Some scenes around Seaside, Oregon:
Author: David
Thousand Trails Seaside
We stayed at Thousand Trails Seaside in Seaside, Oregon. (Campground Reviews listing.)
A nice Thousand Trails park.
Dates:
- Check in: 2023-05-28
- Check out: 2023-06-04
- 7 nights
Weather:
- Partly cloudy
- High temps ranging between 58-65°F, lows around 46-51°F
- A little wind
Noise:
- No road noise
- No train noise
- A little neighbor noise
Site:
- #158, back in, gravel
- Needed to disconnect toad; parked in front of coach
- Rather unlevel; took us a few tries, and needed blocks under the front jacks
- Medium site: about 50 feet long by about 40 feet wide
- Picnic table and fire pit on grass
Utilities:
- 50 amp power, inconveniently located
- 65 PSI water, inconveniently located
- Good sewer connection, conveniently located (1 10-foot pipe needed)
Internet (in usage priority order):
- T-Mobile: 25-29 Mbps down, 4-10 Mbps up, 40 ms ping
- AT&T: 4 Mbps down, 2 Mbps up, 70 ms ping
- Verizon: 4 Mbps down, 6 Mbps up, 30 ms ping
- Starlink: not used
- Campground Wi-Fi: not used
Amenities:
- Dumpsters only by entrance
- Indoor pool
Our review on Campground Reviews:
Large, busy park
First, a very important tip, especially when staying at a Thousand Trails or other first-come park: Do not arrive on the Sunday of a three-day weekend. We forgot about Memorial Day when we planned our route, and trying to find an open 50A site was diabolical on Sunday afternoon. Another rig that pulled in behind us was faster unhooking their toad and zipped ahead of us to take the last available site. Rude. So we drove around the north section (where the 50A sites are) for quite a while with no joy. Fortunately, a seasonal resident was just about to move from their temporary site to their permanent one and flagged us down. We waited while they packed up and moved, then we were able to pull into a nice end site near the bathroom block. Normally, I don’t like being so close to the bathrooms, but we needed to sanitize our water system, so it was very convenient. The site itself was incredibly unlevel and it took us quite a while to get as close to level as possible but never got completely there. Once we got situated, it wasn’t a bad place to stay, however. We camped at Thousand Trails Seaside in a Motorhome.
Tip for Other Campers: Pizza delivery from Angelina’s right to your site. Drive up to Washington and check out the Cape Disappointment lighthouse. Dinner at Mo’s and a walk along the promenade are great ways to spend an evening.
Interactive map:
The map, with all available north-side sites when we checked in circled:
Our arrival experience wasn’t ideal, but mostly on us: we foolishly arrived on Sunday of Memorial weekend, when almost all sites were occupied. The only vacant sites were reserved for seasonal sites. But the people that had reserved one of those directed us to the site they were moving from, which was quite a nice location, albeit not very level:
Painted rocks left on the picnic table by the previous occupants:
Utilities:
A large grassy area next to our site; not having a neighbor on the driver side was nice:
Another nice thing is Angelina’s Pizza delivery on travel day:
Other sites:
Cabins:
Tent sites:
Oops, a trailer took a corner too sharply and hit a rock (with a loud crunch):
Tennis courts:
Indoor pool:
Clubhouse:
Playground:
Bathrooms across the grassy area from our site — we usually don’t use campground bathrooms, but this time having them nearby was helpful, as we sanitized our fresh water tanks, which means not using our own bathrooms for several hours:
Pet exercise area:
Video: South Beach to Seaside, Oregon motorhome travel timelapse
A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 125 miles from South Beach, Oregon to Seaside, Oregon.
Travel from South Beach to Seaside, Oregon
We drove our coach 125 miles, about three hours of driving, from South Beach, Oregon to Seaside, Oregon.
Here’s the map route, heading north:
Interactive map, with potential stops marked:
Our bedroom with the slide-outs in; Paladin just sat in his bed while the slides were coming in. We store the steering wheel table, the bedroom air cleaner, and other stuff on the bed for travel:
Jenn bringing in the front passenger-side slide-out, via the switch on the side of the chair (Tiffin puts it there to help ensure the chair is moved forward before bringing in the slide, to avoid hitting it):
And the front driver-side slide-out:
Leaving the campground:
Entering tsunami hazard zone; there are signs like this all the way up the coast:
Newport:
Newport bridge:
We enjoy seeing an instance of our favorite coffee stand, Dutch Bros Coffee:
Parts of the coast highway can be prone to slips; here’s the remnants of a previous slip:
The coast:
Lincoln City:
Espresso in a fun building:
Tiger:
It’s marshmallow harvesting season!
Bridge near Tillamook:
Tillamook Creamery; we would have liked to visit the world-famous Tillamook Cheese Factory again (we haven’t been since they built their new visitor center), but it didn’t work out this time:
An old smokestack:
A nice house:
Pronto Pup giant hot dog:
Mural:
We stopped for lunch at Lakeside Hideaway in Rockaway Beach:
Menu:
I had a clam chowder:
And we both had huge club sandwiches (with one of each of ours saved for leftovers) and tots:
Back to our coach:
Paladin waiting for us:
Rock:
Tunnel:
Paladin keeping an eye on the Bluefire dash on my iPad:
Seaside:
Rope course:
Our destination, Thousand Trails Seaside:
Checking in:
North side drive:
As usual for Thousand Trails, we parked our coach and drove our truck around to look for a site:
Tire covers
Back when we purchased the Magne Shades for our windshield and other front windows, we also purchased mirror covers and tire covers.
We used the mirror covers for a while, but don’t bother anymore. And we’d never used the tire covers, since we typically travel every week or so. But while staying at a sunny location for a couple of weeks a while back, we decided to use them, and have been using them regularly since then.
The idea of the tire covers is to protect the tires from harmful UV rays, that can degrade the rubber. We use 303 Protectant on the tires, which also provides UV protection, but more is better.
These EZ Fold Tire Shades are quite nice; they fold up compactly into a handy bag:
And are unobtrusive when in place, only covering the tire itself, not the rims, so you wouldn’t notice them without looking closely:
They are held on by straps that go over the top of the tire, and on either side.
Oregon coast lighthouses
While on the Oregon coast, we explored several of the historic lighthouses.
Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area:
Whale:
Devils Punch Bowl State Natural Area:
Cape Disappointment State Park:
Cape Disappointment lighthouse:
Newport, Oregon
Some scenes from Newport, Oregon (fun fact: we visited Newport with a rental travel trailer in 2021, staying at the Waldport / Newport KOA Journey; that was the catalyst for our RV lifestyle):
Thousand Trails Whalers Rest
We stayed at Thousand Trails Whalers Rest in South Beach, Oregon. (Campground Reviews listing.)
Some Thousand Trails campgrounds turn out to be great places to stay. This was not one of them.
Though it actually wasn’t too bad, but not very big rig friendly, with tight roads and we struggled to find a suitable site.
Dates:
- Check in: 2023-05-22
- Check out: 2023-05-28
- 6 nights
Weather:
- Mostly cloudy
- High temps ranging between 56-61°F, lows around 49-52°F
- A little wind, but sheltered by trees
Noise:
- A little highway noise
- No train noise
- A little neighbor noise
- Can hear the ocean
Site:
- #79, pull through, concrete
- Needed to disconnect toad; parked in front of coach
- Fairly level (many sites here are not)
- Very small site: about 45 feet long by about 15 feet wide
- No picnic table etc
- Tall trees
Utilities:
- 50 amp power, inconveniently located
- 65 PSI water, inconveniently located
- Loose sewer connection, conveniently located (1 10-foot pipe needed)
Internet (in usage priority order):
- AT&T: 55 Mbps down, 6 Mbps up, 65 ms ping
- Starlink: 70-110 Mbps down, 7-20 Mbps up, 30 ms ping, unusably spotty service (too many trees)
- T-Mobile: no service
- Verizon: no service
- Campground Wi-Fi: none
Amenities:
- Garbage bins only by entrance
- Indoor pool
Our review on Campground Reviews:
Tight roads, tight sites
The thing about Thousand Trails is that your overall experience of the park is very much colored by what site you manage to snag. When we rolled into this park on a Sunday right around check-in time, there were very few sites available that would fit our 40′ motorhome. We were told not to even bother checking the north section of the park across the road but that there were “plenty” of sites available on the south side, which was not entirely true. There were several sites, but the only one available that would fit us was a pull-through in the middle of two others, which was so tight between our neighbors that our slides were nearly touching. There was no room for a picnic table or any outdoor living. It was, however, surprisingly level. We did try backing into a site that might have been long enough, but again, was so narrow there was no outdoor living space, and the trees were so low our roof would have dragged on the branches. If you have a small trailer or a Class B, this might be a great campground. For a larger motorhome or 5th wheel, I can’t recommend it. It is also close to the beach if you enjoy playing Frogger in real life. We camped at Thousand Trails Whalers Rest in a Motorhome.
Tip for Other Campers: When in Newport, eat Dungeness crab. Clearwater Restaurant on the historic bayfront was a nice option for fine dining. Take a day trip up to Yaquina Head lighthouse and Devil’s Punchbowl.
Interactive map:
Campground map:
A helpful page of site lengths and other info. Lots of the sites were too short for our 40 foot motorhome, not to mention our truck:
We disconnected our truck and drove around (a couple of times) to find a suitable site. A few candidates are marked; we initially chose site #48, though it was rather narrow, so we then chose #64. But when we drove our couch around, we couldn’t back into that site due to trees and vehicles. Fortunately, we had noticed one of the few pull-through sites available, #79, so we proceeded on to that one. Rather narrow, but we fit (barely):
More spacious after the motorhome on our passenger side left:
Later, both sides were vacant for a few days:
And still later, when a trailer arrived next to us; you can see how narrow these sites are:
Once several sites cleared out during the week, we considered moving to another site, e.g. we liked this #74, but decided it wasn’t worth the hassle for a few more nights:
Other sites:
A very tight corner:
Dump station:
Apparently they gathered all of the garbage bins by the entrance, due to bears in the park:
Activity center:
Game court:
Entrance sign:
This campground is split into north and south sides; we were on the south side. The north side seems to be mostly seasonal (long-term) sites. Here’s its entrance:
Cabins:
Clubhouse:
Mini golf:
Other sites:
On the south side is a path to the beach:
Have to cross Highway 101:
Lost Creek State Park:
The ocean:
Video: Eugene to South Beach, Oregon motorhome travel timelapse
A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 90 miles from Eugene, Oregon to South Beach, Oregon.
Travel from Eugene to South Beach, Oregon
We drove our coach just 90 miles, about two hours of driving, from Eugene, Oregon to South Beach, Oregon.
As mentioned last week, we had an appointment at Oregon Motorcoach Center for some servicing, so we drove from our overnight county park stay to the motorcoach center, and killed a few hours in their waiting room and going out to lunch, then we were on our way to our next stop, back at the coast.
Here’s the map route, heading north then west:
An interactive map, with potential stops marked; we didn’t need to stop:
After our service appointment at Oregon Motorcoach Center, we headed north on 99W:
Barns:
Hazelnut trees:
A bridge over the Willamette River in Corvallis:
Corvallis county court house:
The Corvallis Meat Pie Shop, featuring Aussie-style meat pies; we enjoyed sampling their wares the last time we were in town. Alas, just passing through this time (and no parking for a 60-foot coach and toad!):
Bigfoot:
Historical society building:
Trees:
Newport bridge:
Newport bay:
Our destination, Thousand Trails Whaler’s Rest:
As is common with Thousand Trails, we parked our coach by the entrance, unhooked our truck, and drove around to find a suitable site (which was a major challenge here; see tomorrow’s post):
Security gate:
A very tight curve; this park isn’t particularly big rig friendly:
