One Week in Lincoln City: The Perfect Oregon Coast Getaway

We kicked off the new year with a different kind of trip—one without the RV! Since we had come home for the holidays in December, it worked out perfectly to leave our animals at home base, which is also where our pet sitter lives. A few years ago, my dad moved to Oregon, and this was our first time visiting him. Josh’s dad, Mike, joined us too, since he needed a vacation. We all flew out together, and while Josh and I stayed with my dad and his wife, Sheila, Mike booked a hotel just down the street. Toward the end of our trip, my brother came out too.. We spent a week in Lincoln City on the Oregon Coast, about two hours south of Portland, packing our days with hiking, sightseeing, museums, and plenty of other adventures. In this post, we’ll share everything we did and offer tips for your own Oregon Coast adventure!

Saturday: The Pacific Ocean, Oregon Coast Aquarium, Yaquina Head Lighthouse

We arrived at Portland airport in the late afternoon Friday, so by the time we grabbed some food, got our rental car, and drove the two hours to my dad’s house, it was too late to really do anything. I gotta say, though, Portland has the nicest people working there of any airport I’ve ever been to!

Saturday morning we started the day with our first ocean visit, as well as a driving tour of the neighborhood. For Josh, Mike, and I it was the first time any of us had seen the Pacific Ocean! It was a pretty rainy day, so Josh, Mike, and I headed off to what we thought would be an indoor activity. We drove down to the town of Newport to go to the Oregon Coast Aquarium. It was partially indoors, but there were also a lot of outdoor exhibits and walking outside between indoor exhibits even.

We got to the aquarium right in time to catch the the otter feeding outside, then grabbed lunch in the cafe (we had fish, of course), and then finally headed to the first of the indoor exhibits.

The Sandy Coast, Rocky Coast, Connected Coasts, and Jelly Gallery exhibits are all indoors and connected. After we finished with them, we went to see the sea lions being fed, then walked through the large outdoor Seabird Aviary and onto the Passages of the Deep. One of the cool things about the Oregon Coast Aquarium is that there’s animal feedings 6 times a day at no additional cost, as well as 4 other animal presentations! The Oregon Coast Aquarium is definitely a great option for things to do for families on the Oregon coast, you could easily spend a day here with kids.

The Passages of the Deep tunnel exhibits were really cool- I don’t think tunnel aquarium exhibits like these will ever get old. We later learned why this area is disconnected from the other indoor exhibits. Apparently this aquarium was very famous in the ‘90s because it was where Keiko the orca whale was rehabilitated. And Keiko is famous for playing the whale in Free Willy! When Keiko moved to Iceland, they converted her large open ocean enclosure to the Passages of the Deep exhibits.

After the aquarium, we drove around Newport a little and then headed home. We ended up making a quick-decision stop on the way back at Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area to see the lighthouse. We first stopped in the visitor center, which is really cool, and then headed up to the lighthouse. The Yaquina Head Lighthouse is the tallest lighthouse in Oregon. This ended up being quite the adventure! Not only was it raining, but the wind was intense and whipped us around. We ended up soaked and freezing, but we were laughing the whole time.

Sunday: Breakfast Out, Evergreen Aviation & Space Museums Grain Station Brew Works, and Salmon River Hatchery

Josh, Mike, and I have a tradition of getting Sunday breakfast together when we’re home, so since my dad and Sheila had church, we decided to continue the tradition. We ended up trying out Pig ‘and’n Pancake, which was ok, but honestly kind of meh. 

It was still a kind of rainy day, so we planned another indoor activity. This time we headed out to the town of McMinnville for the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum. We had driven by here on the way in from the airport, and it had looked really interesting in the dark! The museum has two large buildings- one for aviation and one for space. 

The most famous plane they have is Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose. The Spruce Goose was thought of during WW2 as a way to move personnel and materials across the Atlantic and Hughes was tasked with designing and building it. It’s the largest wooden airplane ever built and also called the Hughes Flying Boat. Until 2019, it was also the largest plane ever built! It still holds the records for largest seaplane, largest wooden aircraft, and largest propeller plane. The Goose only flew once, in California in 1947, and was only airborne for 30 seconds after taxiing on the water. The plane is fully made of wood (except for screws, engines, etc.), but is actually made out of birch- not spruce! There’s actually a movie about Howard Hughes and the Spruce Goose, The Aviator starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and the museum has some of the set pieces from the movie too.

Since Josh and I had pretty recently visited the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, it was a little disappointing that so many aircraft here were replicas, but if we hadn’t just been there this would have been even cooler. It was still a great museum visit and you could easily spend a whole day here. There’s also a theatre with educational movies and a whole plane and space themed indoor waterpark.

After the museums, we headed into downtown McMinnville for lunch and local brews at Grain Station Brew Works. This is in the Historic Granary District and the whole area is a great example of adaptive reuse of old buildings. The food and beers were really good too!

We had one last quick stop on the way back, which was another spot we had seen a sign for and made a note of. Salmon River Hatchery is an Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife hatchery that raises Chinook, steelhead, and rainbow trout. Josh and I always visit hatcheries when we can, but this was definitely the smallest we’ve been to together. Like some of the others, though, it feels weird to visit when no one is working because it feels like you’re not supposed to be there (even with signs saying you can be).

Monday: Connie Hansen Garden, Friends of the Library Bookstore, and Lower Cascade Head

Monday we started off with all 5 of us walking to the nearby Connie Hansen Garden. The garden was started by Lincoln City local Connie Hansen and is now run by a non-profit. There’s also a gift shop, library, and meeting room- but they were closed for the off season when we visited. 

Then we headed over to the local library, where on Mondays the Friends of the Library opens their used bookstore. I only found one book (not that I needed to bring home any books), but I think it’s a pretty good one- a vintage copy of Trees to Know in Oregon.

After lunch, the weather got nicer, so Dad took Josh, Mike, and me on our first hike of the trip. Cascade Head is a popular hiking spot and has a few different options for trails. We did the Lower Trail, which is mostly The Nature Conservancy land. The trail starts off in the rainforest- which was very exciting since seeing a PNW rainforest has been one of my bucket list items for a while! Then the trail eventually heads to the Cascade Head view point and then the Upper Trail is through grasslands.

Tuesday: Trail of 10 Falls at Silver Falls State Park

Tuesday the four of us hikers headed out for a bigger adventure- the Trail of 10 Falls in Silver Falls State Park. This was about 1 ½ hours from Dad’s house, so it made for a very full day. The full loop is 7.2 miles, but we modified our trail route a little to cut out a couple miles while still seeing all 10 falls. It’s sometimes hard to tell from photos how cool different waterfalls will be in person, but these were awesome! The 10 main falls were all large and there was a variety of types of falls too. There were a few you could walk behind, too, which was really cool. Besides the main 10, there were tons of smaller falls scattered around the park, and the river itself was really pretty too. This park is a raretype of rainforest, so there were also tons of cool plants. I had looked on inaturalist ahead of time and knew I wanted to keep an eye out for western maidenhair and western rattlesnake plantain, both of which are western versions of plants we saw in southern Illinois. The maidenhair was easy to find, but it wasn’t until the last part of our trail when we were farther from the water that I finally found the rattlesnake plantain- and once I found one, I found a ton of it!

I thiiiink I got the fall names right in these slides, but I had so many waterfall pictures I lost track of which is which!

Wednesday: The Knoll and Thumb, Game Over Arcade

Wednesday was another hiking day. This time we headed over to the Knoll Open Space. The hike also has an optional side hike to the Thumb, which the guys did while I split off to do some botanizing on my own. They ended up taking longer than I thought they would to catch back up, so I ended up heading back up to the Knoll to hang out with a view while I waited.

After Josh and I visited the Roanoke Pinball Museum, I’ve been on the hunt for more arcades. We really liked that one because you paid an admission fee and then the machines were set to freeplay, instead of paying per game. Game Over Arcade is just a few blocks’ walk from my dad’s house, so Mike, Josh, and I headed over in the afternoon for their Wednesday special. On Wednesdays, it’s $10/hour for freeplay on most machines (basically anything that isn’t a prize machine). I’m not sure if they always do this, but since they use game cards, the guy working had us all use the same card so it was $10/hour for all 3 of us. We ended up staying about 3 ½ hours. They also have pizza and a full bar. The arcade looks a little janky from outside, but inside it’s super nice and well-maintained with a great variety of games. There’s a whole pinball alley, tons of vintage cabinet games, modern arcade games like racing games, and classics like skeeball. 

Thursday: Breakfast at the Casino, Cape Meares, Tillamook Creamery, and Munson Falls

Thursday we were on our own for breakfast again, so this time we decided to try Chinook’s Seafood Grill at Chinook Winds Casino. We got a table with a view overlooking the ocean and the food was much better than our earlier breakfast out. It was also very reasonably priced for restaurant breakfast.

After breakfast, we headed out to Tillamook County. Our first stop was at Cape Meares State Scenic Viewpoint. Cape Meares has the shortest lighthouse on the Oregon coast (so we saw both the tallest and shortest in this trip!), the Octopus Tree (an Oregon heritage tree), and the Oregon champion sitka spruce tree.

Next, it was onto our main attraction of the day- the Tillamook Creamery. The creamery definitely needs its own post, but here’s an overview of our visit. Upstairs there’s an exhibit about dairy farming and then a hall with windows overlooking the factory with lots of signs explaining how their cheese is made. Also upstairs is the sample counter!

Downstairs, there’s a large shop with both food products and merch. It was so hard not to buy everything here, their merch is amazing and all the cheeses looked so good. Also downstairs is the cafe and ice cream counter. At the cafe we got the fried cheese curds and grilled cheese to share. We thought it was funny that as Midwesterners on vacation we had to get fried cheese curds, but we should have known better. The breading was weird, more like a popcorn shrimp breading than a cheese curd breading, and most of the cheese had leaked out. The grilled cheese was really good, though! It had a lot of cheese and made for a great cheese pull.

At the ice-cream counter, Josh and I got a flight with three flavors- holiday sugar cookie (Josh’s favorite), white chocolate raspberry (my favorite), and brownie batter (from the chocolate collection). 

On the drive home we had one last impromptu stop based on a brown sign we saw. We didn’t know what to expect when stopping at Munson Creek Falls
State Natural Site, but it ended up being an incredible 319 foot tall waterfall! This was a super short walk from the parking lot to the falls and was definitely worth the stop!

Friday: Lincoln City Bird Walk, Tidepooling, and Clam Chowder at MIST

Friday started out with a bird walk with Lincoln City and Seven Capes Bird Alliance We met at Regatta Park and spent about half an hour looking at waterfowl on the lake and then the rest of the time walking through the park and a couple neighborhood streets. I tracked the species we saw on ebird and our total species count for the walk was 31! 

Leaving Regatta Park we had to say hi to Sparky the Wish Dragon too!

In the afternoon during low tide, we went out to the NW 15th Street Beach Access since I had read it’s one of the better places in town for tidepooling. Tidepooling is something I’ve always wanted to do. We found a few anemones, crabs, and fish and then finally a sea star- the big goal of the excursion. But pretty much right after that it started raining with heavy winds, so we headed back home pretty quickly.

My brother James flew into Portland Friday, too, and as soon as he finished the drive to the house we had him turn around and leave again so we could all go out to dinner. We headed over to the nearby restaurant MIST at Surftides hotel, which we were told had the best clam chowder in town. The chowder definitely was good, and most of the table also got the Friday prime rib special too.

Saturday: Taft Pioneer Cemetery, the Lincoln statue, Christmas Cottage, D River, Pines Dine, Yaquina Head Tidepools, and Devil’s Punchbowl

Saturday morning Dad and James went to Cascade Head, but the rest of us skipped it since we had already done it earlier in the week. So Josh, Mike, and I headed out for some smaller adventures in town. First up was Taft Pioneer Cemetery. Josh and I always like visiting cemeteries, and this one had one of the best afterlife views we’ve ever seen!

Next up, we stopped the Lincoln statue. Josh and I have an ongoing joke that “it’s always Lincoln.” Besides being from Illinois, where every town likes to brag about even the tiniest connection to Lincoln, we keep seeing Lincoln pop up everywhere we go. The Lincoln City Lincoln statue was one of the weirder ones, though. Apparently the town was named after Lincoln because he was offered the governorship of Oregon… but turned it down. So I guess it’s in honor of what could have been?

Stop number 3 of the day was the Christmas Cottage, which we had driven by a few times and noted the creepy Santas crawling all over the building. I absolutely love this shop, it is completely filled with Christmas ornaments everywhere you look! We ended up buying a glass ball ornament made by a local glass artist that reminded us of the glass floats Lincoln City is famous for. I definitely plan on coming back and getting a new ornament every time we visit.

We did one last stop on the way back to the house at the D River State Recreation Area. Supposedly this is the shortest river in the world. It’s also just a good beach access point and we had a nice long beach walk.

For lunch we picked up my brother and headed over to The Pines Dine food truck village. There’s a large indoor space with a bar and indoor seating, outdoor seating, and 12 food trucks. We got a few things to try and share, as well as some very reasonably priced local beers.

After lunch we went back to Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area since I had seen online that they were especially known for their tidepools and they looked way better than the Lincoln City ones. James hadn’t been to this park yet, so we took him to the visitor center and lighthouse too. The photos online didn’t lie, and the tidepools here were amazing. Not only were there tidepools full of all kinds of critters, there were also a bunch of harbor seals hanging out down the beach too! The tidepools are at Cobble Beach, which is made of ocean-rounded lava rocks that are hard to walk on and make a weird noise- which made it an interesting beach all on its own. In the tidepools we saw crabs, sculpins, anemones, urchins, chitons, so many sea stars we had to watch where we walked, and more! This was definitely one of the highlights of the trip.

On our way back to the house we did one last stop at Devil’s Punchbowl State Natural Area. We had driven by here on the way to Newport earlier in the week, but I wanted to go at low tide so that we’d be able to walk into the punchbowl itself. The beach access is not maintained and you have to climb down where the trail just falls away. There were some more tidepools here, but very few sea creatures in them. We did make it to the punchbowl itself, though, which was really cool to stand inside. The punchbowl was created by the roof of two sea caves collapsing.

We are AllTrails and Harvest Hosts affiliates and earn commission on qualifying purchases.