A camp with a view: Cape Lookout makes website’s list

Published 9:14 am Friday, February 28, 2025

Camping with a view is easy here in the Pacific Northwest. Sure, there are a few duds, but campgrounds here by and large come with some kind of spectacular scenery.

But according to a new trending list by Matador, a travel website that claims to be “your guide to adventure,” two campgrounds in Oregon stand out from the crowd.

Matador’s new list, “60 Campgrounds With the Best Views Across the United States,” rounds up what it says are “10 of the prettiest places to camp” in each region of the country, spots that offer “stunning views from the moment you peek outside your tent flap.”

The 10 spots from the West Coast region (a very broad region!), include two from Oregon: Cape Lookout State Park and the Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness.

Cape Lookout is a great spot, to be sure. Found on the north Oregon coast, the state park features more than 200 tent and RV sites, 13 yurts and six deluxe cabins, all a short walk from the beach, with hiking trails that lead up to and along Cape Lookout itself. While the campground is in the midst of a big construction project, it remains one of the most popular places to camp on the coast.

It might be the most scenic campground on the Oregon coast, but a case could be made for Beverly Beach, Harris Beach or Humbug Mountain. There’s also Tillicum Beach, where campsites are perched on bluffs above the ocean, and William M. Tugman, which offers lakes, dunes and forests.

Kudos to the Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness for earning a mention but it’s only one of SO many beautiful wilderness areas in Oregon. The Salmon-Huckleberry is the closest wilderness area to Portland, found in the Mount Hood National Forest. There are a few drive-in campsites on its edges, but Matador has specifically called out its backpacking sites, particularly those along the popular Salmon River Trail.

It would be easy to argue for the inclusion of a dozen other wilderness areas in Oregon, all of which offer incredible backpacking spots. There’s the stunning Eagle Cap Wilderness in the Wallowa Mountains, the Three Sisters Wilderness in the central Cascade Mountains or the wilderness surrounding the Wild and Scenic Rogue River, to name a few.

The upshot here is that you really can’t go wrong with Oregon campgrounds. The best place to go camping here is wherever you find yourself camping. Odds are, the view will be pretty amazing.

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