The Best Small Towns on the Pacific Coast for a Weekend Retreat
The big West Coast cities get all the attention. The small towns get the better weekends. Astoria climbs uphill from the Columbia River past Queen Anne mansions and the Goonies filming locations. Cannon Beach orbits the 235-foot Haystack Rock and gets the sunset that ends up on every Oregon brochure. Carmel-by-the-Sea has carried foot traffic to the same 1899 bakery for over a century. Ten Pacific Coast small towns below where the weekend writes itself.
Astoria, Oregon
Astoria is Oregon’s oldest town, founded in 1811 as Fort Astoria by John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Company, the first American settlement west of the Rocky Mountains. The town climbs uphill from the mouth of the Columbia River past Queen Anne mansions and dockside restaurants and breweries. The Flavel House Museum, a restored 1885 Queen Anne built for a Columbia River bar pilot, opens daily for tours. The Oregon Film Museum across the street fills the former Clatsop County Jail with memorabilia from The Goonies, which filmed many of its exteriors here in 1985. The Astoria Ghost Tour walks the historic downtown for those who want the local folklore that comes with a 200-year-old port town.
Bainbridge Island, Washington
Bainbridge Island sits 35 minutes by Washington State Ferry from downtown Seattle, making it the easiest Puget Sound weekend escape from a major city on this list. The ferry lets out steps from Winslow Way, the walkable main strip lined with shops, galleries, and restaurants. The First Friday Art Walk runs May through October with extended gallery hours and street activity. Streamliner Diner serves the morning comfort-food crowd, and Agate Restaurant handles the bistro side with classic cocktails. The Bloedel Reserve, a 150-acre estate with a Japanese garden, moss garden, and reflection pool, sits a short drive north and is the island’s premier outdoor experience.
Bodega Bay, California
Bodega Bay sits about two hours north of San Francisco on the Sonoma Coast with just over 1,000 residents in a working fishing village. The Pacific Ocean stretches off to the west of Highway 1, and the bay protects the harbor. Hitchcock fans can track the filming locations from The Birds (1963), including the Potter Schoolhouse and The Tides Wharf and Restaurant. The phone booth outside the Bodega Country Store with the Tippi Hedren mannequin is the unofficial photo stop. The Birds Cafe handles fish and chips and outdoor seating with bay views, and the surrounding hiking and biking trails open up Bodega Head and the Sonoma Coast State Beach.
Cambria, California
Cambria sits on the Central California Coast in San Luis Obispo County with about 6,000 residents split between an East Village and a West Village. Moonstone Beach Boardwalk runs about a mile along the bluff with steady ocean views and benches every few hundred feet. The town built its name on pine forests, an unusual coastal feature in California, and Cambria Pines Lodge sits in the middle of a Monterey pine forest as the longest-running local accommodation. Hearst Castle is 8 miles north on Highway 1, and the Piedras Blancas elephant seal rookery 16 miles north hosts thousands of northern elephant seals year-round with peak hauling-out in January. Nitt Witt Ridge, the folk-art home built by Art Beal out of salvaged materials over 50 years, sits on Hillcrest Drive as California Historical Landmark #939 and runs by-appointment tours.
Cannon Beach, Oregon
Cannon Beach is a village of about 1,700 residents on the northern Oregon coast about 80 miles west of Portland. The town orbits Haystack Rock, the 235-foot sea stack offshore that hosts a tufted puffin colony from April through July and forms the centerpiece of the Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge. Hemlock Street runs the downtown for several walkable blocks with galleries, gift shops, and the long-running Sleepy Monk Coffee and Bill’s Tavern. Ecola State Park, just north, holds a coastal trail running past Indian Beach with cliff-top views back south to Haystack Rock. The annual Cannon Beach Sandcastle Contest each June is the unofficial town festival, drawing competitive sand sculptors from across the country.
Carmel-by-the-Sea, California
Carmel-by-the-Sea sits on the Monterey Peninsula with a one-square-mile downtown that holds more restaurants per capita than almost any other small town in the country. Ocean Avenue runs straight down to Carmel Beach, where white sand and cypress trees give the coast its postcard view. The town has no street addresses on residential streets, a quirk of its founding by artists in the early 1900s, and roughly 40 inns and hotels sit within walking distance of the main shopping streets. Former residents and visitors include Jack London, Upton Sinclair, Betty White, and Clint Eastwood, who served as mayor from 1986 to 1988. The Carmel Bakery on Ocean Avenue has been open since 1899 and still draws lines for pretzels and pastries.
Mendocino, California
Mendocino sits on a coastal bluff along the Pacific Coast Highway in Northern California with New England-style architecture that traces back to the town’s 19th-century logging and shipping years. The walkable streets pass Victorian cottages, gift shops, galleries, and small restaurants. The Joshua Grindle Inn and the Blair House Inn handle the upscale lodging, with Blair House recognizable to Murder, She Wrote fans as Jessica Fletcher’s home in establishing shots filmed in the 1980s and early 1990s. Mendocino Headlands State Park wraps around the village with cliffs, sea arches, and walking paths. The redwood forests inland and Glass Beach in neighboring Fort Bragg round out the longer day-trip options.
Newport, Oregon
Newport runs along Yaquina Bay on the central Oregon coast with the Historic Bayfront district lined with seafood spots, gift shops, and small museums including Ripley’s Believe It or Not and The Wax Works. Mo’s Seafood and Chowder serves the famous clam chowder in a bread bowl, and the sea lions barking from the docks below the bayfront restaurants are the unofficial soundtrack. The Oregon Coast Aquarium across the bay holds Pacific Northwest marine life across multiple exhibits. Yaquina Head Lighthouse, lit in 1873, stands as the tallest lighthouse on the Oregon coast at 93 feet. The Sylvia Beach Hotel runs a literature-themed inn with rooms named for authors (Emily Dickinson, Ernest Hemingway) and an upstairs library that serves complimentary cocoa and mulled wine in the evenings.
Port Townsend, Washington
Port Townsend sits at the northeast corner of the Olympic Peninsula, about two hours north of Seattle by car and ferry. The historic downtown district is designated as one of three remaining Victorian seaports on the National Register and runs along Water Street with old-fashioned lamp posts and brick storefronts from the 1880s and 1890s. The town serves as Washington’s official arts community designation and hosts the Centrum performing arts organization at Fort Worden State Park. Sirens and The Hilltop Tavern run live music most nights, and The Old Consulate Inn (the restored 1889 F.W. Hastings House) sits high above the harbor with views over Admiralty Inlet to the Cascades.
Rockaway Beach, Oregon
Rockaway Beach is a small Oregon coast town with seven miles of sandy shoreline and noticeably less foot traffic than its better-known neighbors. Hotels and beach houses line the coast, many with unobstructed Pacific views. Antique shops, boutiques, and small restaurants run parallel to the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad, which operates seasonal 90-minute excursions in vintage locomotives along Tillamook Bay and the Oregon Coast. The town’s biggest cultural export is the corn dog: the Pronto Pup was invented here by George and Versa Boyington during a rainy 1939 Labor Day weekend after their hot dog buns spoiled. The current Original Pronto Pup, opened in 2016 with a 30-foot fiberglass corn dog on the roof, runs as the spiritual heir.
Discover Coastal Serenity on the Pacific Coast
The Pacific Coast packs a lot of small-town variety into a long thin strip of cliff and ocean. Astoria delivers the historic port. Bainbridge Island delivers the easy ferry weekend from Seattle. Carmel-by-the-Sea and Cambria do the Central California version with their own takes. Mendocino and Cannon Beach handle the wilder, quieter end of the spectrum. From northern Washington to southern California, the ten towns above make a strong case for skipping the cities entirely.
