Having just made another road trip south, this time down Hwy. 101 from Arch Cape, I feel the need to post about the beauty of this section of the United States.

I grew up in Portland and spent many, many weekends and summers visiting mostly the Lincoln City area of the central coast with my mom and step dad + siblings. It takes less than two hours to get to Lincoln City from Portland. Although slightly further away from Portland, Lincoln City has the more reasonably priced accommodations and when I was a kid, there was an amusement park there, Pixieland, which is unfortunately long gone.

We also visited Cannon Beach and Seaside (closer to Portland) on occasion and camped at Ft. Stevens (near Astoria) and Cape Meares (near Tillamook) quite often. My grandparents on my dad’s side lived in Tillamook (Tillamook Cheese Factory has become quite famous), and Papa was a charter fisherman, taking folks out on both the Wilson and Trask rivers for salmon, and into the mighty Pacific for halibut, cod, tuna, rockfish, and more salmon! I caught my first halibut (bigger than me) at age five with just a little help from Papa.

The Oregon Coast is loosely separated into three sections: North, Central, and South. Up top, at the Washington State border is Astoria. Just south of Astoria is where the beaches start and the north coast goes down to about Pacific City. The north Oregon coast generally speaking encompasses the towns of Astoria (of Goonies fame), Gearhart, Seaside (surfing at the south end), Cannon Beach (“fanciest” town full of shops, restaurants, and galleries), Manzanita, Tillamook, and Pacific City (lots of little towns in there too).

Arch Cape, where our beach house is located, is between Cannon Beach and Manzanita.

The central Oregon Coast begins at Lincoln City and extends down to Florence (start of the sand dunes) and includes Depoe Bay (year round whale watching and the famous spouting horn), Newport (really cool aquarium where “Keiko the whale” lived for a while), Waldport, and Yachats.

On Monday of this week we stopped in for lunch at Newport, which has great beach and harbor view restaurants. We opted for a harbor view at Local Ocean Seafood.

I’m not going to say the central Oregon coast is boring, because it definitely isn’t, but I’m a bit partial to the north and south regions and have way more pics of those.

Yachats is a great little town with good food, fun hiking, tumultuous ocean waters (devil’s churn), and a pretty cool lighthouse where my youngest brother was married almost 16 years ago.

The southern Oregon Coast begins at Reedsport and extends down to Brookings, just north of the California border. We’ve spent some time in this region on trips down south. Towns include Bandon (Bandon Dunes links style golf courses), Port Orford, and Gold Beach (Tu Tu Tun Lodge).

Although we don’t always take the coast route down from Oregon to California, because it takes longer, we do appreciate the beauty each and every time we do. And once you hit northern California, the fun really begins because gorgeous coastline AND REDWOODS!!! 🌲