The drive from Neskowin to Tillamook is about 45 minutes north on Highway 101, and it's the day trip we suggest when the tide charts don't line up for the Ghost Forest or the weather has other plans. Cheese, a lighthouse, a very strange tree, and a loop back along the Three Capes. Here's how we'd run it.
Leaving Neskowin
Have coffee at the cabin. Neskowin is small, and the route north passes through Pacific City in ten minutes if you want a bakery stop. Then it's 101 through Cloverdale, Hebo, and Beaver, farm country with dairy cows and the Nestucca River alongside. It's pretty and slow. Don't rush it.
Stop one: Tillamook Creamery
Yes, it's a tourist stop. Yes, go anyway. The self-guided tour looks down on the actual production floor, the cheese samples are free and generous, and the ice cream line moves faster than it looks. Our unpopular opinion: get the ice cream first, before you're full of grilled cheese. Parking is huge, dogs are fine in the outdoor areas, and it's free to enter. Weekend midday is the busiest; arrive before 11 or after 2.
Stop two: Blue Heron French Cheese Company
Just south of the Creamery, a converted dairy barn with brie, wine tasting, a deli, and a petting zoo out back with goats and a very entitled peacock. It's quieter than the Creamery and a better place to grab picnic supplies for the capes.
Stop three: the Three Capes Scenic Loop
From Tillamook, head west on Third Street toward Cape Meares. The road hugs Tillamook Bay, then climbs to the cape. Three things to see at the top:
- Cape Meares Lighthouse: short, stubby, 38 feet tall, and open seasonally. The walk down to it is paved and easy. Look for whales in winter and spring.
- The Octopus Tree: a giant Sitka spruce with limbs that grow sideways out of the trunk like tentacles. A two-minute walk from the parking lot. Kids lose their minds.
- The Big Spruce: a quarter-mile trail to one of the largest Sitka spruces in the state, a little way back down the road.
From Cape Meares, continue south to Oceanside (tiny beach town, a tunnel through the rock to a hidden beach at low tide) and Netarts (oysters, bay views). Netarts Bay is a good crabbing spot if you brought gear.
Stop four: Cape Lookout
The middle cape. The trail out to the tip is about five miles round trip through old-growth forest to a point 400 feet above the ocean. It's the best whale-watching hike on this stretch. If that's too much, the day-use beach at the state park is flat and dog-friendly.
Back to Neskowin via Pacific City
Continue south on the loop and you'll land in Pacific City. Cape Kiwanda is the third cape: a giant sand dune to climb, Haystack Rock (the other one, not Cannon Beach's) offshore, and the dory boats that launch straight off the beach. Pelican Brewing is right on the sand. Have a beer, watch the sunset, then it's ten minutes back to Neskowin.
Timing
- 9:30 leave Neskowin
- 10:15 Tillamook Creamery
- 11:30 Blue Heron for picnic supplies
- 12:15 Cape Meares, lighthouse and Octopus Tree
- 1:30 Oceanside or Netarts, lunch on the beach
- 3:00 Cape Lookout walk (short or long)
- 5:00 Pacific City, Pelican, sunset
- 6:30 back at the cabin
Where you're coming home to
Our Weekender cabin in Neskowin sleeps three, sits steps from the beach, and has a wood stove and a private hot tub for the end of a day like this. Neskowin itself deserves its own days, and our Neskowin things-to-do page covers Proposal Rock, the Ghost Forest, and Cascade Head. Tillamook is the day you spend when the tide is wrong and you want cheese.
Bring a cooler. You will buy more cheese than you planned. Everyone does.