6 Coolest Towns on the Pacific Coast for a Summer Vacation
The Pacific Coast's best summer towns have galleries on the main street and roast their own coffee. Astoria stacks Victorian houses up a hill above its working waterfront, the kind of place film crews have borrowed for decades. In Carmel-by-the-Sea, artists laid out the town and never bothered with street numbers. Morro Bay grew up around a volcanic plug at the mouth of its harbor. Some live on art and late dinners, others on dunes and the deepest water on the planet.
Cannon Beach, Oregon
At low tide, the sand at Cannon Beach stretches flat all the way to the base of Haystack Rock. The sea stack stands 235 feet tall. Sea stars and anemones live in the tide pools at its foot. Tufted puffins nest on it through the summer. North of the beach, Ecola State Park trades sand for headland trails. The view takes in Tillamook Rock Lighthouse offshore, dark since it went out of service. Surfers paddle out for the cold clean breaks at Indian Beach, inside the park.
Cannon Beach has been an arts town for decades. Archimedes Gallery and DragonFire Gallery show work by coastal painters. The Cannon Beach History Center & Museum lays out the rest in two small rooms. The Fourth of July parade and fireworks are about as crowded as it gets here. For dinner, Newmans at 988 and the Driftwood Restaurant do the seafood.
Astoria, Oregon
The Astoria Column has 164 steps. Climb them and the whole town opens up below, the Columbia River widening toward the bar with the Coast Range green behind it and the Pacific off to the west. The 125-foot tower carries a painted spiral of regional history. The town has worked this river mouth since fur traders set up a post here in 1811. Down at river level, the Astoria Riverwalk follows the old rail line past canneries and piers. A restored 1913 trolley still rattles along part of it in summer.
The Columbia River Maritime Museum stands on the water. A Coast Guard rescue boat hangs in the lobby, caught mid-wave. Up the hill, the Flavel House is Queen Anne, the kind a river pilot's fortune bought in the 1880s. Astoria has worked as a film set on the Oregon coast for decades. It stood in for the town in "The Goonies." People still find that house. The breweries and coffee roasters are new. The working port is not.
Carmel-by-the-Sea, California
Carmel-by-the-Sea has no street numbers. The houses go by name. Mail goes to the post office, because no one delivers it. The artists and writers who built the town in the early 1900s set it up that way. Carmel Beach is white sand at the foot of Ocean Avenue, with wind-bent cypress behind and dogs off leash. A dirt bluff path follows the shoreline above it for about half a mile, between 8th and 13th avenues. The houses along it are not cheap.
Point Lobos State Natural Reserve is just south. Cypress groves stand over coves where harbor seals haul out. The 17-Mile Drive loops through neighboring Pebble Beach as a private toll road. The lone cypress is on it. So are the sea lions. The 1797 basilica at Carmel Mission opens its gardens and museum to summer visitors. The Carmel Bach Festival has played each July since 1935.
Bandon, Oregon
Bandon's beach is full of sea stacks. The most famous one has a face. Face Rock stands in the surf along the Beach Loop, named for a Coquille legend about a woman turned to stone. The bluff above it at Coquille Point is part of the Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge. Tufted puffins nest on the rocks offshore each summer. Old Town is down by the harbor, low and walkable. The menus lean to chowder and crab.
The Coquille River Lighthouse stands across the river at Bullards Beach State Park. It has marked the river mouth since 1896. The light went dark in 1939. It is an interpretive stop now, 40 feet of red and white at the water's edge. Behind it, the park opens onto 4.5 miles of beach. Horse trails cut through the shore pines. Locals come for the crabbing. Bandon Dunes is nearby. The resort laid its golf out on the open bluffs above the Pacific, walking-only and modeled on the old Scottish links.
Morro Bay, California
The whole town of Morro Bay points at one rock. Morro Rock is a 576-foot volcanic plug at the harbor mouth on California's central coast. It is one of nine ancient peaks called the Nine Sisters. Peregrine falcons nest on it, so climbing is off-limits. A causeway reaches the base. Morro Rock Beach is right under the stone.
The Embarcadero is the working waterfront, with fish markets and kayak rentals along the bay. The chowder windows face the water. Sea otters float in the eelgrass and harbor seals loaf on the docks, both close enough to watch from shore. Paddlers can cross to the sand spit. The Morro Bay Museum of Natural History, over in Morro Bay State Park, explains the estuary. Morro Strand, north of the rock, is three miles of beach for walking and kites.
Florence, Oregon
South of Florence the coast turns to sand. These are the Oregon Dunes. They pile up for miles toward Coos Bay. Buggies and sandboards work the open ones. Old Town is on the quieter bank of the Siuslaw River. The 1890s storefronts have bookshops and a glassblower. A market opens on Saturdays in summer. The 1930s Siuslaw River Bridge crosses the water at the edge of it.
More waits north of town on Highway 101. Heceta Head Lighthouse stands on a headland above the surf. Its 56-foot tower carries an original first-order Fresnel lens, one of the strongest beams on the coast. The old keeper's house below it takes overnight guests now. A mile on, an elevator drops into Sea Lion Caves, the largest sea cave in America. Steller sea lions haul out and roar there all summer. Heceta Beach, closer to town, is easy sand off the highway.
Salt Air and Good Light
The water sets the terms in all of these towns. Cannon Beach works around the tide. The walk to Haystack Rock opens when it pulls back. Bandon watches the fog roll over its sea stacks. In Florence, the dunes go on for miles. The lighthouse beam sweeps the headland long after dark. What they share is the salt air and a summer that suits them, the markets full and the light long. The hard part is deciding which one gets the season.
