These 13 Towns On The Pacific Coast Were Ranked Among US Favorites In 2026
The West Coast runs for more than a thousand miles, and thirteen towns along it each offer a very different day at the shore. A 235-foot sea stack marks the sand at one. A 107-foot lighthouse stands over a working fishing port at another. Some grew up around Victorian lumber money, others around Spanish mission tile and red roofs. The common thread is the mix just past the water: old downtowns, distinctive buildings, and public beaches anyone can walk. These are the coastal communities travelers rank among their favorites, and each earns the spot a different way.
Ocean Shores, Washington
Ocean Shores sits on a narrow peninsula, with the Pacific Ocean on one side and Grays Harbor on the other. That layout means miles of open sand next to protected bays and freshwater canals, and residents kayak the canals and watch birds along them year-round. Damon Point Natural Area, at the tip of the peninsula, draws people to its dunes and shorebird habitat, and marked beach-access routes lead down to the water from streets all over town.
North Jetty, at the harbor mouth, is where locals go to watch seals and seabirds and waves breaking against the rocks. People use the public parks and coastal paths through every season, and the Festival of Colors kite festival fills the beach with color each June.
Westport, Washington
Fishing built Westport. One of Washington's busiest ports sits at its edge, and commercial boats still work out of the marina, which is what gives the waterfront its character. Visitors can trace that seafaring history at the Westport Maritime Museum. Nearby, the Grays Harbor Lighthouse rises 107 feet on Point Chehalis near the harbor entrance, the tallest lighthouse in the state.
Walking trails run through Westport Light State Park between the marina and the beach, with observation points where migrating seabirds and marine mammals pass through. A working harbor, public beaches, and dependable surf are the reasons Washington surfers and day-trippers keep coming back.
Long Beach, Washington
The Long Beach Peninsula runs 28 miles beside the Pacific, and its beach counts among the longest continuous stretches of sand in the country. The Long Beach Boardwalk, a half-mile of planking suspended over the dunes, is where visitors take in the ocean without a car. A few miles south, Cape Disappointment State Park is a single stop with rugged headlands, hiking trails, two historic lighthouses, and the beach where the Columbia River empties into the Pacific. You can read more about Long Beach here.
Downtown has a personality of its own: painted crosswalk art, the curiosities inside Marsh's Free Museum, and the World Kite Museum, the last a nod to the town's long kite-festival tradition. Car enthusiasts flood the peninsula each fall for the Rod Run to the End of the World, one of the events that keep this among the liveliest oceanfront towns on the Washington coast.
Astoria, Oregon
Older than Oregon itself, Astoria sits where the Columbia River meets the sea, its streets climbing steep hills past colorful Victorian and Queen Anne homes above the waterfront. Warehouses and industrial buildings from the river-trade era are now museums, galleries, and performance spaces, among them the restored 1920s Liberty Theater.
The Garden of Surging Waves is the city's tribute to its Chinese heritage, and the Columbia River Maritime Museum is devoted to the treacherous river bar that has wrecked ships for two centuries. The Astoria Riverwalk runs along the waterfront for roughly six miles, and from the top of the 125-foot Astoria Column on Coxcomb Hill, visitors take in the estuary, the forests, and the coastline.
Cannon Beach, Oregon
Cannon Beach is known first for Haystack Rock. The 235-foot sea stack rises straight off the shoreline and ranks among the most recognized coastal images in the Pacific Northwest. At low tide, visitors walk out to its base to find sea stars and anemones in the tide pools, and the offshore rock formations look different at every stage of the water.
Cedar-shingled cottages and low-slung buildings sit close to the sand, with galleries, parks, and ocean overlooks all within walking distance downtown. Four local residents started the Cannon Beach Sandcastle Contest in 1964 to lift the town's spirits after a tsunami washed out its bridge, and sculptors and spectators have returned every June since. You can plan a visit to Cannon Beach here.
Newport, Oregon
Completed in 1936, the Yaquina Bay Bridge arcs over the harbor in Art Deco steel and concrete, the work of Oregon bridge engineer Conde McCullough and the landmark most people picture when they picture Newport. Just north, Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area is home to a historic lighthouse along with tide pools and basalt cliffs, a draw for photographers and wildlife watchers.
Down on the Historic Bayfront, fishing boats unload, sea lions bark from the docks, and the working waterfront rarely looks the same twice. At the Oregon Coast Aquarium, a short drive away, visitors see the marine life that lives in the waters just offshore, including a walk-through passage ringed by sharks.
Eureka, California
Few American towns hold as much Victorian architecture as Eureka. The Carson Mansion, widely called one of the finest Queen Anne homes in the country, stands at the edge of the Old Town district, where ornate 19th-century storefronts overlook Humboldt Bay. Lumber money built most of it, and much of it still stands.
The Humboldt Bay Trail runs along the marshes and tidal flats beside the water, and the redwood grove in Sequoia Park stands within minutes of downtown, an old coastal forest at the city's edge. Families fill the Redwood Discovery Museum for its hands-on exhibits, and at the Clarke Historical Museum, visitors find the history and cultures of Northwestern California, including a strong Native basketry collection.
Mendocino, California
Perched on a headland above sea stacks and cliffs, Mendocino looks much as it did in the 19th century. The whole village is a designated historic district, and its old homes, churches, and inns retain their original architectural detail, a legacy of the timber boom that built the town. At the Kelley House Museum, visitors can dig into that early logging-era history.
Mendocino Headlands State Park surrounds much of the village, and its coastal trails lead past wildflowers, bluff edges, and hidden coves down to the shoreline.
Carmel-by-the-Sea, California
Small cottages and a local rule against street addresses are part of what makes Carmel-by-the-Sea feel like a village rather than a city, and the ocean setting completes the picture. Ocean Avenue runs downhill past stone facades and European-inspired buildings to the white sand of Carmel Beach. You can explore Carmel-by-the-Sea here.
South of town, a lagoon at Carmel River State Beach draws waterfowl and songbirds, and the trails at Point Lobos State Natural Reserve run out over rocky coves above the Pacific.
Pismo Beach, California
Pismo Beach pairs a broad stretch of Pacific sand with one of the most walkable beachfront districts in California. The historic pier extends out into the surf, and from the promenade beside it, walkers get an open view of the coastline in both directions.
Just inland, 11 miles of hiking and cycling trails cross the hills of the Pismo Preserve above the water. Then, from November into February, western monarch butterflies cluster by the thousands in the eucalyptus of the Monarch Butterfly Grove, one of the largest wintering sites in the state.
Santa Barbara, California
Red-tiled roofs, white stucco walls, and arcaded walkways run through downtown Santa Barbara, the Spanish Colonial Revival look the city adopted after a 1925 earthquake leveled much of it. The Santa Barbara County Courthouse is the clearest example, with its clock tower, painted murals, and an observation deck open to the public.
Stearns Wharf runs out into the harbor, and beaches planted with palms stretch beneath the Santa Ynez Mountains. Boats leave from Ventura and from Channel Islands Harbor in Oxnard for Channel Islands National Park, where hikers can spend a day on islands that sit well offshore.
Laguna Beach, California
Laguna Beach spreads across steep hillsides above a chain of coves and beaches. Coastal paths run through Heisler Park from one overlook to the next. The galleries, public art, and the Laguna Art Museum are the legacy of an artists' colony that took root here more than a century ago. You can learn more about Laguna Beach here.
Early beach cottages stand beside contemporary homes on those slopes, the result of more than a hundred years of building on the same hillsides. Side by side, the houses amount to a timeline in wood and stucco.
Coronado, California
Coronado sits on a peninsula across San Diego Bay, one of Southern California's most familiar coastal communities, known for its wide beaches and early-20th-century homes. The Hotel del Coronado, a Queen Anne landmark, has stood on the beach since 1888. Along Orange Avenue, the walkable main street, visitors find galleries, parks, and shops.
Coronado Beach ranks near the top of California's beach lists for its broad, pale sand and open Pacific views. The Ferry Landing and Silver Strand State Beach are two more ways to reach the water.
Why These Pacific Coast Towns Keep Ranking So Highly
These thirteen towns share an oceanfront address, but that is the least of what a visitor finds. Alongside the coastline in each one is something people built or made: Astoria's Victorian hillsides, Cannon Beach's sea stack, Eureka's lumber-baron mansions, Carmel's cottage lanes, Santa Barbara's mission-tile downtown. The water is the constant; the character is what sets each town apart.
That variety is the real draw. A traveler can dig razor clams on a Washington beach one week and walk a red-tiled California courtyard the next, and both trips still count as the Pacific Coast. Between the harbors, the parks, the museums, and the old downtowns, a first visit to one of these towns usually leaves a traveler planning a second, to a different one.
