A Last-minute Getaway at Cannon Beach, Oregon

For my wife's birthday last year, we eschewed everything we've come to know about traveling.

We intended to take a weekend trip, but we didn't plan ahead at all. We didn't make hotel or restaurant reservations. We didn't go online and print off coupons, purchase admission tickets at a discount or line up an itinerary. And we ended up having one of the more relaxing and rewarding weekend trips we've ever had.

Luck? Absolutely. But there are a few things we did that are worth considering every once in a while, because a lot of times, much of the fun in taking a weekend trip comes from exploration and the chance for serendipitous encounters.

Here are a few tips to consider for your next weekend excursion, based on our 2010 trip to Cannon Beach, Oregon:

Keep plans flexible and expectations modest

This runs counter to the way I normally plan a vacation, preferring to cross T's, dot I's and then double-check the crosses and dots before ever setting out. For this particular trip, however, we didn't decide on a destination until the day before. Part of that was due to some indecision and part was due to a last-minute work schedule change that freed up an extra day. So although we didn't wait until the last minute on purpose, it worked out in our favor.

We decided on Cannon Beach - the small town along the northern Oregon coast - but were willing to stay in nearby towns Rockaway Beach, Seaside, Gearhart and Tillamook. Basically, we created a destination plan and then left room for several backup plans, knowing we'd have a good time wherever we ended up.

Make late reservations by telephone

After choosing Cannon Beach as our destination, I began looking for available rooms to reserve for the following two nights. Since we were so late to the party, I did my searching online and my reservation requesting via telephone. As expected, rooms in our price range at the first two places I called were booked, but I got lucky with the third call. Sea Sprite at Haystack Rock was a tad out of our price range, but I made the call anyway, and it turned out another reservation had just been canceled, and the manager was offering the ocean-front suite at a discount that set it perfectly within our price range. I snagged it up.

Use the web, and social media, for research

I wasn't about to head out on a time-limited trip without at least some idea of where to go and what to do. Exploration is fun, sure, by I don't want to waste time finding things to do when I don't have much time to begin with. So the first thing I did was post a status update on Facebook, asking my friends for suggestions on activities and restaurants in Cannon Beach. I received a dozen or so responses in about an hour. In the meantime, I spent a little bit of time looking up restaurants and attractions in the Cannon Beach area. When my friends' suggestions lined up with the interesting nuggets I'd uncovered with my own research, I gave those items a higher priority, and in less than an hour, we had a pretty good-but-loose plan for our weekend in Cannon Beach.

Ask locals for information

Any traveler knows to do this, but asking people who live in the area you're visiting for information on what to do, where to eat and what to see is immensely helpful when you've got a limited amount of time for your trip. Upon checking in to our hotel room, I asked the manager for a couple of recommendations for a nice dinner so I could take my wife out for her birthday. The manager suggested two places - The Wayfarer and Driftwood Restaurant & Lounge - and we ended up making reservations at both for our two nights in town. We had pleasant meals at both places, and made sure to ask our servers for tips on area attractions, to make sure we didn't miss anything.

The end result

Our last-minute trip yielded a fun, relaxing weekend. We stayed in a cozy suite with views of the Pacific Ocean and Cannon Beach's iconic Haystack Rock, dined on seafood at a couple of nice local restaurants, drove the short distance north to the town of Seaside for lunch at Norma's Ocean Diner, a walk along the oceanfront promenade and a visit to the Seaside Aquarium, and felt truly fortunate to have lucked into such a great trip with virtually no proper planning.

In fact, it worked out so well, we anticipate another weekend getaway sometime soon.

Not that we're planning on it or anything...

Sources:
Cannon Beach Chamber of Commerce
Sea Sprite Guest Lodgings
Driftwood Restaurant & Lounge
Wayfarer