8 of the Most Overlooked Towns on the Pacific Coast
Skip the Los Angeles to Seattle headliner trip. The eight towns below sit between the famous Pacific Coast cities and reward the longer drive. Carmel-by-the-Sea has nearly 100 art galleries packed into a square mile of cottages where the streets have no addresses. Friday Harbor opened the country's first museum dedicated to a single species in the wild in 1979. Bandon's Coquille River Lighthouse went dark in 1939 and still draws visitors who want to see how a working light got run before electricity. Each one is a coastline in its own right, and each one trades crowds for specificity.
Carmel-by-the-Sea, California
Carmel-by-the-Sea was established as an artists' colony in 1902 on the Monterey Peninsula, and the city zoning still bans neon signs, parking meters, formula retail, and street numbers (residents pick up mail at the post office). The square-mile downtown holds nearly 100 art galleries, more per capita than anywhere else in the country. Carmel Beach runs a full mile of soft white sand at the south end of Ocean Avenue, with leashed dogs allowed on the beach.
Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, three miles south, protects 554 acres of Monterey cypress, granite cliffs, and the underwater Point Lobos Marine Reserve, a hot spot for sea otters, harbor seals, and shore divers. The Carmel Mission (formally Mission San Carlos Borroméo del Río Carmelo, founded 1771) is one of the most intact of California's 21 missions and holds the burial site of Father Junípero Serra. The 17-Mile Drive runs north along the coast through Pebble Beach with the Lone Cypress and the Pacific Grove Monarch Sanctuary.
Florence, Oregon
Florence sits at the mouth of the Siuslaw River where it meets the Pacific, halfway down the Oregon coast. The town is the gateway to the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, a 40-mile run of Pacific Coast dunes that reach up to 500 feet above sea level (the largest expanse of coastal sand dunes in North America). Old Town Florence runs along the river under the 1936 Siuslaw River Bridge, a Conde McCullough-designed Art Deco span that is one of the most photographed bridges on the coast.
The Heceta Head Lighthouse, 13 miles north of Florence, was first lit in 1894 and is the strongest light on the Oregon coast, visible 21 miles out to sea. The light keeper's house operates as a bed and breakfast. Sea Lion Caves, a mile south of Heceta Head, is the largest sea cave in the country at about 12 stories high; an elevator drops 208 feet from the highway to a viewing platform where Steller sea lions roost on the cave floor.
Long Beach, Washington
Long Beach sits on the Long Beach Peninsula, a 28-mile sand spit that locals claim is the longest continuous beach in the country. The Long Beach Boardwalk runs about half a mile over the dunes from Bolstad Avenue to Sid Snyder Drive. The Washington State International Kite Festival lands every August and is one of the largest kite-flying events in the world, drawing competitive flyers from more than two dozen countries to a week of choreography and battles.
Cape Disappointment State Park covers 1,882 acres at the south end of the peninsula where the Columbia River meets the Pacific, the same spot where Lewis and Clark first reached the ocean in November 1805. The Cape Disappointment Lighthouse went into service in 1856 and is one of the oldest active lighthouses on the West Coast. The Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center on the bluff above the cape covers the expedition's final winter at Fort Clatsop. Discovery Trail, an 8.5-mile paved path, traces a Lewis and Clark route from Long Beach to Ilwaco.
Sitka, Alaska
Sitka sits on the west side of Baranof Island in Southeast Alaska's Alexander Archipelago, reachable only by boat or plane. The town is built on land long inhabited by the Sheet'ká Kwáan Tlingit people and was the capital of Russian America from 1808 to 1867; the Alaska transfer ceremony took place at Castle Hill on October 18, 1867. St. Michael's Cathedral on Lincoln Street is a 1976 reconstruction of the 1848 Russian Orthodox cathedral that burned in 1966; the original icons were carried out before the fire and are now back on display.
Sitka National Historical Park, the oldest federal park in Alaska, preserves the site of the 1804 Battle of Sitka and runs a coastal trail through totem poles carved by Tlingit and Haida artists. The Fortress of the Bear on Sawmill Creek Road is a brown- and black-bear rescue facility built in former pulp-mill clarifier tanks, with viewing platforms above. The Sheet'ká Kwáan Naa Kahídi Community House on Katlian Street is owned and operated by the Sitka Tribe of Alaska and runs Tlingit dance performances tied to active ceremonial life.
Capitola, California
Capitola is the oldest seaside resort on the Pacific Coast, founded in 1869 by F.A. Hihn and now a small Santa Cruz County beach town between the Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay. The Venetian Court, a row of pastel apartments along the Capitola Beach esplanade, was built in 1924 as the first condominium complex in California; the buildings still operate as vacation rentals. Capitola City Beach runs along the mouth of Soquel Creek with calmer surf than the Santa Cruz beaches a few miles north.
The Capitola Wharf, originally built in 1857 and most recently rebuilt in 2024 after winter storm damage, runs about 850 feet into Monterey Bay for crab fishing and pier walks. New Brighton State Beach, just east of town, holds about 95 acres of bluff above a sandy beach and the Pacific Migrations Visitor Center, which covers monarch butterflies, gray whales, and shorebird flyways. The Capitola Historical Museum on Capitola Avenue covers the resort era through photos, artifacts, and architectural records.
Bandon, Oregon
Bandon sits at the mouth of the Coquille River on the southern Oregon coast and runs an Old Town along the harbor that locals burned and rebuilt after the 1936 Bandon Fire. The coastline immediately north and south of town is one of the most distinctive on the Oregon coast, with named sea stacks (Face Rock, Wizard's Hat, Garden of the Gods) standing offshore at Bandon State Natural Area. The Coquille River Lighthouse, completed in 1896 and decommissioned in 1939, sits at Bullards Beach State Park on the north side of the river mouth and is open seasonally for tours.
Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, on a 1,200-acre property four miles north of town, runs five 18-hole links courses ranked among the best in the country and has hosted the US Amateur Championship and other major events. The Washed Ashore Gallery on Second Street builds and exhibits massive sculptures of ocean wildlife from plastic debris collected on local beaches. The town is a working cranberry bog area, and the Bandon Cranberry Festival lands every September.
Friday Harbor, Washington
Friday Harbor is the only incorporated town on San Juan Island and the seat of San Juan County, reachable by Washington State Ferry from Anacortes (about 75 minutes) or by small plane from Seattle. The Olympic Mountains' rain shadow gives the islands a much drier climate than the rest of western Washington, with about 20 fewer inches of rain a year than Seattle. The town runs about 2,700 year-round residents, expanding sharply in summer.
Lime Kiln Point State Park on the western shore of San Juan Island is one of the best places in the country to watch orcas from shore; the resident Southern Resident pods pass close to the rocks during salmon runs. The Whale Museum on First Street North opened in 1979 as the first museum in the country dedicated to a species in the wild, with skeletons of an orca and a minke whale plus a hydrophone array picking up live whale calls in Haro Strait. The San Juan Islands Sculpture Park covers 20 acres on Roche Harbor Road with more than 150 outdoor sculptures.
Kailua, Hawaii
Kailua sits on the windward side of Oahu under the Ko'olau Range, about 15 miles east of Honolulu over the Pali Highway. The area was significant in ancient Hawaiian culture as a center for the ali'i (royalty), and the Ulupō Heiau, a stone temple platform near the Kawainui Marsh, dates from the 16th century or earlier. Kailua Beach Park runs about 2.5 miles of soft white sand along Kailua Bay, consistently rated one of the top public beaches in the country.
The Ka'iwa Ridge Trail, locally called the Lanikai Pillbox Hike, climbs about 1.7 miles round-trip to two World War II-era spotting bunkers with views over Lanikai Beach and the Mokulua Islands. Lanikai Beach itself is the better of the two main local beaches for snorkeling, with calm protected water inside the offshore reef and frequent green sea turtle sightings. The Kailua Town Farmers' Market runs Thursday afternoons at the Kailua District Park; the Sunday market at Kailua Town Center adds local fish and produce.
The Pacific Coast holds a long line of small towns between its big cities, each shaped by what is right outside its limits. Carmel runs galleries on the Monterey Peninsula. Sitka backs up to bear country. Long Beach claims one of the longest stretches of sand on the West Coast. Friday Harbor sits in the middle of orca-watching territory. They are not on the typical itinerary, and that is exactly the case for visiting them.
