Tucked amid the redwoods and giant ferns off 101 between Port Orford and Gold Beach, the painted concrete dinosaurs of the Prehistoric Gardens are to Jurassic Park what a coloring book is to a Roblox game. The kitschy stop gets frequent boosts from TV appearances on the Discovery Channel and shows like Fox Business Network’s Strange Inheritance. Plus, the easy, fully accessible walkway through huge redwoods and giant ferns offers road-trippers some all-natural air conditioning and a nice leg stretch. —Margaret Seiler

Once you hike out to this unique basalt formation from the Eocene epoch, you will understand why it's called God’s Thumb, and why it's so beloved by locals and hikers alike. The 4.5-mile hike has multiple trailheads from which it can be accessed. Climb through thickets of blackberry and salmonberry to the Knoll, a grassy ridge and bedding ground for elk, and then descend the giant thumb rising out of the ocean. There are steep cliffs here, so hike with care and watch your step. And enjoy the breathtaking views of the coast from the ridge. On your way home, make an extra stop at Neskowin Beach. When the tide is out, the barnacle-covered stumps of ancient sitka spruce emerge from the sand, forming what is known as the Neskowin Ghost Forest. —ILK

More than a half-century ago, Roger Tofte spent $4,000 on 20 acres in the Willamette Valley to build a Storybook Trail. From this relatively meager outlay emerged one of the state’s greatest family attractions and the trippiest, homemade theme park you never imagined: the Enchanted Forest. Since then, millions have entered Tofte’s Rabbit Hole, slid down the witch’s hair, faced their fears inside the Seven Dwarves Mine, and been duly enchanted by this wild landscape of mismatched attractions. (The last day of the 2025 season is September 28.) —Fiona McCann

While a windstorm took out the country’s tallest Sitka spruce, near Seaside, in 2007 (RIP), the Oregon Coast is still home to what might be the weirdest Sitka spruce. Called the Octopus Tree (among many other nicknames), this multitrunk wonder at Cape Meares State Scenic Viewpoint looks like a stationary Whomping Willow or a giant’s whisk. —MS

Before it became a museum, the old Clatsop County Jail functioned as an actual jail from 1914 to 1976, and then as a working set for three movies. Most notably, the villainous Fratelli clan broke out of the slammer and began a car chase here—in The Goonies’ opening credits, that is. Today, the museum celebrates film and television production in Oregon, particularly the long list of films made in Astoria and Clatsop County, such as Kindergarten Cop and Free Willy. —ILK

In October 1906, this British barque ran ashore so hard that three of the ship’s masts broke off. Visitors now can walk up to the wreckage during low tide. Nearby ghost town Fort Stevens, a former military installation established during the Civil War, is also worth a visit. —GG

Part novelties, part memorials, there are plenty of shoe trees around the state—including a more picturesque one along US 97 near Redmond. But the sad, ghostly, splitting, fading Mitchell Shoe Tree on the north side of US 26 near the John Day Fossil Beds is Oregon’s OG, decorated by hundreds of shoes and a sign that declares them all just a “bunch of old souls hanging around.” —MS

A mere 12 miles south of Portland, Oregon City boasts one of the only vertical streets in North America. How do you drive down this vertical street, you ask. You don’t. You take Oregon City’s saucer-shaped Municipal Elevator, built in 1955, up and down it. (Unfortunately this elevator does not go sideways, slantways, longways, or backways.) —GG

Many vampire—or teen romance—nerds head to Forks, Washington, to see the original filming locations from the Twilight movies. But Portlanders don't need to cross the border. This family-owned café, on the edge of Damascus, appears in the first film as Bella and Charlie Swan’s local haunt for steak and cobbler. Carver Café serves an extensive breakfast menu all day and Bella’s Berry Cobbler with ice cream—stop by for a bite while heading back from Mount Hood, and play “Eyes on Fire” by Blue Foundation on the ride home. —ILK

What’s the ghostly story behind this eerie, moss- and graffiti-covered stone building about three-quarters of a mile into Lower Macleay Trail in Forest Park? It’s actually the remnants of a bathroom commissioned in 1929. It was damaged by a storm and abandoned in 1962. These days, it’s one of the most Instagrammed spots in the park. Beware of possible Moaning Myrtle wannabes and late-night high school partiers. —Katherine Chew Hamilton

This two-foot-diameter traffic island at the intersection of SW Naito and Taylor once held the Guinness record for world’s smallest park. It was dethroned in February 2025 by a park in Nagaizumi, Japan, but remains a favorite leisure spot of Thumbelina, Arrietty, the Borrowers, the Northwest’s many immigrants from Lilliput, and some of Rick Moranis’s lost children. OK, so we’re lying about those visitors, but its park status does stem from a series of columns in the Oregon Journal: writer Dick Fagan could see the unused utility pole hole from his office windows and liked to imagine it was a leprechaun colony. —MS

Before the days of iPhone weather apps, there was the Weather Machine, an often overlooked work of public art built in 1988 in Pioneer Courthouse Square. Every day at noon, recorded trumpet music fills the air along with mist and flashing lights, and out of what looks like a regular ol’ street lamp, one of three sculptures emerges to predict the weather for the next 24 hours—a sun for clear skies, a heron for cloudy and rainy weather, and a dragon for gnarly storms. —KCH