13 Gorgeous Pacific Coast Towns to Visit
The Pacific Coast saves its best scenery for its smallest towns. Cannon Beach frames a 235-foot sea stack standing in the surf, and Astoria looks out over the mouth of the Columbia from a bluff of Victorian houses. Even Harmony, a dairy hamlet of eighteen people, opens onto headlands above the water. Trinidad watches over a harbor scattered with offshore rocks. The most beautiful of these towns reach the length of the Pacific coast, and on this shore the view is the whole reason to stop.
Carmel-by-the-Sea, California
Carmel-by-the-Sea is barely one square mile of the Monterey Peninsula, an old artists' colony of cottages with no street addresses and no traffic lights. Carmel Beach, a white-sand crescent below Ocean Avenue, is framed by wind-bent cypress. A bluff path along Scenic Road follows the shore south for the best of the sunset views.
The Carmel Mission, founded in 1770, is the second of the California missions and marks the burial place of Junipero Serra. Ocean Avenue drops downhill through galleries, tasting rooms, and restaurants to the water.
Harmony, California
Home to fewer than twenty people, Harmony is an old dairy town on Highway 1 in San Luis Obispo County, now a cluster of artisan studios. Glassblowers and potters work out of the former creamery buildings, and a small chapel hosts weddings.
Just up the road, Harmony Headlands State Park protects a mile-and-a-half trail out to bluffs above the Pacific. Cambria and its restaurants are a few minutes north.
Astoria, Oregon
Astoria climbs a steep hillside above the mouth of the Columbia River, one of the oldest American settlements west of the Rockies. Victorian houses stack up the slope, and the Astoria Column tops the hill with a painted spiral frieze of regional history.
Just southwest of town, Fort Clatsop marks where the Lewis and Clark expedition wintered in 1805 after reaching the Pacific. The riverfront trolley and the Flavel House, a restored Victorian mansion, round out an easy day downtown.
Point Arena, California
On the Mendocino coast north of Santa Rosa, Point Arena is a quiet one-street town with an outsized lighthouse. The Point Arena Lighthouse stands at the end of a narrow point, one of the tallest on the West Coast, with a spiral climb to the lamp room.
The B. Bryan Preserve, on the bluffs above town, raises endangered African zebra, giraffe, and antelope, with tours out through the fields. Below, the town pier reaches into the surf past a short row of cafes.
Inverness, California
Inverness lines the southwest shore of Tomales Bay, the last town before Point Reyes National Seashore. Kayakers put in on the calm bay water, and rented cabins look back across it toward the hills.
Out on the point, the Cypress Tree Tunnel, the 1870 lighthouse, and Limantour Beach are the highlights. A few small kitchens in town serve oysters and coffee.
Westport, Washington
On the south side of Grays Harbor where it opens to the Pacific, Westport is a working fishing and surfing town of about 2,100 people in Washington. It lies between Ocean Shores and Long Beach, around two and a half hours from Seattle.
The 107-foot Grays Harbor Lighthouse, the tallest in the state, rises just back from the beach at Westport Light State Park. Charter boats head out of the marina for salmon and tuna, and the docks sell the catch fresh.
Cannon Beach, Oregon
Cannon Beach is one of Oregon's favorite beach towns, and Haystack Rock is the reason most people come. The 235-foot sea stack rises straight off the sand, close enough to walk to at low tide, past tide pools full of sea stars and anemones.
Tufted puffins nest on the rock through the summer. Ecola and Oswald West state parks bracket the town with headlands and coves, and Hug Point hides a waterfall and sea caves reachable only at low tide.
Trinidad, California
One of California's smallest incorporated cities, Trinidad is home to about 300 people on a forested bluff above its own harbor north of Eureka. Ten public beaches and a scatter of offshore rocks, part of the California Coastal National Monument, ring the town.
The Trinidad Head Trail loops around the headland that shelters the bay, a short blufftop hike with gray whales offshore in spring. Two lighthouses mark the point, the 1871 Trinidad Head Light out on the head and a 1949 memorial replica beside the harbor, where the pier still lands crab and rockfish.
Bodega Bay, California
Bodega Bay curls around a working harbor on the Sonoma Coast, a fishing town with a long crescent of state beach. Bodega Head, the rocky point at the harbor mouth, is a prime spot for watching gray whales pass in winter and spring.
The village of Bodega just inland still has the church and schoolhouse Alfred Hitchcock used in The Birds. On the way out of town, the Children's Bell Tower rings with 140 Italian bells, a memorial to a Bodega Bay boy whose organ donation became known across Italy as the Nicholas Effect.
Pistol River, Oregon
Named for the river that reaches the sea beside it, Pistol River is a scatter of houses on the southern Oregon coast. Wind sweeps the dunes at the Pistol River State Scenic Viewpoint, the site of a windsurfing contest most years.
Myers Creek Beach just south is studded with sea stacks that catch the light at sunset. The wild shoreline of the Samuel H. Boardman corridor begins nearby, with hidden coves and natural rock arches.
Laguna Beach, California
Laguna Beach folds into the coastal hills of Orange County, an old artists' colony that became one of Southern California's best-known beach towns. Coves and pocket beaches line the shore, and tide pools open up at Heisler Park and Crystal Cove State Park just up the coast.
The town still lives on art, with summer festivals and galleries packed along the village streets. Fresh seafood and ocean-view tables make the cliffs above Main Beach an easy place to end the day.
Friday Harbor, Washington
Reached only by ferry or floatplane, Friday Harbor is the main town on San Juan Island and the hub of the San Juans, home to about 2,500 people. The waterfront of shops, galleries, and seafood counters wraps around a busy marina.
Out at Lime Kiln Point State Park, the shoreline is one of the best places in the country to watch orcas from land. Lavender farms and small vineyards spread across the island's interior, an easy loop by bike or car.
Bandon, Oregon
Bandon rests at the mouth of the Coquille River on the southern Oregon coast, cranberry country and one of the state's great beach towns. Face Rock and a field of sea stacks stand just offshore, named for a Native legend and best seen from the Face Rock State Scenic Viewpoint.
The 1896 Coquille River Lighthouse marks the north bank at Bullards Beach State Park. Downtown, the Washed Ashore gallery builds giant sea-creature sculptures entirely from ocean plastic, and the Circles in the Sand labyrinths appear on the beach on select low-tide mornings.
The Coast, One Town At A Time
The West Coast rewards travelers who slow down for the small towns. Point Arena offers a lighthouse at the end of a windswept point. Laguna Beach hides pocket coves beneath an old art colony. Friday Harbor takes a ferry to reach and an afternoon of orca-watching to justify it. Bandon lines its sea stacks up against the sunset. Each one is small enough to see in a day and good enough to earn a weekend.
