14 of the Best Small Towns to Visit on the Pacific Coast

At Fort Bragg, on the northern California coast, waves have tumbled decades of old dump glass into smooth pebbles that still carpet parts of Glass Beach. A few hundred miles north, Yachats meets the Oregon surf at its loudest, where an incoming tide drains into a basalt hole called Thor's Well. Farther up the coast at Florence, an elevator drops visitors into the largest sea cave in the country, where Steller sea lions haul out on the rocks. These are three of the 14 small towns strung along the Pacific Coast, each one its own reason to make the trip.

Carmel-By-The-Sea, California

Carmel-by-the-Sea spans one square mile on the Monterey Peninsula and operates without street numbers. Locals pick up mail at the post office, and addresses describe the block rather than count it. The town's identity is in its courtyard layout. Serena Court, Tuck Box Courtyard, and Seven Arts Court each open into unmarked passageways including Secret Garden Lane, Mission Lane, and Cinderella Lane. Carmel Beach is the white-sand stretch at the foot of Ocean Avenue, where bonfires are still allowed inside designated rings. The Sunset Center on San Carlos Street hosts a year-round ballet, orchestra, and chamber-music calendar. Point Lobos State Natural Reserve four miles south offers shore dives in California's first marine reserve.

Anacortes, Washington

The Washington State Ferries dock in Anacortes loads cars onto boats bound for the San Juan Islands. The town itself, on Fidalgo Island, gives arrivals plenty to do beyond the ferry line. Deception Pass State Park includes the 1935 steel-arch bridge over tidal rapids strong enough to back up commercial traffic. Washington Park on the western tip offers a 2.2-mile loop drive past saltwater overlooks. Rosario Beach has sandstone tidepools that emerge at low tide. Climb aboard the W.T. Preston at the Anacortes Maritime Heritage Center to see a 1929 sternwheel snagboat that once cleared driftwood from Puget Sound shipping lanes.

Cannon Beach, Oregon

Haystack Rock rises 235 feet straight out of the surf at Cannon Beach. The four-mile beach stretches north from the rock, with low tide exposing colonies of sea stars and the rock's tufted puffin colony in season. The town has a 1.5-mile public art walking tour past sculptures including The Wave, Welcome Pole, and Whale Ribs. Oswald West State Park south of town puts hikers within reach of Cape Falcon, Short Sand Beach, and the Devil's Cauldron overlook. Ecola State Park to the north faces the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse, the offshore 1881 structure decommissioned in 1957 and visible from Indian Beach.

Port Townsend, Washington

Port Townsend hosts the Wooden Boat Festival every September, the largest gathering of wooden vessels on the West Coast. The waterfront town has about 10,000 residents and a downtown of brick Victorian commercial blocks that survived when railroad money bypassed the peninsula in the 1890s. The Rothschild House preserves the 1868 Greek Revival residence with original furnishings intact. Chetzemoka Park has heritage rhododendrons, a gazebo, and clear views of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Fort Worden State Park north of downtown has the concrete gun batteries of an early-1900s coastal defense post and a marine science center. Whale-watching cruises leave from Point Hudson Marina.

Florence, Oregon

Florence lies at the mouth of the Siuslaw River where Oregon's coastal dunes begin. The Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area stretches about 40 miles with some of the largest sand formations in North America and supports ATV access, sandboarding, and dune buggy tours. Heceta Head Lighthouse north of town casts one of the strongest beams on the Oregon coast, with the keeper's house now operating as a bed-and-breakfast. Sea Lion Caves, 11 miles north of Florence, is the largest sea cave in the United States and the only mainland rookery of Steller sea lions in the contiguous US. The Hobbit Trail through coastal forest reaches a beach via mossy tunnels and root staircases.

Mendocino, California

Mendocino occupies a wind-shaped headland of grass and rocky beaches, 150 miles north of San Francisco. The preserved 1850s-1880s architecture is intact enough that the town stood in for Cabot Cove, Maine, in Murder She Wrote across the show's 12 seasons. Anderson Valley, about 30 miles inland, is the area's wine country, with Lula Cellars, Navarro Vineyards, and Goldeneye Winery handling pinot noir and Alsatian whites. Van Damme State Park has a redwood-canyon trail along Little River and a pygmy forest above. The Pennyroyal Farm in Boonville offers cheese tastings and tours of the dairy goats and sheep behind the creamery.

Yachats, Oregon

Yachats faces the Oregon coast at its loudest. Cape Perpetua Scenic Area south of town funnels waves into Thor's Well, a 20-foot opening in the basalt shelf that appears to drain the Pacific at high tide. The Spouting Horn nearby shoots seawater high into the air on a strong incoming swell. Yachats has about 1,000 residents, and Luna Sea Fish House changes its menu with the season as the catch arrives on small commercial boats. Yachats Brewing on Highway 101 serves food and drink and operates a farm store with local provisions. The Cape Perpetua Visitor Center stands above the town near the highest paved overlook on the Oregon coast, at around 800 feet.

Sequim, Washington

Sequim lies in the Olympic rain shadow and receives about 16 inches of rain a year, a fraction of what the wet side of the peninsula gets. The dry climate explains why Sequim markets itself as the Lavender Capital of North America. Working farms take part in the Sequim Lavender Tour each July, with names including Fleurish Lavender of Lost Mountain, Jardin du Soleil, and B&B Family Farm. Outside the lavender calendar, the Dungeness Spit Trail reaches the longest natural sand spit in the United States, with the 1857 New Dungeness Lighthouse at the tip. The Olympic Discovery Trail crosses town as part of a 130-mile route across the northern Olympic Peninsula.

Fort Bragg, California

Glass Beach is what most people come to Fort Bragg for. The shoreline north of town served as the city's municipal dump until 1967, and decades of wave action turned the abandoned bottles into rounded sea glass that still blankets parts of the beach. The site is inside MacKerricher State Park. North Coast Brewing Company pours Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout and Red Seal Ale year-round at its brewpub on North Main. The Skunk Train's Pudding Creek Express leaves the downtown depot for a 7-mile round trip through redwoods to Glen Blair Junction, on tracks first laid in 1885 by the California Western Railroad. The Point Cabrillo Light Station four miles south preserves the restored 1909 Fresnel lens and lightkeepers' cottages on a 300-acre coastal headland.

Friday Harbor, Washington

Friday Harbor, on San Juan Island, is the main ferry landing in the archipelago. Vehicles roll off the Anacortes ferry into a working waterfront with commercial fishing slips and the San Juan Historical Museum, which includes the original 1891 county jail and several relocated late-1800s structures. Lime Kiln Point State Park on the island's west side is one of the best shore-based whale-watching sites in North America, with orcas and other whales passing the lighthouse offshore. Pelindaba Lavender Farm has about 25 acres of lavender open for picking and a distillery for essential oils. The San Juan Islands Sculpture Park has more than 150 works across 19 acres above the harbor.

Avalon, California

Catalina Island lies 22 miles off the Southern California coast, and Avalon is the town that handles the arrivals. The Catalina Casino on the harbor is the visual landmark, a 1929 Art Deco circular structure with a 1,184-seat theater that still shows movies in the original auditorium and the world's largest circular ballroom above it. Snorkelers swim into Lover's Cove and Casino Point Marine Park to reach kelp forest habitat thick with garibaldi. The annual JazzTrax Festival each October brings smooth-jazz acts to the casino. Inland tours leave on the Catalina Safari Bus and pass through bison territory descended from a small herd brought over by a film crew in the 1920s.

Port Angeles, Washington

Port Angeles serves as the most direct gateway to Olympic National Park, with Hurricane Ridge 17 miles south reaching 5,242 feet and offering subalpine meadows, hiking trails, and lift-served skiing and snowboarding at the small Hurricane Ridge Ski and Snowboard Area in winter. The town has about 20,000 residents and faces the Strait of Juan de Fuca, with Victoria, British Columbia visible across the water on a clear day. Ediz Hook is a 3.5-mile sand spit reaching east into the harbor, with kayaking and a working Coast Guard station at the tip. Port Angeles Underground Heritage Tours pass beneath the downtown's raised 1914 street grade, when the city lifted the entire grid to drain chronic flooding. The MV Coho ferry sails to Victoria, B.C., twice daily through the summer season.

Capitola, California

Painted Mediterranean-style cottages front the Capitola Beach Esplanade in reds, yellows, and pinks that turn the row into one of the most photographed stretches on the California coast. The cottages are the Capitola Venetian Court, built in 1923 and considered one of California's earliest condominium developments. Capitola itself lies at the mouth of Soquel Creek where it meets Monterey Bay, about six miles south of Santa Cruz. Capitola Wharf reaches more than 800 feet into the bay, where no license is needed to fish, and sea lions still rest beneath the planks. The Capitola Historical Museum on Esplanade documents the resort era when the town drew rail tourists down from San Francisco. Soquel Cove offers easy paddleboarding and kayak rentals from Capitola Boat and Bait.

Big Sur, California

Big Sur is the 90-mile stretch where the Santa Lucia Mountains drop straight to the Pacific along Highway 1. The road has topped lists of America's most beautiful drives since the route was completed in 1937. McWay Falls drops 80 feet onto the sand at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, one of the few year-round waterfalls in California that empties directly into the ocean. Bixby Creek Bridge stretches 714 feet across the canyon and ranked among the longest single-span concrete arch bridges in the world when it opened in 1932. Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park has a redwood-grove campground about 26 miles south of Carmel. Esalen Institute, below Big Sur Station, offers human-potential workshops and clifftop hot springs above the surf.

Picking The Right Stop

These 14 small towns each work for travelers who want something specific. Friday Harbor and Avalon need ferries. Carmel-by-the-Sea, Mendocino, and Capitola carry the artistic energy. Port Angeles and Port Townsend serve as Olympic Peninsula gateways. Big Sur and Cannon Beach handle the headline scenery, and the rest lie along the quieter stretches of coastline. Pacific Coast Highway and US 101 connect all but the offshore stops.