Part of Notes from the Road, our city-by-city series.
The short answer: Craigslist took its Personals section offline in 2018, and no single site replaced it. Personal ads in Seattle and Portland now live on two busy Reddit boards, r/r4rSeattle and r/r4rPortland, on classified sites such as Doublelist and Locanto, and in text-first apps including AseeksB. Missed connections never left: Craigslist still runs them in both cities, and Seattle’s alt-weekly still runs its own. On October 10, 2026, we read the newest ads in both cities.
In Seattle and Portland, people search for missed connections more than for personals. “Portland missed connections” gets about 2,900 searches a month and “seattle missed connections” about 1,600, against about 1,300 for “seattle r4r” and 110 for “seattle personals” (Google Keyword Planner, October 2026). The two cities are about 175 miles apart on I-5, close enough to share a region and far enough apart that each has its own boards.
Here is how each option works in both cities, from our checks on October 10, 2026:
For each city below, we read the 20 newest ads on Locanto and Doublelist, and every SeekingList ad, on October 10, 2026, and counted the escort ads. Passing this test doesn’t make an ad genuine: an ad can look ordinary and still try to move you to another app once you reply. AseeksB ads can’t be read without an account, so they weren’t counted. How we check.
AseeksB publishes this page and is included in it. For how each site handles the eight traits that defined Craigslist Personals, see our full comparison.
Seattle sits between Puget Sound and Lake Washington, with the Eastside across the bridges and the islands a ferry ride away. A Seattle ad should say which side of the water you are on, and whether you would cross it on a weeknight.
What we found. On Locanto, 4 of the 20 newest Seattle ads were posted as women, and all 4 were escort ads; the 16 posted as men looked genuine. On Doublelist, 12 of the 20 newest Seattle ads were escort ads. SeekingList’s Seattle page was mostly copies of posts from r/r4rSeattle, about seven months old: 11 of those posts had since been deleted on Reddit and 1 removed by its moderators, and 3 of the 7 ads posted to SeekingList directly were escort ads.
Reddit. r/r4rSeattle, created in 2011, had about 64,000 followers, with about 11,000 weekly visitors and 1,300 weekly contributions on Reddit’s count. It is for the greater Seattle area, which the rules describe as roughly anywhere close enough for a day trip that doesn’t have an active r4r board of its own; visitors give their dates, and Portland posts belong on Portland’s boards. Posts need at least 400 characters, titles start with your age and a tag, like “22 [f4m] Seeking a hiking partner,” you can post once every 24 hours, and online-only posts are removed: a post has to show you want to meet in person. Phone numbers, emails, Snap, and Kik go in private messages, not posts; buying or selling anything to do with sex, exchanging money or goods, sugar arrangements, and OnlyFans are all banned. Unverified accounts have to be at least 3 days old and can’t link to photos, nobody can post for someone else, including a partner, and accounts with a history of karma farming or AI-generated content are banned.
The Willamette splits Portland into east and west, joined by its bridges, and the city carries on across the Columbia into Vancouver, Washington. East side or west side is the first thing to say in a Portland ad; the second is which bridge you would cross.
What we found. On Locanto, 4 of the 20 newest Portland ads were posted as women, and all 4 were escort ads; the 16 posted as men looked genuine. On Doublelist, 5 of the 20 newest Portland ads were escort ads. SeekingList had 9 Portland ads, and the 4 posted as women were all escort ads.
Reddit. r/r4rPortland, created in 2012, had about 46,000 followers, with about 7,600 weekly visitors and 668 weekly contributions. It describes itself as r4r for the greater Portland area, for anything from platonic friends and gaming partners to polyamorous relationships and casual encounters. You have to live near Portland, and accounts must be more than 30 days old. Short, repeated, and bot posts are removed; selling or trading anything for sex, including escorting and massages, is banned; and so is harassment.
Craigslist’s missed connections are still busy in both cities, and every post we read looked like a genuine missed connection. On October 10, 2026, Portland’s 20 newest had all been posted in the previous 6 days; Seattle’s 20 newest went back 15 days.
Seattle also has a missed connections column. The Stranger, the city’s alt-weekly, still runs I Saw U online: readers submit a message, the paper rounds them up every few weeks, most recently on September 25, 2026, and people connect in the comments or on the paper’s Instagram post. Recent roundups include making out on light rail, chatting in line at Analog, and a dropped earbud outside Poquitos. In Portland, the Mercury’s anonymous column, I, Anonymous, takes rants and confessions rather than missed connections.
AseeksB has a missed connections category too: say where and when, and only the audience you choose can see the post. For how to write one that the right person will recognize, see our guide to missed connections.
Beyond the apps. Seattle Social Collective runs speed dating on Capitol Hill, with a night of heterosexual speed dating for ages 25 to 37 at Stoup Brewing on November 8, 2026. Little Gay Book runs online speed dating for lesbian, bi, trans, and queer singles on the West Coast, for people in their 30s and 40s on October 21 and in their 40s and 50s on October 28. In Portland, CitySwoon runs speed dating for ages 45 to 57 at River Pig Saloon in the Pearl on October 21, and for ages 29 to 49 at The Garden Tavern in Eliot on October 30. For more ways to meet people, with or without an app, see our guide to alternatives to dating apps.
Craigslist still has Seattle and Portland sites, and their missed connections are busy, 20 posts in 6 days in Portland against 13 in three months in Toronto, but the Personals section went in 2018. Which site comes closest to Craigslist depends on what you used it for: reading ads without signing up, replying without a match, or staying anonymous. Our Craigslist alternatives comparison sorts the sites by those traits. If you came looking for Doublelist or Locanto in Seattle or Portland, the numbers above are what we found; for more, see sites like Doublelist and sites like Locanto.
Seattle’s personal ads are older than Craigslist. Seattle outfitted many of the prospectors heading north to the Klondike, and in December 1898 the Seattle Post-Intelligencer carried this:
“AM A NEW YORK MAN, young, good-looking, clever; returned this week from Atlin solely for purpose meeting young maiden or widow matrimonially inclined with some capital to assist me in splendid money-making interests positively secured; personal interview by appointment.”
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, December 11, 1898. Read the adAtlin, in northern British Columbia, had a gold rush of its own in 1898, and his promises of interests “positively secured” read, to modern eyes, like a warning sign. Five years earlier the same paper had carried a notice meant for one reader only: “Cannot see you today.” And in 1922 a woman in Ogden, Utah, advertised for a girl to go hiking to Portland with her, more than 700 miles away. More in our history of personal ads and The Personals Archive.
A written ad says which side of the lake, or the river, before anyone crosses a bridge. AseeksB is free to download and post, and every post shows how far away it was posted.
One honest difference: AseeksB ads can only be read inside the app after signing up, unlike Reddit’s boards and the classified sites above. That is the trade for choosing exactly who sees each post, and first messages stay in the app, where you can report someone even after they unmatch.
Text-first personal ads for Seattle, Portland, and the rest of the Pacific Northwest, in your own words, with distance and other controls in Supporter.
Craigslist took its Personals section offline in the US on March 22, 2018, after Congress passed FOSTA, including in Seattle and Portland. People there now post on Reddit’s r/r4rSeattle and r/r4rPortland, on classified-style sites such as Doublelist and SeekingList, in Locanto’s personals section, and in text-first apps such as AseeksB. Missed connections still run on Craigslist, and in Seattle, in The Stranger’s I Saw U. They differ mainly in who can read your ad and how replies reach you.
Yes, r/r4rSeattle, with about 64,000 followers, 11,000 weekly visitors, and 1,300 weekly contributions in October 2026. It is for the greater Seattle area, posts need at least 400 characters and must show you want to meet in person, titles start with your age and a tag, like “22 [f4m],” and you can post once every 24 hours.
Yes, r/r4rPortland, with about 46,000 followers, 7,600 weekly visitors, and 668 weekly contributions in October 2026. You have to live near Portland, your account must be more than 30 days old, short and repeated posts are removed, and selling or trading anything for sex is banned.
Craigslist still has missed connections in both cities, under Community. When we read them on October 10, 2026, the 20 newest in Portland had all been posted in the previous 6 days, Seattle’s went back 15 days, and all of them looked genuine. In Seattle, The Stranger also rounds up readers’ I Saw U messages online every few weeks. AseeksB has a missed connections category too.
Yes. AseeksB is a free personal ads app for iOS and Android. Every post shows how far away it was posted, anyone can search by distance, and Supporters can also set a maximum distance on their own posts. A free account keeps one active post, and someone can send one message per post until you reply.