Oregon Coast

About Oregon Coast

The Oregon Coast isn't one destination — it's a 360-mile ribbon of Highway 101 strung with sea stacks, lighthouses, fishing towns, and beaches that are public by state law from end to end. Most travelers do it as a multi-stop road trip, which makes hotel strategy different here: you're booking two or three small-town properties instead of one big resort, and the inventory in towns like Cannon Beach and Newport is genuinely limited. Summer weekends sell out months ahead, and member rates that aren't displayed on the open web can take real money off a multi-night itinerary — a meaningful difference some nights, more modest others.

The classic route runs north to south: Astoria's Victorian hills and working waterfront at the Columbia's mouth, Cannon Beach and Haystack Rock an hour down, Newport's bayfront and the Oregon Coast Aquarium in the middle stretch, and Bandon's dramatic sea-stack beaches in the south. In between are the capes — Kiwanda, Lookout, Meares — and Heceta Head, arguably the most photogenic lighthouse on the West Coast. Pack layers regardless of month: summer mornings are often fogged in, burning off to bright afternoons in the 60s.

Our Travel Editor's Oregon Coast advice: don't try to drive the whole thing in a weekend. Pick one stretch — Astoria to Pacific City covers the greatest hits in the north — and book oceanfront where it counts, because on this coast 'oceanfront' versus 'ocean view across the highway' is the difference that makes the trip. And remember Oregon has no sales tax, which quietly shaves a few percent off every room night compared to the coasts north and south of it.

— Our Travel Editor