Why everyone should visit Albany, Oregon
Northwest Americana at its best

By: Linda Kissam

Many people get caught up in visiting large, popular cities around the world to sight see and explore new places and faces. I get that. I use to do that a lot myself. However, when I moved to the Northwest, my interest was immediately peaked by the often overlooked small towns dotting the coast and inland roads. If you want a different type of vacation this year that provides insights into local culture, in exceptional ways, think Albany, Oregon.

The city still qualifies for small town status with a scattered population of around 51,000. It’s beauty cannot be measured until you get off the freeway. Driving quickly by its exits on I-5 tells the wrong story. It is a farming community with a unique main street located in the heart of western Oregon’s Willamette River valley, on the banks of the Willamette and its tributary, the Calapooia River. From its modest river town beginnings, Albany has grown south and east with the railroads, state highways and Interstate 5, and across the Willamette into the farms and wooded hillsides of North Albany. You get the best of Americana everywhere you look from tea houses, to distilleries, to wild rice farms to blueberry wine from a roadside stand. And in case you’re wondering… Albany’s culinary road couldn’t be more delicious.   Read More Here…