The first long stop on the north coast loop out of Portland is the South Jetty, where the Columbia runs into the Pacific and the swell stands up across the bar. Fort Stevens State Park takes up that whole corner of Oregon, and it's a place a family parks the motorhome for most of a week and leaves it there. Mornings go to the Peter Iredale wreck at low tide, afternoons to the jetty when the bar is breaking, and the beach between them takes whatever time is left.
US-30 is the road out, following the Columbia downstream to Astoria. After Fort Stevens the loop heads south to a second base at Nehalem Bay, then back over the Coast Range to Portland. Two bases and one short move between them keep the driving light, and that's the shape a big motorhome wants for a week at the beach.
Fort Stevens State Park near Astoria
Fort Stevens is one of the largest public campgrounds in the country, with 174 full-hookup sites, 36 of them pull-throughs, and another 302 with electric and water. The full-hookup loop is what makes the long stay easy, because the tanks empty at the pad and nobody breaks camp midweek to go find a dump station. Ask for a pull-through when you reserve, and book the site before the motorhome so the dates line up.
Some of the park's south loops have been closed for utility upgrades, so check which loops are taking reservations when you book. Out on the South Jetty you're looking across the bar at Washington, where the Olympic Peninsula is the other long coast loop people drive from Portland, out to the moss of the Hoh Rainforest and the beaches around Forks.
Nehalem Bay and home over the Coast Range
Heading south, US-101 runs through Cannon Beach, and Haystack Rock off the sand there is the stop everyone makes on the way down. Both coast parks also show up as one-night stops on the Cannon Beach campervan page, for a trip that moves every night. Nehalem Bay is the second base, a smaller camp tucked in behind the dunes, with the beach a short climb over the top of them.
Nehalem Bay's 265 sites have electric and water, with a dump station in the park. You roll in with empty tanks from Fort Stevens, so one stop at the dump station on the way out covers it before US-26 takes you back over the Coast Range. The Three Capes coast farther south on OR-6 is its own week, and the Hillsboro RV page has that one.
Memaloose, Viento and the Deschutes in the eastern Gorge
East of Hood River the Columbia Gorge dries out, the moss gives way to grass and bare basalt, and the wind comes upriver hard enough to lean on. Memaloose State Park puts the motorhome right on that bank of the Columbia, with the river filling the view from the sites and a first night that's easy to stretch into several.
Memaloose has 43 full-hookup sites and a dump station, open mid-April through October as of September 2026. Eastbound from Portland, you pass the park on I-84 and turn around at exit 76 to reach it from the westbound side.
Viento is the one that tends to have room when its neighbors are full. Its 56 electric-and-water sites lie between I-84 and the railroad, so the trains are part of the night, and it opens late March through October. Farther east, the Deschutes River State Recreation Area camps on the riverbank where the Deschutes comes into the Columbia, and its A loop keeps 34 electric-and-water sites open year-round, with the water shut off in winter.
For two people, or for one night close to town at Oxbow on the Sandy, Milo McIver on the Clackamas or Champoeg on the Willamette, the Portland campervan page has those trips. A parked week at Champoeg with the Willamette Valley wineries by day is on the McMinnville RV page.
