EVERYONE here looks great! is not the kind of comment you hear often in Portland, Ore., where outfits seem chosen to match the cloudy skies, fabrics tend toward the waterproof, and anything with buttons counts as formalwear.  Yet those were exactly the words that burst from a woman who brushed past me one night at Lizard Lounge, a clothing store in the upscale Pearl District of Portland. And she was right. The crowd that first Thursday in April  the first Thursday of each month has an evening of art-gallery openings and shopping parties  was startlingly attractive, and in a very Portland way: functional but chic. One woman wore a black bob and a silvery, thigh-length, probably impermeable trench coat. Fleece abounded, but was form-fitting. Quiksilvers hard-to-find Limited Collection hung on the racks next to clothes by Nau, a local label whose jackets, polos and shorts lie on the sporty end of the fashion spectrum  or is that the fashionable end of the sporty spectrum?  One accessory, however, was ubiquitous: as breakdance crews windmilled and as the Portland legend Fogatron did his human beatbox routine, every hipster  male, female or otherwise  carried a plastic cup full of beer. Free beer.  And not just free beer but pretty good free beer. Next to the cash registers, barmen pumped kegs of hefeweizen and amber ale, both made by Widmer Brothers, one of the two oldest breweries in what has become the microbrew capital of America. (There are better beers in Portland, but compared with your usual party beer, Widmers is premier cru.) People drank, refilled their cups and, eventually, with enough beer in their systems, bought expensive Nau gear  at a First Thursday 20 percent discount.  What this Frugal Traveler loved more than the free suds, however, was the utter normality. No one seemed surprised that drinks would be given away, let alone that theyd actually be worth drinking. And in that casual acceptance, I discerned a characteristic of Portland that would enchant me over the course of a week, as I explored restaurants and bars, artisanal cafes and mushrooming food carts, funky neighborhoods and weird little museums. Amid economic catastrophe  Oregon has the countrys second-highest unemployment rate  there was a general indifference to wealth. In its place was a dedication to the things that really matter: hearty food and drink, cultural pursuits both high and low, days in the outdoors and evenings out with friends. Its the good life, and in Portland it still comes cheap.  Take the two-year-old Ace Hotel, where I stayed for much of my sojourn. This boutique reincarnation of what was once the mildly dingy Clyde Hotel is in the heart of downtown, steps from major public transit stops. It was comfortable beyond what Im accustomed to, with richly rugged wool blankets from Portlands Pendleton Woolen Mills on the bed and crushed-pearl-and-charcoal soap-on-a-rope by the sink. And, at $75 a night, it was eminently affordable, although I had to forgo an en suite bathroom and embrace the unexpected thrill of walking down the hall  in nothing but my Adidas and my Ace hooded bathrobe  to the sparkling shared (but private) showers.  But it was the freebies that seduced me. Stacks of of-the-moment magazines  Frank, Color, Tokion, ReadyMade  lay about to read on lobby couches or take to your room. Elegant Jorg & Olif bicycles were available free to hotel guests. At the adjacent Stumptown Coffee, powerful French press brews were free Monday mornings till Tax Day. Rarely do I really like to hang around hotels, but like a cosmopolitan version of an all-inclusive Caribbean resort (the kind you swear to resent but wind up in a codependent relationship with), the Ace kept me in its warm, value-added embrace longer than I thought possible.  Eventually, though, I would break away and go off  by bike, by foot or by bus (a weeklong TriMet pass is $22.50)  in search of sustenance, whether in sometimes stately, sometimes shabby downtown or over the Willamette River into the lazily gentrifying neighborhoods of the east side.  This was no easy task, because Portland is overflowing with great, affordable restaurants. In dozens of meals, I dont think I was ever truly disappointed with a single bite, nor did I ever leave hungry, nor did my friends and I ever spend more than $25 a person. In fact, if I had any regrets, it was that I felt duty-bound not to repeat a restaurant visit no matter how much I liked a place and wanted to return.  This joyful stress would begin with the citys most important meal: breakfast. Despite its laid-back aura, Portland is an early-rising town, and its commuting cyclists need fuel for their morning rides. They could do worse than stop at Bunk Sandwiches, which in the six months since it opened has started a meat-and-other-things-on-bread renaissance by combining high-quality ingredients in innovative ways.  The house creations appear each day on a chalkboard near the doorway  an Oregon albacore tuna melt, a P.B.L.T. of pork belly, lettuce and green tomato pickles  but at 7 a.m. theres really only one choice, the classic breakfast sandwich (sausage patty, sharp Tillamook Cheddar and a fried egg on a poppy-seed hard roll, $5). As is, its stellar. But add anchovies ($2), and its something else entirely, the fishy saltiness amping up the sausages sweetness and the tartness of the cheese. Seven bucks may seem a lot, but for the best breakfast sandwich ever, its a bargain.  Another morning, I met my friend Alison Williams Colman and her husband, Laurence Colman, at Broder, a Scandinavian brunch spot on a quintessentially Portland section of Southeast Clinton Street. (Bike lane? Check. Brewery? Check. Discount art-house cinema? Vintage stores? Punk rock record shops? Check, check, check!) Broder was packed, but the free coffee in the next-door waiting room kept us going until we could squeeze into a table and order some smoked-trout hash. When the $41 check came, Alison surprised me by whipping out a $25 coupon shed bought for $2 on Restaurant.com. The waiter accepted it without a peep (he got a big tip), and I marveled again at how well Portlanders live on so little.  Portlands food carts may be the best example of that. Carts have existed for roughly a decade, offering low-cost lunchtime grub, but in the last couple of years theyve exploded in numbers and ambition, with cuisines ranging from Mexican and Thai to Korean and Kazakh to Dutch waffles and Belgian fries. (A Russian cart even found brief fame as a destination on last seasons Amazing Race finale, but it has since closed.)  Today, there are almost 400 carts around Portland, most of them clustered into pods that ring parking lots, and thanks to low start-up costs and Multnomah Countys straightforward licensing and inspection regime, aspiring chefs can make their names without major investments. As a New Yorker I was jealous; as the Frugal Traveler, overjoyed at what I could find within a single pod. The slices ($2 to $3) at Give Pizza a Chance were excellent, with a thin inner crust, a thicker, chewy outer crust and fresh, brightly flavored toppings (like the tomatoes, basil, artichokes and onions on the Compost slice). Next door, at Tábor, I followed the painted instructions to Czech Out Czech Food and fell in love with the schnitzelwich ($6.50), a fried pork or chicken cutlet bound to soft bread with ajvar (a red-pepper spread) and stinging horseradish sauce. Brunch Box, around the corner, was making its own English muffins, plus crazy burgers like the OMG! ($6), a cheeseburger with egg, ham, SPAM and bacon; and the YouCanHasCheeseburger ($5), a patty stuck between two Texas-toast grilled cheese sandwiches. (Bring Lipitor.)  One of the best things about food carts, in Portland and elsewhere, is getting to talk to the person whos cooking your meal. Ziba Ljucevic, who runs Zibas Pitas, is one of the sweetest operators in all of Portlands pods. A Bosnian immigrant, she arrived in 2002 just after the Balkan wars, speaking almost no English but fluent in the culinary language of her homeland. Unlike Greek pitas, Ms. Ljucevics are round, bready pies of surpassing lightness, stuffed with ground meat, spinach, zucchini or (my favorite) eggs, cheese and sour cream. For $5.95, shell give you a quarter of each, plus cucumber salad and a puddle of ajvar, and if you chat with her, as I did, about regional pita variations among the former Yugoslav republics, she may throw in a free drink.  MATT GROSS writes the Frugal Traveler blog, which is updated every Wednesday at nytimes.com/travel.
In this beguiling Pacific Northwest city of artisanal cafes, offbeat museums, funky neighborhoods and food carts from every corner of the world, the good life comes cheap.