This Friday, I’m taking the bus (it’s a 7-hour trip, but it’s free) from Olympia to Astoria, OR, to see a local comedian who’s filming a special for Amazon there. The show is Saturday night, but since the bus routes I need to get there and back don’t run on weekends, I’ve booked a hotel from Friday through to Monday morning and decided to make a weekend vacation out of it. That leaves me Friday evening, most of Saturday, and all day Sunday to explore the town.
I’ve decided that I’m going to see the Goonies house and (if weather permits) make the hike up to the Astoria Column, but aside from that I haven’t made any concrete plans of what else to do or what to see or where to eat, and though it’s a small town there seem to be a lot of options. Any recommendations from anyone who’s been there before?
Last time I was there a decade ago, my kids were small, so we spent hours and hours flying kites and searching through tide pools and just running around. Not very useful for you.
Gorgeous place, though. I think I’d be happy just sitting on that beach and sipping a cup of hot tea for an hour.
That does remind me, my wife and I did find a nice restaurant in the downtown area that did a chef’s-demo cooking presentation (they explained the way they wine-poached their pears for dessert), followed by dinner. Really enjoyable. I also have a vague memory of browsing through a pretty cool used bookstore. Not sure if either of these is of interest.
I was going to recommend the Buoy Beer restaurant. A wonderful place right over the water on the Columbia river. It had a glass floor allowing patrons to view the seals lounging on the rocks below!
Unfortunately, after searching for info I found out that the building collapsed into the river in 2022.
My time in Astoria was spent eating delicious, delicious fresh local oysters and shopping at a hardware store for parts to repair a hiking pole. All quite delightful, but not helpful to you I fear.
The Columbia River Maritime Museum is worth a visit. If you like smoked salmon, Josephson’s Smokehouse is the place to go. It ain’t cheap, but man it is good.
The downtown strip is very cool. You could probably spend an entire day wandering up and down the streets, checking out all the shops.
I second the Maritime Museum.
I don’t know if it would be feasible, but on the south side of the mouth of the Columbia there’s Fort Stevens, and on the north side, Cape Disappointment. Both are a bit of a drive from town, though, 10 minutes for Fort Stevens or 20 minutes for Cape Disappointment. I have no idea if there are tour busses, or how much of a presence Uber/Lyft have. My wife and I regularly visit the area, but of course we have our car.
If that is possible, a couple of miles north of Cape Disappointment is a very cool little town called Long Beach. It’s got a cute little downtown with restaurants and shops, and a boardwalk and paved trails all along the beach, going all the way down to Cape Disappointment. My wife and I have rented e-bikes and spent a couple of hours exploring the trails.
If you are doing the whole Goonies thing, you may as well go to Cannon Beach, home to Haystack Rock. You can get there on the Pacific Connector bus from Astoria. Seaside is also along the route, as both Cannon Beach and Seaside are worth a stroll.
I see that Sam’s comedy show is filming at the Liberty Theatre, a 100 year old classic Italian theater that has been completely renovated and it is beautiful! The kind of place where you just want to spend time looking at the artwork on the walls. That alone is worth the trip.
The Maritime Museum is right on the waterfront and very good. The Riverwalk runs the entire length of the city. Sometimes the riverfront trolley is running and only $1, but it is early in the year and may not be operating yet.
There are plenty of dining establlishments for all tastes, lots of brew pubs. If you want really good food in a casual dining experience go to the Silver Salmon, right downtown on the main street. I don’t eat out much any longer so I won’t recommend others except that there are many, many good places.
Looks like good weather this weekend but remember the unoffical motto: “Astoria! It’s probably raining.”
Thirding the Maritime Museum. Make sure you visit/tour the lightship Columbia. It’s very cool and is included with the museum’s general admission charge.
Fort Stevens is cool. The wreck of the Peter Iredale is visible on the beach nearby. It was used in the closing scene of The Road.
Another very cool thing to visit is Fort Clatsop. This was the Corps of Discovery’s 1805-1806 winter encampment. The original log fort rotted away soon after L&C left but the replica is based on Williiam Clark’s schematics he drew in his journal and those were rather detailed. There were 45 men (and one woman and one infant and one dog) in the Corps of Discovery and it’s hard to imagine 45 people crammed into that tiny fort for 4 months. Definitely worth a visit.
If you’re coming up I-5 or 101 and want to do lunch in the Roseburg or Bandon area let me know, I’d be up for an ultra-mini Dopefest.
Just want to mention, you can walk right up to the wreckage, touch it, walk through it, whatever. It’s on a public beach, often surrounded by kids building sand castles and whatnot.
Well, it’s a 90-minute bus ride from Olympia to Aberdeen, a 2-hour ride from there to Ilwaco, and 30 minutes from there to Astoria, but there’s a 2-hour wait in Ilwaco and 45 minutes in Aberdeen, plus the ride from my house to the transit center, so about 7 hours from when I leave home to when I get there.
It is very cool. The first replication burned down, so they built another one that was more accurate than the first try.
The Corps of Discovery, also known as the Lewis and Clark expedition, really did not like the winter they spent here. They first landed on the north side of the river and that place they gave a name to: Dismal Nitch.
Note that unfortunately most of the towns on the Oregon coast are touristy. Between the towns, the views are great, but on a nice weekend the towns are another thing. Astoria isn’t so much on the coast itself.
If you want to visit authentic PNW coastal towns, cross the Astoria-Meglar bridge (itself quite the thing) and head up the peninsula past Long Beach to some place like Ocean Park. Stop at a cafe and hang with actual fisherman.
Then get out of there and be thankful for the tourist towns on the Oregon coast.
I saw them on Google Maps and was hoping someone would make a recommendation - I love fish and chips, but I’ve never heard of tuna being used as the fish before. How is it compared to, say, halibut?
