Best Family-Friendly Beaches in Oregon

Located within Fort Stevens State Park in the coastal city of Warrenton in Clatsop County, Fort Stevens State Park Beach - also known as Fort Stevens Beach - has a long beige sand beach.   The beach is positioned on the Clatsop Spit along the northern Oregon coast, near the mouth of the Columbia River.  It has a beautiful backdrop of dunes and coastal vegetation, offering incredible views of the Pacific Ocean.  

Fort Stevens State Park Beach is renowned for the wreckage of the British ship Peter Iredale, a 275-foot-long, four-masted steel boat that crash-landed on Clatsop Spit in 1906. The ship ran aground on this beach while it was traveling from Mexico to the Columbia River due to heavy fog and currents.  Despite the shipwreck, the entire crew made it safely to shore, and no one was seriously injured or died. Currently, the skeletal remains of Peter Iredale are still visible on the beach, which is protected by state and federal laws.

The beach is part of Fort Stevens State Park, which is one of the largest state parks in Oregon, spread over 4,300 acres and is home to beaches, freshwater lakes, a campground, golf courses, hiking trails, biking trails, museums, a visitors center, and Fort Stevens, the former site of military installations once used to guard the mouth of the Columbia River.  In the 1950’s, the area was converted into a state park after the military decommissioned the fort.

Located in the Oregonian city of Cannon Beach, the beautiful Cannon Beach is a large four-mile-long beach with light brown sand. Cannon Beach has been named the 2nd Best Beach in the Top 50 Beaches in the United States list in 2022 by Randall Kaplan, the world’s foremost beach expert who is known as "Mr. Beach." Portions of this popular beach are situated below oceanfront bluffs. This beach has a magnificent backdrop of oceanfront hills and residential houses. Many offshore rock formations are present in the water near Cannon Beach and the most iconic offshore rock formation along the Cannon Beach shoreline is a 235-feet tall intertidal basalt sea stack named Haystack Rock - this rock is the third largest intertidal rock formation in the world. This beach was named as the sixth best beach in the United States by TripAdvisor’s Travellers’ Choice awards in 2020. In addition, the beach was also listed by the travel division of the American media company U.S. News & World Report as one the 27 best beaches in the United States. Renowned academic Dr. Stephen Leatherman has listed Cannon Beach as the "Best Overall Beach" in Oregon in his book America’s Best Beaches. The city of Cannon Beach was also listed by National Geographic as one of "America’s Best Beach Towns." A creek occasionally flows through the beach into the Pacific Ocean. As an interesting fact, the beach and the city of Cannon Beach are named after a cannon from the 19th century United States Navy schooner Shark - this cannon was discovered near Cannon Beach’s current location in 1898 and it sparked the name change of the city from "Elk Creek" to "Cannon Beach." 

Located in the north-western part of the Oregon shoreline, Rockaway Beach is a large beach that has light brown sand. The beach is situated in the city of Rockaway Beach and it also has a fantastic background of oceanfront hills and buildings. Multiple creeks also flow through the beach into the Pacific Ocean. An interesting 88 feet-tall offshore rock formation named the Twin Rocks is also present in the water near this beach - this amazing rock formation is composed of sandstone and is millions of years old. In addition, the rock formation also plays an interesting role in influencing the local coastal geography by changing the shape of the beaches near it. Rockaway Beach has also been named the 15^th Best Beach in the Top 50 Beaches in the United States list in 2022 by Randall Kaplan, the world’s foremost beach expert who is known as "Mr. Beach" – and has been listed as one of the best beaches and beach towns in coastal Oregon by the online media website Thrillist.