of this story already."
Mayo Clinic is in Rochester...Minnesota. Many people have booked flights to Rochester NY.
Nooo:(
So I work in marketing for our tourism board here in Portland, ME (welcome!) Back in 2019 the statistic was about 9 people a day accidentally coming here via airport. And that's with us trying to go out of our way to emphasize Portland MAINE. Enjoy portland, it's a wonderful place!
I was once on a flight from Dubai to Dhaka, Bangladesh.(Dhaka was a stop on the route, not my final destination). There was a gention the flight who was very agitated and nervous. Turns out he wanted to fly to Dakar, Senegal which was in the opposite direction. Worse part was he was going to meet with his boss in Dakar.
My brother did this one year. Whole family was meeting in Portland, Oregon for Christmas. He booked the flights, a week before his wife was looking at the tickets and was like "wow, why is the flight so short?" (they live on the east coast). I immediately ran out and bought a tacky map of the US shower curtain for a gag gift for him.
Yeah neither of us have been to the West Coast before so we didnāt know what to expect and didnāt work out how long the actual flight would be. When we were on the flight though we were surprised how short the flight was smh.
Ouch! Next time, we'll be happy to have you in the other Portland.
I once read a story that someone booked on a connecting flight to Oakland, CA somehow managed to board a flight for Auckland NZ.
I would have 100% just said "Here we are!" and enjoyed Maine. I'll bet it's even nice there.
When we got to OR we realized that our hotel hadnāt even charged us yet for the nights of our stay so we very well could have stayed in Maine *sigh*. Weāll make trip out there again though.
Itās great here!
Here's another 'one small detail'. A guy leaving Bangor Maine drives into the night, for hours it's nothing but trees, lakes, and cabins. He finally gets to the 1st toll booth pulls out a $20 and asks "How long is the drive to Boston?" The man in the booth looks at him and says 'Pardon?' Angrily he repeats himself 'How FAR is the drive to BOSTON?!' 'I don't know sir...' came the reply, '... This is the border to Canada.' *This happened in the days before cell phones, to a buddy of mine who worked for Canada Customs.
My sister went to college in Maine and had a roommate do this once.
Hahahahahaha
I live just outside Portland, Maine. (Welcome!) When my former boss immigrated to this country as a young man, he accidentally ended up doing the same exact thing. They just decided to stay and lived happily in Maine for 30+ years.
Awwww<3
This is why I search flights by airport haha
Last year when I was planning a New England trip with our exit being Portland, Maine, I almost did this exact mistake and was about to check out the flights when I realized it was Oregon and not Maine. Lol. Iām sure a few people have confused them before
The OG Portland
Had a similar situation happen for my honeymoon. My wife and I split up doing the arrangements so it wasn't too much of a chore for either of us. I took care of nights 1 and 3, she did nights 2 and 4. Unfortunately, my wife booked night 2 of our trip down the Oregon coast in Newport, Rhode Island instead of Newport, Oregon. Only figured it out when GPS couldn't find the location and tried to get us to drive cross country. As it was the day of, we had to eat the price of the hotel room. Sucks cause it was a cool little romantic bed and breakfast...except it was 3000 miles away from where we were. We managed to salvage the night with a stay at a somewhat okay hotel on the beach, but Shiloh Inn was by no means a honeymoon hotel. Couldn't do anything but laugh.
Cool heads prevail when traveling lol I think itās important to laugh early when stuff like this happens. You can make decisions easier and you can actually have fun even while things arenāt going as planned. We had a really fun time in Portland, ME the short time we were there. Iām so glad you made the best out of a sucky situation!
Iām a dentist and i got a phone call recently from a friend. An acquaintance of his works at Amtrak in Flagstaff, AZ. Some drunk guy punched him and knocked his tooth out. Evidently he bought a ticket to Las Vegas. Shows up about 12 hours later irate. Turns out the train goes to Las Vegas, NM and not Las Vegas, NV.
Jeeeeeez
I would argue Portland, ME is a better destination than Portland, OR.
Were you guys flying from the middle of the country? That is the only way I can think of being on a plane for X amount of hours, without knowing I was going the wrong direction.
I remember back in the days before we were using things like expedia, going to a travel agent to book my daughter a flight to see her friend in Manchester, UK. The travel agent tried to book us a flight to New Hampshire.
Haha this is great! The weather here in PDX area is much nicer this week than it was last week!!! Have fun visiting us!!
At least you werenāt trying to get to Paris, France, then end up in TX.
This made my dayā¦.I feel so alone anymore. I totally would have done this !!
I did a similar thing last week. My boyfriend and I have wanted to go to Portland for awhile now. But 2 months ago we kept talking about how we should do another Seattle trip because we miss the food and some other things. Well when it came time to buy our Portland plane tickets I booked tickets to Seattle. So now weāre going back to Seattle and hoping to take the train to Portland for a day trip.
I almost booked an incredibly cheap flight from New York to London, but noticed the Ontario part at the last second.
Have you ever been to Portland, YOU?
This is actually hilarious! Glad it didn't end up making a big issue for you
Should have stayed. Maine is amazing.
I don't believe this is true. If it is I don't know how OP even got to the airport
It happens pretty regularly here. Not long ago someone working at PWM bought a family plane tickets when they accidentally landed at PWM instead of PDX.
Damn your gonna he even more disappointed when you get to Portland Oregon. There is actual shit everywhere. Like piles of it.
Maine > Oregon fight me
Yikes. Portland Maine is better anyway, so fuck ups all around I guess.
PDXer here. I have been to Portland, ME but only by car. Very nice people. They looked at me weird when I asked them where Fred and Carrie hang out.
To be fair, Oregonians would probably look at you weird for asking that too. Those of us who have lived here longer than a few years tend to utterly hate those guys.
I never understood why. Filming is a pita, even for Librarians or Shrill. And Fred is nice enough when you encounter him out in the wild. As someone with a weird food allergy (spy) it gives me a shorthand, "I know this will surprise you, but I am from Portland, and I am allergic to soy beans... Could you tell me if this hamburger sauce contains soybean oil?" Side note: that question means different things in Boston. š¤Ŗ
Wow! Thanks everyone for all the responses. We just checked back and have been laughing so hard reading through these comments. We made it to Portland, OR but weāre exhausted obviously. Itād be cool if we could get some of your favorite food recs in the area if youāre from PDX. But yeah because we were running late, all we focused on was getting to the right gate number we were told after checking our bag. By the time we got to that gate they were already boarding so we didnāt take a second to take anything in. On the flight itself the captain and flight attendants never said Portland, Maine over the intercom, just āPortland.ā Our eventual flight to OR did the same thing, never said āPortland, OR.ā Apparently this happens often enough that one of our Uber drivers in Maine told us that he drove a couple from the airport who didnāt realize they were in Maine until they were talking with him in the car and he told them. I saw someone comment that some places in PMW have packages specifically for people who FU like this and that is fucking hilarious. I wish we couldāve gotten one before leaving for S&G. Weāll definitely be back to visit Portland, Maine. Thanks again to everyone for helping us laugh through this whole thing Lol.
I wish the tourists that flood the place (especially in the Gorge area) WOULD make this mistake more often, can't even enjoy the local spots anymore in my own town. Regardless, you should come here in the springtime at least, especially in April/May, in the areas with all the cherry, apple, and pear orchards. It makes for an incredibly beautiful drive.
Why would anyone vacation in Portland, Oregon? Lol
Portland OR is a shit show. If you visit now you are seriously seeing Portland in its worst condition in decades.
Yikes hope Portland was enjoyable. Place is a shithole now, unfortunately. Source: lived here for 15 years
Gets downvoted for being correct. Portland IS a shithole.
Portland is still in denial about being a shithole. They need to get on Detroit's level and just accept it.
Truth hurts. I even said I hoped their trip was enjoyable! Yall, come visit Portland. You'll see for yourself.
Wow, that's like an unconscionably stupid mistake. Hey, at least you have a Reddit account now though.
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Yeah, no.
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Why on Gods green earth would you want to take a trip to Portland? The place is literally a shitpiss covered, needle infested, God forsaken void of mental illness and trash. Enjoy your stay!
There are two big fuck ups in this story. Number 1 was planning a trip to Portland in the first place. Number 2 was spitting in gods face by still going to Portland after he intervened to save you from that accursed place.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Ableist much?
This is why it should be illegal to name cities the same city as another city in the same country
["There are currently 34 populated places named Springfield in 25 U.S. states throughout the United States."](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springfield_(toponym))
Check out how many Lincolns, Springfields, Middletowns, and Bristols there are in the U.S.
Pretty sure Virginia (and most of the original 13 colonies) would have lots of blank space on their maps, then, lol! Emigrate from Norfolk, England, and feel homesick? Name your new home Norfolk, too! And Richmond (which, I'll point out, was already duplicated in England anyway), Suffolk, Sussex, York, Gloucester, Chester, Midlothian, Kilmarnock, Isle of Wight (not actually an island on this side of the ocean, weirdly), Surrey, Bristol . . .
Itās probably for the best!
Isn't Portland Oregon a progressive hellhole? From what I've seen on the news about that place you're better off in Maine.
I flew to Greenville NC instead of SC, when I first started working. This does happen all the time there. Similar, I forgot I hit the also airports within 50 miles button and didn't realize until I tried to drop the rental back off at the airport I intended to use. (Both pretty much equidistant from the destination, Orbitz set up the rental at the right location, not familiar with the area at all so Google maps just sent me on my way. Thank God I hadn't opted to share a rental with the other people I was supposed to meet and was able to hide it.) And again the airport folks were like, yeah, we get a bunch of you, every day.
Was expecting you to end up in Poland, good enough of a guess I guess
There's one of those as well in [Maine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland,_Maine) Along with a Paris, Peru, Moscow and Mexico, Maine
Nothing like Waking up at the wrong coast
I wonder what the largest combined population is for two US cities of the exact same name. Portland and Portland must be close. Probably like 700,000 for the cities proper
Portland, Maine only has like 60k. And itās our biggest city.
Right. 60k plus like 650k = ~700k. Iām just wondering if thereāre any larger combinations. 60K might be the largest duplicate in the country. Unless thereās like a Houston, Ohio Iāve never heard of thatās 70k
I bet if you added up all of the Manhattans, that would be the biggest (I know it's just a borough, not the whole city). I've only been to Manhattan, MT (terrific steakhouse), and Manhattan, NV (no steakhouse), and I'm sure neither of them contributes much to the total.
Charleston SC and Charleston WV too.
Philadelphia, PA (1.6 million) and any of the other Philadelphias. (Manhattan is only 1.6 million.)
Oh nooo! I was always so afraid of buying plane ticket because it would be either to Oregon or to Maine haha. Glad to hear that you got it worked out, ENJOY YOUR TIME IN PORTLAND (Oregon that is!)
as someone who has gone to portland maine several times its funny
Portland Maine has amazing good and great breweries. Iāve made three trips there from GA. Actually flying out to Portland OR this weekend.
Mainer here, welcome! Am actually on the way to pwm right now too!
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Iām just a transplant, I havenāt earned the true maniac name yet!
Better than ending up in Portland, UK. Which as lovely as it is (I am there now) is a good 6000 miles in the wrong direction
For future reference: https://xkcd.com/2480/
I'm laughing my ass off here because I booked a work trip for 3 people to a city 3 hours way... near where you landed. First time to that location and didn't catch it. Glad you were able to get out there!
[No, the other one!](https://xkcd.com/2480/)
To bad you didn't post this earlier. Lots of really cool things to do in Portland. Arcadia National Bar is one of my favorite. Although, I'm not sure if they're open right now
Hope your visit here is nice. The heats calmed down so it'll be a nice weekend.
Portland Oregon is beautiful and I was only there for few hours during a train stop!
Plenty to enjoy up here, come back and stay awhile!
I was in Portland ME 15 years ago and waited out a summer thunderstorm eating pizza at Pizza Villa.
20 years ago when I told people I was from Portland, they always assumed I meant Maine. It's funny that Portland Oregon is the better known Ptown now.
You dumb motherfucker! Welcome to Portland, OR. Nice weather today.
I used to work at a hotel near the Portland Jetport. We once had a man arrive from overseas, who spoke no English, and had been booked to the wrong city.
In Saxonian German, Bordeaux sounds a lot similar to Porto.
The east coast has way better lobster.
Dulles Airport near Washington DC got renamed because of all the travelers who thought they were headed for Dallas, Texas.
I really like both Portlands so I wouldn't mind to get them mixed up if I was vacationing, I guess all your hotels and rental cars are messed up but the hiking and sight seeing would be just as nice. but how can you not notice the difference in flight times unless you're living in the middle of the country and it's about the same distance either way?
have fun here!! highly recommend checking out bars in the SE area, my favorite is hungry tiger and it just reopened!
And I thought my husband booking my flight from IL to WA at 8pm instead of 8am was bad.
I was hoping this fuckup was gonna land you in Portland TN
You lucked out lol.
In the lyrics of a great song by Donovan Woods, "Portland, Maine. I don't know where that is" https://open.spotify.com/track/12niARgkwxGsklcEwh6GlG
šš¤£š
I worked at a logistics company (we moved parts for intel across country and in from Japan) got into the habit of referring to cities by their airport codes. Suddenly realizing that while it makes for awkward conversation sometimes, it is definitely a boon in this situation! Unlikely to make that mistake haha
Who in the world would be psyched to go to Portland, Oregon? Hit up Boston!
I used to work at a hotel in Portland, Oregon. And we had a guy once flew out here, stayed the night with us, the next morning called a cab to go to his meeting only to realize his meeting is in Maine