Your tires meet sand at the Avenue U turnaround, where the asphalt gives way to the kind of firm shore that has welcomed automobiles since the 1920s. Seaside Beach stretches north and south in a broad, flat ribbon, wide enough that you can stake your umbrella far from the tide line and still watch breakers foam white against grey-green water. The Turnaround itself—a concrete roundabout crowned by a bronze Lewis and Clark statue—anchors the town's mile-and-a-half boardwalk, called the Prom, where saltwater taffy shops and arcade bells compete for your attention.
“One of the few Oregon beaches where you can legally drive and park directly on the sand.”
Credit: UnsplashPerson walking on a sand spit
Families return here summer after summer because the beach demands no hiking boots or tide charts. Children dig moats in damp sand while parents set up camp chairs beside driftwood logs smoothed by decades of storms. The horizon often wears a veil of mist, and the wind carries the iodine tang of kelp and the distant bark of sea lions from nearby rocks. When the sun breaks through, it turns the wet sand into a mirror.
Come evening, the beach transforms. Bonfire smoke spirals upward, strangers nod as they pass on sunset walks, and the lights of beachfront hotels blink on one by one. The Pacific crashes with a rhythm you feel in your sternum, and someone always has a kite aloft, even after dark, its tail snapping against the offshore breeze that never quite dies down.
