Portland likes to think it’s Portland, but the city hasn’t been the same in the last ten or so years. Now it’s just sad with addicts and homeless people everywhere.
I’ll pick New Orleans. They have some fun people there.
Portland, Oregon. Portland is so weird. Extremely left-wing, yet totally NIMBY. They love everyone in Portland… and bitch constantly about people who moved there after 1999. You’re as likely to encounter a nude yoga group that only stretches their bare buttholes to the sky on organically grown St. Augustine grass as you are a grunge metal club who spits on the sidewalk and chain smokes Natural Spirit cigarettes through their lip rings. Portland is an enigma. It’s a beautiful, chaotic mess.
I know OP said that places in Florida don’t count but, in Florida’s defense, I just had to make an observation: when you consider just the huge percentage of people in Florida who are actually transplants, then you have to conclude that a lot of that famous “Florida Man ” craziness may very well be IMPORTED from other places.
From a general American point of view, it’s Portland Oregon hands down. All of the eccentric people I’ve known have moved there and fit right in. Are there weird cities in each state, sure, but the weird capital of the US is definitely Portland.
I know lots of people think Portland is more weird, but to me it actually feels like they’re trying too hard. In New Orleans, they’re weird because they’re just…weird. And I mean that in a “fantastic place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there” sort of way.
NYC. Weirdos and eccentrics from other cities would just be “artists” in NYC. The weirdos and eccentrics from NYC would get the cops and a couple of exorcists called on them in other cities.
Telluride CO and Bisbee AZ!!! Very poetic people. Telluride is full of very eccentric trust funders and weirdo rich people and Bisbee has a very “paperback writer, day tripper” vibe! Love em both!
My pitch is come to Los Angeles. The principle here is you can be anybody you want and nobody will look twice
Or they may look, but they’re not going to bother you. Because maybe you are a freak evil Spider-Man on Hollywood, or maybe you are the happiest gay person in WeHo, or you want tea and a sober rave downtown, or you’re the dude that seems to live at the end of my block screaming songs while he listens to an iPod, but he also plays guitar and holds the taco truck space until they show up at noon, or this one lady who remembers my dog from five years ago with all the plastic surgery and a very big and kind heart, or a dreamer like me and like all of us, or my one of my many grizzled friends I see on my way to work at the beach who is not scary or an addict, just an old guy who has been going to sit around there for decades
I’m forever fascinated by the way people are so very different based on the part of the country they come from, and the major city within that area.
I couldn’t pick my favorite weirdo city cause they’re all so different from the next and that is so weird to me. It’s because of our origin story, and how each place came to be.
There’s a book called “American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America” for any history buffs out there.
Any decent sized desert city/town. The deserts and the history of westward expansion has has created a hodgepodge of personalities.
New age lesbian van life aunts, off the grid former military conspiracy theorist, religious cults, young but broke startup couples who love everything and wanting to start life, old conservative retirees who hate everything whose wives gamble their money away , meth head trailer park people who believe in Bigfoot and time traveling space Jews.
There are also scruffy people with biker gang connections or newer cartel connections, lot lizards and creepy bus drivers who eat at diners with toothless waitresses, old ranchers who still act like cowboys and talk like old timey gold prospectors, yuppies who buy properties made of glass and solar panels and don’t fit it with anyone there, billionaires who are building facilities to research immortality, eccentric hermit people who make bizarre statues and giant art pieces out of salvaged junkyard metal etc.
Mix that with the sparsely beautiful yet rugged unforgiving climate, military secrecy, the whispers of conquistadors and Catholic missions, Native American mysticism, borderline ghost towns with retro architecture and freaky roadside attractions, and the general “go out west to start over DIY mentality” and you get a very surreal and spooky vibe
New Orleans but it’s a really different type of weird than Portland or Austin. A good weird in my opinion. There’s really no pressure to conform here or try to fit in. The dive bars are filled with executives in suits talking to musicians who have been coach surfing for months. Fascinating and really no place like it.
It’s all a matter of perspective, isn’t it? I never felt more out of place anywhere in the US than I did in Salina, KS but I doubt most people there think it’s a hotbed of weirdness.
Asheville NC is pretty weird. For instance, the last time I was there, there were people playing various hollowed out dry gourds in front of the Whole Foods. That’s not really out of place there.
New Orleans isn’t weird at all. I love visiting there. Admittedly I stay away from Bourbon Street, but I don’t find the people there odd at all.
For strange people, I’d say SLC is near the top. Everyone you meet has one of 10 names. Everyone 18 and older wears a wedding ring. Many girls as young as 16 wear engagement rings. People there just generally act bizarre. Like aliens posing as humans.
Bismarck people also are a little weird. People there always seem to be living in a just slightly earlier year… Like they seem almost normal but then suddenly you realize they seem to think they live in 2016.
Weirdest? Philadelphia. There are so many freaks and geeks just walking around everywhere. Look at a home game for Philly sports. Most eccentric? New Orleans
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new orleans
Portland, OR and not even close
Portland or Seattle. Probably Portland.
I live in Portland Oregon. Our motto is literally “Keep Portland Weird”.
New York has the largest pool to choose from so I’m going with NY.
Oakland, CA. Followed closely by Berkeley, CA. I will die on this hill.
Portland for sure.
Seattle is too corporate to be as weird as Portland.
Philly
You should check out Slab City, California. Plenty of documentaries on YouTube. If you’re looking for eccentric and weird, definitely worth a watch.
Portland likes to think it’s Portland, but the city hasn’t been the same in the last ten or so years. Now it’s just sad with addicts and homeless people everywhere.
I’ll pick New Orleans. They have some fun people there.
I’ve been to all the major cities in the US and they all have their characters, but most people sleep on Albuquerque for weirdness.
Still, Portland has definitely made a brand of it.
Las Vegas. Desert people are already weird but they’re even weirder in a city whose economy is powered by a capitalist fever dream.
Honorable mention to The Villages in FL (not a major city, just 150k weirdos)
Portland, Oregon. Portland is so weird. Extremely left-wing, yet totally NIMBY. They love everyone in Portland… and bitch constantly about people who moved there after 1999. You’re as likely to encounter a nude yoga group that only stretches their bare buttholes to the sky on organically grown St. Augustine grass as you are a grunge metal club who spits on the sidewalk and chain smokes Natural Spirit cigarettes through their lip rings. Portland is an enigma. It’s a beautiful, chaotic mess.
Baltimore. Charm City!
We all have a few screws loose in New Orleans
It almost feels like cheating to say it, but Hollywood (and the LA area in general) has to be up there.
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Eugene is weirder than Portland.
New Orleans.
I’m going with Indy – that town is off the rails.
I once saw a woman in Indianapolis drink a glass of coke without using a straw.
I know Portland is the winner, but Baltimore has a great selection of weirdness and counterculture
I know OP said that places in Florida don’t count but, in Florida’s defense, I just had to make an observation: when you consider just the huge percentage of people in Florida who are actually transplants, then you have to conclude that a lot of that famous “Florida Man ” craziness may very well be IMPORTED from other places.
Some of it might even be from your state.
Portland, OR. Side mention Seattle’s Capitol Hill.
Austin, TX or Boulder, CO.
Just from what I’ve heard.
Las Vegas.
You can’t walk from one side of the strip to another without bumping into eccentric people. Las Vegas itself is a wild city.
From a general American point of view, it’s Portland Oregon hands down. All of the eccentric people I’ve known have moved there and fit right in. Are there weird cities in each state, sure, but the weird capital of the US is definitely Portland.
It used to be Austin, but now it’s all wealthy tech bros
Baltimore. Hometown of John Waters.
Portland or Asheville
I’m gonna say New Orleans.
I know lots of people think Portland is more weird, but to me it actually feels like they’re trying too hard. In New Orleans, they’re weird because they’re just…weird. And I mean that in a “fantastic place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there” sort of way.
Salt Lake City. Religious oppression makes people sprint in the opposite direction.
Houston. Folks from there think it’s the greatest city on earth, everyone else thinks it’s a miserable city on a swamp.
NYC. Weirdos and eccentrics from other cities would just be “artists” in NYC. The weirdos and eccentrics from NYC would get the cops and a couple of exorcists called on them in other cities.
Eerie, Indiana
LA and NY
In my state, Austin.
New York City without any doubt.
New Orleans
No contest: Nawlins.
Telluride CO and Bisbee AZ!!! Very poetic people. Telluride is full of very eccentric trust funders and weirdo rich people and Bisbee has a very “paperback writer, day tripper” vibe! Love em both!
There’s all kinds of weird but for eccentric it’s gotta be New Orleans.
Key west
Portland or Seattle
I will make a pitch for my city
My pitch is come to Los Angeles. The principle here is you can be anybody you want and nobody will look twice
Or they may look, but they’re not going to bother you. Because maybe you are a freak evil Spider-Man on Hollywood, or maybe you are the happiest gay person in WeHo, or you want tea and a sober rave downtown, or you’re the dude that seems to live at the end of my block screaming songs while he listens to an iPod, but he also plays guitar and holds the taco truck space until they show up at noon, or this one lady who remembers my dog from five years ago with all the plastic surgery and a very big and kind heart, or a dreamer like me and like all of us, or my one of my many grizzled friends I see on my way to work at the beach who is not scary or an addict, just an old guy who has been going to sit around there for decades
This is a city of eccentrics and acceptance
I’m forever fascinated by the way people are so very different based on the part of the country they come from, and the major city within that area.
I couldn’t pick my favorite weirdo city cause they’re all so different from the next and that is so weird to me. It’s because of our origin story, and how each place came to be.
There’s a book called “American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America” for any history buffs out there.
Florida doesn’t count 🤣
San Francisco
Portland Ore
Portland had an entire tv show about being weirdos
Boulder CO has some real crunchy types around it. Some of the oddest people I e ever met were when I was working in Boulder
New Orleans in a good way, NYC in a interesting bit still a little bit scary way
Any decent sized desert city/town. The deserts and the history of westward expansion has has created a hodgepodge of personalities.
New age lesbian van life aunts, off the grid former military conspiracy theorist, religious cults, young but broke startup couples who love everything and wanting to start life, old conservative retirees who hate everything whose wives gamble their money away , meth head trailer park people who believe in Bigfoot and time traveling space Jews.
There are also scruffy people with biker gang connections or newer cartel connections, lot lizards and creepy bus drivers who eat at diners with toothless waitresses, old ranchers who still act like cowboys and talk like old timey gold prospectors, yuppies who buy properties made of glass and solar panels and don’t fit it with anyone there, billionaires who are building facilities to research immortality, eccentric hermit people who make bizarre statues and giant art pieces out of salvaged junkyard metal etc.
Mix that with the sparsely beautiful yet rugged unforgiving climate, military secrecy, the whispers of conquistadors and Catholic missions, Native American mysticism, borderline ghost towns with retro architecture and freaky roadside attractions, and the general “go out west to start over DIY mentality” and you get a very surreal and spooky vibe
Prob Vegas.
New Orleans but it’s a really different type of weird than Portland or Austin. A good weird in my opinion. There’s really no pressure to conform here or try to fit in. The dive bars are filled with executives in suits talking to musicians who have been coach surfing for months. Fascinating and really no place like it.
It’s all a matter of perspective, isn’t it? I never felt more out of place anywhere in the US than I did in Salina, KS but I doubt most people there think it’s a hotbed of weirdness.
Asheville NC is pretty weird. For instance, the last time I was there, there were people playing various hollowed out dry gourds in front of the Whole Foods. That’s not really out of place there.
LA It’s literally a bunch of actors who are the weirdest people on earth
Dallas is full of creepy faux-evangelical
billionaires who work for Big Oil. It’s weird AF.
New Orleans isn’t weird at all. I love visiting there. Admittedly I stay away from Bourbon Street, but I don’t find the people there odd at all.
For strange people, I’d say SLC is near the top. Everyone you meet has one of 10 names. Everyone 18 and older wears a wedding ring. Many girls as young as 16 wear engagement rings. People there just generally act bizarre. Like aliens posing as humans.
Bismarck people also are a little weird. People there always seem to be living in a just slightly earlier year… Like they seem almost normal but then suddenly you realize they seem to think they live in 2016.
Weirdest? Philadelphia. There are so many freaks and geeks just walking around everywhere. Look at a home game for Philly sports. Most eccentric? New Orleans