Dive In: Access to a Glamorous Swimming Pool Is Just a Click Away

You won’t often hear the argument that Portland is a dry town, but when it comes to pools, them’s the facts.

We’ve got swimming holes and lakes, to be sure, but our options for an in-town dip are shockingly limited to a few packed public pools, or for those lucky enough to have a friend-who-has-a-friend with a backyard bath, a private one.

Enter Swimply. It’s an app that operates like Airbnb for pools, hot tubs and saunas, allowing those of us looking to host a water-focused summer fête to rent the space by the hour from hosts all over the Portland metro area. The company says it has more than 20,000 pools available to reserve on its platform in all 50 states, Canada and Australia.

There are all sorts of glamorous options: a saltwater infinity pool on a 7-acre estate in Lake Oswego, complete with a hot tub, outdoor TV, grill and tiki torches for just $109 an hour; a midcentury indoor pool surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows with real Mad Men vibes; and another one in Wilsonville with waterfalls, cabana beds and underwater lights. There’s also a listing that only has a basketball and pickleball court, if swimming isn’t your thing.

After considering our options, our group of four grabbed a hot tub and sauna in Southeast for $75 an hour in late spring, hoping to find a bit of warmth during a long stretch of unseasonably cold temperatures. Swimply, like other host-sponsored spaces, requires research and reading reviews. We should have taken the lack of reviews, despite noticing that a couple dozen other people had booked our spot, as a warning.

We struck out, finding our rental to be in the backyard of a dedicated bachelor pad, complete with ashtrays full of cigarette butts and a hot tub that, while not filthy, could have been a touch cleaner. The sauna, one of those portable barrels, was just dandy and where we spent the bulk of our time. This was truly our bad for not doing a bit better at screening.

That being said, our friend group is already diving back in for future pool action: That saltwater infinity pool is going to be one hell of an epic mid-July jam.

GO: swimply.com/search/usa/or/portland