Some where with less tourist. (Portland, Springfield: to live, to move, area)

[reed067]

My wife & I want to move back out west some where & yes, Oregon is high on our list. I've been there more then once & I love the state. Coming from Asheville, NC this town is very much over ran with tourist in the summer until late fall. We understand a lot of places get tourist these days but here we can't get away from it. We don't mind working in a bigger city say Portland but we would like to be able to live say 25-35 mins out without it breaking the bank. Any ideas or should we expand our search?



We've have looked at Bend, Springfield, The Dalles, We know Bend is more or less a tourist town as well, so we did take a look at Redmond.


Thanks in advance!

[CanuckInPortland]

Look at Prineville, you can be close to the Bend area and pay way less, but you don't get many tourists out there.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

I don't think Madras gets any tourists, except for those driving through on the highway and not stopping.

[Silverfall]

Forest Grove, McMinneville, Silverton might work also.

[PNW-type-gal]

The big touristy locations are the coast, Bend, Ashland and then some of the scenic locations (The Columbia Gorge around the falls to Hood River, Crater Lake). In other cities there are still tourists, but not enough to really make a difference. Sure, Portland gets tourists, but that is toward the Pearl and NW and Pioneer Square, parts of downtown, which is not the bulk of the city.

Ashville's population is somewhere around 85,000, right? That would probably make it most analogous to Ashland or Bend, in terms of tourists "outnumbering" residents.

[Nell Plotts]

I think Silverton is well worth a look by the OP.

[reed067]

Thanks for the tips! We can work on one of the bigger cities if we have to but I'm sure like others you don't want to be right in it. Silverton looks nice from what we've seen.

[delta07]

Definitely stay away from Bend if you are aiming to live somewhere away from tourists! We moved to Bend in 2008 just as the recession hit, and tourism was way down. This year, my husband and I have noticed the mass influx of tourists that we heard about before. We are really growing tired of the tourism. It's a double edged sword though. We enjoy the perks that it brings, but hate dealing with the crowds and mentality of tourists.

Redmond, or Prineville, as suggested are both a good options if you are wanting the drier high desert environment of Central Oregon. I'm not real familiar with towns in western Oregon.