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My family loves nothing more than a good old-fashioned road trip, and the beauty of Oregon is that there’s always a new place around the corner that we haven’t yet discovered. And sometimes, we keep going back to one place because it captures our heart. Astoria is like that; authentic, friendly and rich in history, it is quickly becoming one of my family’s favorite destinations on the Oregon Coast.

We’ve taken a few road trips to Astoria and still haven’t crossed everything off our to-do list. You could spend hours at any one of these attractions; we once spent the better part of a day exploring Fort Stevens without ever making it to our original destination within the park (the hike around Coffenbury Lake – which remains on my to-do list). With that in mind, here are my suggestions for a family road trip to Astoria:

Fort Stevens State Park. There’s so much to do here, you’ll want to plan on most of a day just for this stop alone. Take the kids to all the good hiding and climbing spots on the Battery Russell, to the South Jetty viewpoint to see where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean, and to the sandy beach to see the Peter Iredale shipwreck. You can also camp here – there are tent sites and yurts available (yurt sites fill up quickly, so reserve well in advance).

Fort Clatsop. A fascinating walk through history, Fort Clatsop once served as the winter encampment for the Corps of Discovery and is a must for anyone interested in the Lewis & Clark Trail. The Fort to Sea Trail starts here and follows the path the original Corps took after building Fort Clatsop. The entire trail is 6.5 miles long, but we pretended we were explorers by following the easy .5-mile loop walk around the visitor center.