The best traffic-free bike rides in Lincoln County

Sometimes the best part isn't the beach at all, looking east...

sunset can be beautiful

Pacific City is a charming coastal town beneath the majestic Cape Kiwanda. Mesmerizing landmarks, sandy beaches, awe-inspiring views, and excellent surfing opportunities surround this picturesque location. Here, you will see the massive “sea stack” rock formation and the towering sand dune leading to Cape Kiwanda's top, offering breathtaking vistas. The town is also an exceptional spot for fishing, surfing, and watching dorymen launch their boats directly from the beach.

Depoe Bay is a city in Lincoln County, Oregon, located on Route 101 on the Pacific Ocean. The bay of the same name is a 6-acre (2.4 ha) harbor, which the city promotes as the smallest navigable harbor in the world. Depoe Bay was named after Siletz Indian Charles "Charley" Depot, to whom the land was originally granted in 1894 as part of the Dawes Act of 1887. There are conflicting accounts of the origin of his name. It is said that he received the name "Depot Charley" because he worked at the military depot near Toledo, Oregon. The family later became known as "DePoe." His original tribal affiliation was Tututni. In 1975, the fishing trip sequence in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was filmed in Depoe Bay. In 1983, the harbor sequence in Hysterical was filmed in Depoe Bay, with the Depoe Bay Bridge prominently featured in the background. In 2008, restaurant scenes from The Burning Plain were filmed in Depoe Bay at the Tidal Raves restaurant. On March 11, 2011, the Depoe Bay harbor was damaged by a tsunami caused by the Tohoku earthquake off the coast of Japan. On August 21, 2017, Depoe Bay was one of the first places in the United States to experience the entirety of that year's North American solar eclipse.

The world's shortest title was lost in 1989 when Guinness named the Roe River in Montana the shortest in the world. In an attempt to reclaim the title, the people of Lincoln City submitted a new measurement to Guinness of about 120 feet (37 m) marked at "extreme high tide." At the time, the Lincoln City Chamber of Commerce described the Roe as a "drainage dike being studied for a school project." Montana supporters shot back that the D was just an "ocean water backup," pointed out that there was an alternative fork to the Roe that was only 30 feet (9.1 m) long and suggested a new survey . Guinness apparently never decided the dispute and let the Roe claim stand, but as of 2006 decided to no longer list the shortest river, perhaps because of this ongoing dispute.

A wondrous and rugged bay rimmed with basalt. Boiler Bay is a great place to watch wild surfing action on the rocky spurs. This magnificent panoramic view offers a great opportunity to see gray whales all year round. Bring your binoculars - this is one of the best places in Oregon to see oceanic birds (like shearwaters, jaegers, albatrosses, grebes, pelicans, loons, oystercatchers and murrelets). In 1910 an explosion sank the J. Marhoffer and you can see the ship's boiler at low tide.

Hear, see and smell the sea lions! The wooden sea lion docks at Port Dock One on Newport's Bay Front have provided sea lion transportation for over 18 years. They offer the public a unique opportunity to observe these amusing and interesting animals up close. For many, this is the quintessential Newport experience.

Drift Creek Bridge, one of Oregon's oldest covered bridges, served as a key route south of Lincoln City. Built in 1914, it was preserved as a historical memorial after being bypassed in the 1960s.