Oregon Coast Road Trip

When we were planning a road trip through Oregon last summer I had to ensure we would make not one, but two stops in wine country! I mean, can you tell how much we enjoyed it (see above). I started out looking on airbnb for a place to stay and found a darling tiny home. It was located just outside of Portland in the Willamet valley, aka wine country. As a realtor I spend a lot of time obsessed with and watching HGTV, you would think I get enough of it during the day. I have been curious about the tiny house movement and found the prospect of “testing” one out intriguing. Needless to say we were super impressed and very much enjoyed our stay. You can check it out here: Sherwood Oregon

After driving from Vancouver, BC about 7 hrs door to door, we got all acquainted with our mini digs, how to use the composting toilet and headed out to find some dinner. We happened to get lucky that the town of Sherwood was hosting its annual Robin Hood Festival. It was super cute. The whole town was there, many of the people in period costume. We enjoyed wandering around, checking out the stalls and people watching. For dinner we found a fantastic Italian restaurant called Mason, you must go! For a really epic tasting of Oregon Pinot try 503 Uncorked, you won’t be sorry.

The next day was another long drive down the coast past Florence. We loved the drive once off the I-5 to our lunch pit stop in Newport. This is a very quaint town. The fog and cool breeze off the pacific were refreshing after the hot Willmet Valley. We wandered around town after enjoying a traditional pub meal at Nana’s, get the shepards pie! The town has some gorgeous beach home wears and kitschy shops and a lot of ice cream parlous. We sat and enjoyed the beach for a bit but it was windy and pretty cold so back on the road again! 

This was the drive we hoped for following the iconic Oregon coast line. We made stops at different beaches along the way. It got progressively more and more beautiful as we neared the peak elevation around Cape Perpetua. We really wanted to stop and explore more but the day was getting away from us and we were camping just past Florence so needed to press on. We did stop briefly on the way back and I would like to have spent a bit more time exploring Thor’s Well (which you can only see at certain times of the year so make sure you time this if you want to see it) and do the hike around that area. But as I always say, it’s never a bad thing to have a reason to return, right?Along the coast there is are so many places to stop and stretch your legs. We stoped at a few: Sea Lion cave was touristy but actually pretty cool. If you have kids this is a must do. It does stink in the cave but it is interesting and bearable. Heceta Head Lighthouse. We took Jack (our dog) for a nice walk up to the light house. It was really foggy when we hiked and that made it extra special. I loved the bridge view from the beach.

We arrived to our campsite at Jessie Honeyman just before nightfall. We had never been to a big American campsite before and were a bit disappointed by how many RV’s there were. We did enjoy the sand dunes and small lake nearby the site however.

Nevertheless we made the most of our stay and explored in and around the town of Florence, which is absolutely charming in the heritage district. We found some great restaurants to eat at, Nosh for happy hour drinks and nibbles and Bridgwater Fish House and Zebra cafe for lunch or dinner. I loved the store called Manna, next door to the Bridgewater cafe. The owner is also a jewelry designer and has the best selection of curated goodies! One of the most exciting things we did during our stay was rent ATV’s and smash the dunes! We rented them from full throttle rentals, the owner is super nice and enthusiastic. I suggest spending an afternoon wandering around the town.

We may have left the campsite a night early! Don’t judge! It was expected to rain and we were “over it”. As we get older our tolerance for noisy neighbours and dust is much less than it used to be… I found a cool little place on booking.com in Yachats, called the Fireside Motel. We arrived to a super foggy, wet, tiny west coast fishing town with a couple of surprisingly stellar restaurants. We checked out yachts brewing and farm store but they were so busy and we couldn’t find a seat (the food looked amazing)  we ended up at a more upscale but still affordable Ona restaurant and Lounge. Guys, seriously! This was an incredible and memoriable meal. We loved it so so much. Just go ok? The next morning we explored the coast line and the sun came out. What a pretty beach.  Jack was in heaven.The drive back to the Willamet valley was a long one, but once we pulled into The Vintages Trailer Park and checked into our super pimped out Shasta trailer for the night, grabbed a bottle of Stoller rose all was forgotten! This place deserves a blog post unto itself and that’s where you are going to have to go to find out how we ended our fantastic road trip!

Have you been to Oregon to drive the coast? What did we miss?