We used to do a family thing at Seaside. Not as cute or quaint as Cannon Beach, but more places on the prom (ocean front) to rent. Plenty of rentals at CB.
Manzanita is further south, much smaller than CB, but cute. Nehalem Beach state park is right there. Bandon, with some of the best golfing anywhere, says my BIL, is even more miles down the coast.
Sunriver is definitely more resort-y. The last time we went there, in August, it was cool and cloudy, but that was an odd year. The advantage is that it’s set up for groups with plenty of huge houses.
Suncadia, near Cle Elum, WA, outside Roslyn (of the TV show “Northern Exposure” fame), is Washington’s Sunriver wannabe. H and I stayed in the lodge a year or so ago. There are homes for rent, but I have no idea of quality or price.
I have a good friend who spends 8/12 months a year now in Roslyn since her son and his wife had her first grandchild almost three years ago. I’ve been there to visit her once (last year before our trip to Cannon Beach). The locals are not too fond of Suncadia moving in!
I’ve been thinking about your criteria and wonder if Whidbey Island might be a good destination. From Seatac Airport (Seattle) you’d rent a car and drive about an hour north to catch the ferry from Mukilteo to the town of Clinton on Whidbey Island. The ferry ride itself is fun and very Pacific-Northwest, the scenery is spectacular, and there’s something really wonderful about an island vacation.
You could pick one of the towns on Whidbey (maybe Langley, which has lots of vacation homes) and rent a few houses, using the largest as your gathering spot.
I really, really love the Oregon coast but, if you can find suitable accommodations, Whidbey may offer a greater variety of memorable vistas and experiences along with a less touristy experience. As for Cle Elum in Washington or Sunriver in Oregon, these are gorgeous areas but, given climate issues of late, I would worry that a forest fire could make your gathering miserable. Maybe I’m wrong, but I can’t recall a fire having impacted Whidbey or other nearby islands. I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m mistaken : )
Thank you so much everyone for all of these terrific suggestions! We really are looking for at least one very large house. To give you an idea of what worked well, here’s a link to the website of a house we had in Vermont: http://www.lovevermont.net/ Because it was used primarily as a ski lodge and not a home, it had some wonderful amenities such as twin beds in most rooms and each room had their own bathroom. Because most of us have grown kids, but so far, none of our kids have children, we don’t really want a twin bed in the same room the double/king bed. The last house we rented had an actual bunk room with a dozen bunk beds. That was a little weird for our young adults, but not bad. We don’t need the elaborate master rooms. We also really like huge gathering spaces and big kitchens with multiple refrigerators, burners, etc. Think 30-50 people, not 15-20. I like the Cannon beach idea.
Someone upthread suggested Leavenworth, WA. I looked up the town and it struck me as kind of weird, but the area looks lovely. The location from Seattle is just right.
One issue with Whidbey is the ferry traffic. You can get stuck in a ferry line for 2 or 3 hours during the busiest times. Planning arrival and departure dates to avoid these days/times would be wise. Here’s a link with a button that shows typical wait times. I haven’t confirmed its accuracy.
If you want to hike, Leavenworth is by far the best suggestion I see here. The trails and rock climbing up Icicle Creek are world-class. We’re heading back next month to hike up Grindstone Mountain.
We drove by the Wenatchee River a few weeks ago and it is super low; the whitewater rafting would have been a rock scraping meander by mid-June this year. We did see a couple kayakers working the water higher up. About 30 minutes back west from Leavenworth are Lake Wenatchee (also has some decent size houses on the north shore) and Fish Lake. You can rent a small outboard boat at Fish Lake and troll for decent rainbows, or hike in to some of the smaller lakes. Icicle Creek has fishing, including a summer salmon season.
Suncadia, near Cle Elum, does have some huge houses. They developed it late 90s/early 00s when people were making a bunch of money on internet stocks. It is located along the Cle Elum River and close to the Yakima River, though they are used for irrigation during the summer and will be flowing high - best to get a guide and a driftboat if you are fishing. Lots of good backcountry hiking in the area. The towns of Cle Elum and Roslyn aren’t worth much more than groceries and gas, though.
The average daily temperature along the coast is going to be low in the summer. Late August is the warmest it gets. To me, the weather is perfect, especially if you’re doing a lot of strenuous activities, but when we were in Cannon Beach last summer, the highs were in the upper 60s/lower 70s. Very few people go in the water unless they have a wetsuit on.
If you go to Cannon Beach anyone interested in a moderate/moderately difficult 1.5 mile hike can go to the nearby Ecola State park and hike through the ferny forest and along the ocean cliffs. The view from the lush green park is amazing and an awesome place for non-hikers to picnic. (the hike difficulty level increases in direct proportion to the amount of rain/mud).
My family has instructions to spread my ashes on this hike. And my avatar is from it.
It was me who mentioned Leavenworth. Yes, the town itself is all done up like a German town. The city leaders did this years ago to purposely become a tourist town to save it after logging died down. The drive from Seattle is gorgeous, and the rivers are not whitewater now, but we saw dozens of kayakers and tubers go by the B & B where we stayed last weekend. That resort though, is just outside of town and is not German kitsch at all. It’s a really beautiful area, and yes, you can drive over to Wenatchee for more things to do.
@TempeMom - yes, we did that hike, as well as several others. That’s the thing I like about Cannon Beach; there were soooo many options for hiking alone, within just a 10-minute to hour’s drive from Cannon Beach. Some easier than others. It’s almost impossible to link them all here. And that’s just hiking.
Also, Cannon Beach is a very long beach. We walk 1.5-2 hours most visits. There is a religious retreat center there that may be rentable. The Hallmark ( I hope I have that right) has houses to rent of different sizes all in a row. I have been to a retreat in one and it was nice and walkable to town. Many of the other beaches, such as Manzanita require following the tide table.
Also, if traffic is ok the drive to downtown PDX would be 1.5-2 hours and an easy drive for a day trip.
Sunriver / Bend area is great. There are also the High Desert Museum, great obsidian flows and lava tunnels to explore near Eastlake and of course a day trip to Crater Lake which is absolutely spectacular.
It’s not that I want to go swimming, but I think most of us are used to wearing shorts in the summer, not jeans and sweatshirts. It’s really interesting to me how much cooler it is on the coast then inland, even when you go further North. The avg. temp in July in Leavenworth, WA is a high of 87 and a low of 52. To me, those are perfect temps, assuming it’s just a little cooler hiking in the mountains.
Leavenworth * is * kind of strange. We stop there some years when we drive over Stevens Pass during winter break, especially when the kids were little to see the lights and inner tube. Although Snoqualmie Pass feels faster.
Lots of people take train there in fall to see the trees change. It was done up Bavarian style to increase tourism, it apparently worked!
Another town that also has a theme, but which is further away, but closer to my heart, is Winthrop. It has had an old West theme since the 1970’s. http://winthropwashington.com/things-do/
Limiting travel time to two hours, will significantly restrict your area but Cannon Beach should be within that.
You might consider the Columbia Gorge & fly into PDX.