This Oregon beach town of 1,500 people made National Geographic’s list of the world’s most beautiful places

It’s wilder than you’d expect from a town of 1,500

Cannon Beach sits on Oregon’s north coast, about 80 miles west of Portland, and the first thing you notice is what’s missing. No chain stores.

No resort sprawl. Just four miles of open sand, a handful of galleries, and a 235-foot basalt tower rising from the surf like it was dropped there.

National Geographic called it one of the world’s 100 most beautiful places back in 2013. Once you’re standing on that beach looking up at Haystack Rock, you’ll understand why people keep coming back.

The town is named after a cannon that washed ashore

Long before anyone called it Cannon Beach, the Tillamook people had been living along this stretch of coast for centuries.

Then in January 1806, Captain William Clark and members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition made their way here from Fort Clatsop to trade with the Tillamook for whale blubber.

The name came later, from a Navy schooner called the USS Shark that wrecked at the mouth of the Columbia River on Sept. 10, 1846.

A mail carrier found one of its cannons buried in the sand in 1898, and neighbors hauled it out with horses. The town officially took the name in 1922, after the Post Office kept mixing up mail with a town called Eola.

Haystack Rock formed from lava flows 15 million years ago

At 235 feet, Haystack Rock doesn’t look like something that belongs on a beach, and technically it doesn’t, at least not in any ordinary geological sense.

Massive lava flows from eastern Oregon traveled through the old Columbia River drainage roughly 15 to 17 million years ago.

Erosion and geologic uplift did the rest, eventually pushing the basalt formation above the ocean’s surface. At low tide you can walk right up to its base.

Three smaller spires just to the south, called The Needles, rise from the same stretch of shoreline.

The tidepools here are a protected Marine Garden

Oregon designated Haystack Rock’s intertidal zone as one of its seven protected Marine Gardens in 1990, and the rules are strict.

You can walk to the base at low tide, but climbing above the barnacle line is not allowed, and collecting anything, plant or animal, is prohibited.

The tidepools hold sea stars, anemones, crabs, chitons, limpets, and nudibranchs.

From February through October, the Haystack Rock Awareness Program runs educational sessions at the rock during low tides, and staff can answer questions about what you’re looking at in the pools.

Tufted Puffins nest on the rock every spring

Haystack Rock is home to the most accessible Tufted Puffin colony in the Pacific Northwest, and from early spring through mid-summer, you can watch them from the sand with a pair of binoculars.

Black Oystercatchers, Harlequin Ducks, Common Murres, and the occasional Bald Eagle or Peregrine Falcon also show up at the rock.

Out on the water, roughly 18,000 gray whales pass this coastline every year, covering more than 12,000 miles round trip between Alaska and Mexico.

Southbound migration peaks mid-December through mid-January, and northbound runs mid-March through mid-April.

Ecola State Park wraps nine miles of coastline just north of town

The road into Ecola State Park winds through dense Sitka spruce before it opens onto a grassy bluff, and then the whole coast spreads out in front of you.

From Ecola Point you can look south toward Haystack Rock, the sea stacks, and the headlands stacking up in the distance.

Drop down to Indian Beach and you’ll find a sheltered sandy cove where surfers paddle out and tidepoolers work the rocks. Roosevelt elk and deer move through the park, and Bald Eagles turn overhead.

The park stretches along nine miles of shoreline total.

You can hike the same trail Captain Clark walked in 1806

The Clatsop Loop Trail is a 2.5-mile route that follows the path Captain Clark’s party used in January 1806, and a spur off the loop takes you to a viewpoint overlooking the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse, which sits on a lone rock about a mile offshore.

The longer Tillamook Head Trail runs six miles from Cannon Beach all the way to Seaside, through dense coastal forest with a primitive camp along the way.

Clark wrote that the view from Tillamook Head was the grandest prospect his eyes had ever seen. The trail still delivers.

Hug Point hides sea caves and old stagecoach ruts in the rock

About three miles south of town, Hug Point State Recreation Site holds a few things you won’t find everywhere.

At low tide, walk around the headland and you’ll reach sea caves carved into sandstone cliffs and a seasonal waterfall that drops straight onto the beach.

Look closely at the rock face and you can still see wheel ruts from when the beach served as the main travel route before the highway existed.

The point got its name because travelers had to press against the rocks to get around the headland without getting soaked. Check with Oregon State Parks before you go, as coastal erosion has caused closures here.

Oswald West State Park has old-growth rainforest and great surf

Ten miles south of Cannon Beach, Oswald West State Park covers nearly 2,500 acres of coastal rainforest.

A half-mile walk through old-growth Sitka spruce, western red cedar, and western hemlock brings you to Short Sand Beach, a sheltered cove that draws surfers year-round.

The Cape Falcon Trail is a roughly five-mile round trip through rainforest to a headland with open ocean views. Neahkahnie Mountain rises about 1,600 feet and looks out over miles of coastline.

The park is named after Oregon’s 14th governor, who helped preserve hundreds of miles of the state’s beaches for public use.

More than a dozen galleries fill this small coastal town

Chain stores have been actively discouraged from setting up here, and the result is a downtown full of galleries instead.

You’ll find painting, sculpture, glass, photography, and handcrafted jewelry spread across more than a dozen studios.

At Icefire Glassworks in Midtown, you can watch molten glass get shaped into finished pieces while you stand there. Bronze Tufted Puffin sculptures by Northwest artist Georgia Gerber stand around town as public art.

The architecture itself leans into the local identity, with jellyfish lamps, osprey nest chimney caps, and Native American-inspired downspouts on public buildings throughout downtown.

The sandcastle contest started after a tsunami hit the town

In March 1964, the Good Friday Earthquake in Alaska sent a tsunami into Cannon Beach and destroyed the Elk Creek Bridge, cutting the town off.

That same year, four residents organized a sandcastle contest to bring people back.

It’s been held every June since, drawing thousands of spectators to watch teams build in divisions that run from young Sand Fleas to expert Masters, using only materials found on the beach that day.

In 2014, the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department recognized it as an Oregon Heritage Tradition, one of only 26 events in the state to earn that designation.

The original cannon from the USS Shark is inside the history museum

The Cannon Beach History Center and Museum holds the actual cannon that gave the town its name.

After years of outdoor exposure began to oxidize the metal, the cannon went to Texas A&M University for conservation work, and now it sits on display inside the museum.

Two more cannons from the USS Shark turned up at Arch Cape in 2008 and now live at the Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria.

The history center also covers the Tillamook people, the Lewis and Clark visit, and how the town grew from a remote coastal settlement into what it is today. Admission is free.

Plan your visit to Cannon Beach, Oregon

To get here, take Highway 26 west from Portland for about 80 miles to U.S. Highway 101. Ecola State Park sits at the north end of town off Ecola Park Road, and you’ll need a day-use parking permit to get in.

Hug Point is about three miles south on Highway 101, but check with Oregon State Parks for current access conditions before you go. Oswald West State Park is roughly 10 miles south with free parking.

The history museum is in town and free to visit. Oregon’s public beaches are free and open to all under the 1967 Beach Bill.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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