This hike begins just north of Cannon Beach at the Ecola Point day-use area, a grassy bluff with some picnic tables overlooking Crescent Beach, with views stretching farther south toward Haystack Rock. Follow the trailhead sign for Indian Beach, where you’ll soon duck into the forest and cross a footbridge over Crescent Creek. Meander uphill until you reach a viewpoint near a cliff edge, where you’ll spy Tillamook Rock Lighthouse, a deactivated lighthouse atop a basalt rock in the ocean. Pass the decommissioned trail and ascend through a mossy old-growth forest of storybook-like Sitka spruce and western hemlock, climbing a series of switchbacks before heading down through a secondary forest. Soon enough, you’ll descend some steps and be treated to another look at the lighthouse. Hiking cliffside, you’ll come to a junction that takes you on a short trail to Indian Beach, where you can take in the ocean breeze and have a picnic before heading back. —Michelle Harris

Located in Oswald West State Park, Neahkahnie Mountain—its name is a Tillamook term meaning “place of the deities”—looms over the town of Manzanita and can be reached via a number of trails. For this hike, start at the south trailhead off US 101. You'll gain roughly 900 feet over about a mile and a half of mostly shady switchbacks. Once you reach the rocky, windblown top, it's time for some boulder-hopping. On a clear day, the view is truly spectacular, stretching from the Tillamook headlands in the south to Cannon Beach to the north. Geocachers should look for a hidden logbook at the summit, but leave your metal detector at home. Though legend has it that long-ago Spanish sailors buried a chest of gold at Neahkahnie, fortune hunters dug so many holes in the bluff during fruitless searches that the state parks department finally banned the practice. —MH

It’s rare to find a mostly flat trail that still leads to an epic view. That helps explain the popularity of the Cape Lookout Trail, which achieves its view not via elevation but by virtue of its location on a long finger of land extending out into the Pacific, south of Oceanside and Netarts. It’s about 2.5 miles out to the very tip of the cape, and once there, you feel untethered from the continent’s edge. Along the way, you’ll hike mostly through cooling Sitka spruce, but you should be able to catch peekaboo views of the ocean as you go. A word to the wise: the misty Oregon Coast weather means this trail is often extra-muddy. Wear hiking boots with good tread, bring your poles, and prepare for some puddle jumping. Another good item to stick in your backpack is a pair of binoculars—during their migration season, this is prime gray whale spotting territory. —Julia Silverman

A fair haul from Portland, but if your beach travels take you as far south as Yachats or Florence, this is a really rewarding stop. Start at Heceta Head Lighthouse State Scenic Viewpoint, where you can climb the half-mile paved trail up to one of the coast’s most romantic old lighthouses. (If you’ve planned way ahead, you might even be able to snag a reservation at the lighthouse keeper’s old abode, now a small bed-and-breakfast.) Continue on the Heceta Head trail behind the lighthouse and head up and over the headlands for miles of beach views, then wind your way down to the poetically named Hobbit Beach, reached via a trail so thickly forested and mossy that the trees and bushes form virtual tunnels above your head. From here, retrace your steps to the parking lot. —JS