eight nights, two rented houses, and 362 miles of public beach
Dog Friendly Oregon Coast Vacation Package, Eight Nights Along the Headlands
This is the longest week we book and the one with the most open sand in it. A dog friendly Oregon coast vacation package built on two rented houses, short driving days, and beaches that stay public.
Eight nights, from $2,960 per person.
Nothing here counts you and nothing follows you off the page. One word can be stored, and only the word yes, so this slip stops coming back. The whole of what that means.
Oregon settled the beach question in 1967. The Beach Bill put the wet sand from the Columbia River to the California line into public hands to the mean high tide line, and it has stayed that way since. That is why a dog friendly Oregon coast vacation package works here in a way it does not work in most states: you are not asking a property for permission to walk on sand it owns, because it does not own the sand. Nobody does.
Eight nights, two houses, and one car you drive yourself. The north base sits between Cannon Beach and Manzanita, close enough to Oswald West that you can be at a trailhead in twelve minutes. The south base is in the Yachats and Waldport stretch, where the headlands stop being scenery and become the road. Four nights each. The transfer between them is 110 miles and takes about three hours if you stop, which you will.
Both houses are booked whole. Not a room, not a suite with a corridor outside it, but a building you have to yourselves with a door onto your own ground. That is the reason this band costs what it does. A room in a good property runs less per night than a house, and a house is the only arrangement where nobody has to think about whether a dog in the hallway at seven in the morning is a problem.
- How far the dog comes
- Your dog is with you for the entire eight nights, indoors and out, including every mile of beach on the itinerary.
- What is actually included
- Eight nights in two self catering houses booked whole, four nights north and four nights south; a written route with mileages and the turnoffs that matter; a printed sheet of the beach access points and which ones have parking for a full car; the fee each property charges for the dog, paid in advance so nothing is collected at the door; a phone number that reaches a person who has the booking file open.
- What the dog is shut out of
- Nothing on this itinerary is closed to your dog, and we do not build the week until that is verified. Oregon's beaches are public to the mean high tide line under state law, and the two houses are yours alone rather than rooms in a building with shared corridors. The one caveat is not a closure but a seasonal rule: several stretches of sand are posted for snowy plover nesting from mid March to mid September, where dogs stay on the wet sand below the high tide line rather than the dry upper beach. Those stretches are marked on your sheet with the dates. The state parks and the two forest trailheads on the route allow leashed dogs on every mile we have routed.
- What it does not include
- Airfare or rail to Portland or Eugene and back; the rental car, which you book yourself and which needs a real trunk rather than a compact; fuel, which runs about 640 miles over eight days; all food, including the first grocery run, which we tell you to do before you leave the valley because the coast stores are small and close early; restaurant meals and the patio seating that most coastal towns have; entry to any aquarium, museum or tour you decide to add; the state park day use permit if you want the annual one rather than paying at the machines; anything to do with your dog's health or care, which is a matter for your own veterinarian and not something this office arranges.
- Who should not book this
- Anyone who wants reliable sun. Outside July through September, rain is the ordinary condition and not the exception, and this trip puts you outdoors in it every day. Also unsuited to anyone unwilling to drive: there are two transfer days of about 90 and 110 miles on a two lane road with headland climbs, blind curves and log trucks, and no part of the week works without a car. If a dog cannot settle alone in an unfamiliar house for the two or three hours you might want for a meal indoors, this week will be harder than it looks, because the houses are yours but the restaurants are not.
Two houses, one road, and 362 miles of sand behind them
The north house is a three bedroom on a bluff lot with a fenced yard, roughly 1,400 square feet, wood stove, washer and dryer, and a covered porch that earns its keep in February. The beach access is 300 yards downhill on a public stair. The south house is smaller, two bedrooms, single story, set back from Highway 101 by about a quarter mile so the log trucks are audible but not close. Its yard is not fenced. We tell you that in the confirmation rather than letting you find out.
The ground between them is the actual product. Ecola, Oswald West, Cape Lookout, Cape Perpetua, Heceta Head, the Yachats 804 Trail. Leashed dogs are allowed on all of them under Oregon State Parks rules, and on the Siuslaw National Forest trails at Cape Perpetua as well. The 804 is the one people remember: three quarters of a mile of packed gravel along a basalt shelf, flat enough for anyone, loud enough in a January swell that you stop talking.
What you will not get is a shortcut around the weather. The wind on an exposed headland in November regularly runs 30 to 40 miles per hour with gusts higher, and the temperature sits in the high 40s to low 50s Fahrenheit for most of the year regardless of season. The rain does not fall so much as arrive sideways. We plan the week around it rather than pretending otherwise, which is why both bases have a stove and a dryer and why the itinerary never has more than about 40 miles of driving on a non transfer day.
from $2,960per person
- Behind the number
- The least this office has paid to put a party into this week during the past year, not a rate card.
- Counted how
- Per head, two sharing, one dog, and that dog's lodging supplement folded in here instead of appearing at the door.
- Pushes it up
- Taking a whole place rather than a room, bringing a second dog, a holiday week, a property that prices by the size of the animal, and deciding late.
- Goes firm
- The moment a property puts its own name to a written line saying it will take your dog on those exact dates.
You settle up with the property itself, through whatever system it happens to use. None of it routes through this office and no card is ever shown to anybody here.
When this week is worth the money and when it is not
July through September is the dry stretch: highs in the mid 60s to low 70s Fahrenheit, morning fog that burns off by eleven, and the smallest chance of rain in the year. It is also when Cannon Beach and Yachats fill, when the houses cost the most, and when the plover closures on the dry sand are still in force through mid September. The trade is real and it goes both ways.
The rest of the year is quieter, cheaper and wetter. A February week here can be extraordinary if a big swell is running and you have a wood stove to come back to, and it can also be four straight days of horizontal rain with no view of anything.
- Late June to mid September
- Driest stretch, highs in the mid 60s to low 70s Fahrenheit, morning fog most days, highest house rates, towns busy. Plover posting still active until mid September.
- Late September to October
- The best value on the calendar. Warm ocean by local standards, low crowds, dry spells of three and four days, storms starting to build by late October.
- November to January
- Storm season. Sustained 30 to 40 mph wind on the headlands, rain on 20 or more days per month, the lowest rates of the year, and the reason people come back.
- February to March
- Cold rain, gray water, empty beaches. Plover posting begins mid March on the marked stretches. Best for people who want the house as much as the coast.
- April to mid June
- Improving but unsettled. Wildflowers on the headlands, sun in the mornings, rain in the afternoons, and rates still below summer.
What gets settled before you pay anything
We do not take a deposit on a guess. The two houses are held first and the whole itinerary is checked against them before a figure goes out, because the entire point of this band is that no part of the week shuts your dog out. A quote takes two to four working days and a message is read the same working day it arrives.
- OneYou tell us the month, the number of people, the size and number of dogs, and whether an unfenced yard is workable for you.
- TwoWe hold two houses that take dogs at a stated fee, confirm the fee in writing, and check the routed trails and beach accesses against the current park and plover postings for your dates.
- ThreeYou get a written figure covering both houses, both dog fees and the route, plus a plain list of what is not in it. Nothing is collected until you say yes.
- FourOn confirmation we pay the dog fees forward so no money changes hands at either door, and you get the route sheet, the beach access list and the direct number.
Ask about a month before you ask about a price
The figure moves more with the calendar than with anything else on this trip, so tell us when you want to go and we will tell you what that month actually looks like on this coast, including the parts that are not flattering.