Imagine a 180º view of the Pacific Ocean from a hill 200′ above the water. Well, imagine no more.
We spent eight days at Thousand Trails Pacific City across the street from McPhillips Beach, a vehicle beach in Pacific City, Oregon. That was the view out the back of our RV site.
This is a Thousand Trails (TT) park. If you don’t know TT, we’ll post more about it in the future. Essentially, TTs are campgrounds where anyone can stay for a nightly fee, or if you are a TT member, you can stay for free for up to 21 nights, depending on the type of membership you purchased. Most TTs are near the coast, Great Lakes region, or snowbird locations like Florida, Texas, and Arizona. There aren’t any TT parks in the center of the country.
This park is older but well-maintained, nestled amongst tall, mature evergreens, and has about 300 RV sites. Some sites are full hookups with 50-amp service, but most are 30-amp with only water and no sewer connection. All sites are back in; no pull-through sites. There are 12 or so tree-lined loops with sites spaced throughout. The campground is very hilly, and towing a large RV there is very challenging. The video to the right begins as we leave check-in and ends when we get backed into our site. It was a slow 30-minute drive from the office to our site, then another 10 minutes to get backed into it. To shorten the video, I’ve sped it up in places and edited out most of the time we spent pulled over, letting cars pass, or stopped trying to figure out how to negotiate the sharp or 
narrow turns. Remember, we’re 60′ long, including the RV and truck, so we can’t take corners too sharply. We’re also 8′ wide, so two RVs can’t pass in opposite directions without someone pulling partially off the road. It was actually close to 45 minutes from the office to our site before editing the video.
We chose a site with a very steep incline at the front but a great view out the back. The truck wheels spun slightly while pushing the RV up the incline as it was so heavy, and the driveway was sand and gravel. Thankfully, Martin was the spotter and navigator; otherwise, I would not have been able to do it by myself. If you have a large rig and travel alone or aren’t confident and skilled behind the wheel, this might not be the park for you. Also, the Ford F-450’s minuscule turning radius, compared to large Chevys, Rams, F-250s, or F-350s, helped tremendously. No other 22′ vehicle has such a great turning radius!
The video above shows a lot of small rocks strewn on the road. There must have been a big storm before we arrived, as the stones had been swept away a day later. The roads in the park aren’t in great shape. Most are paved, but some are dirt or gravel in places, although we didn’t encounter any significant potholes.
TT does not assign you a specific space at check-in; you pick the site you want by driving around and choosing it upon arrival. You let the office know the site number after you’ve parked. At check-in, we were told there is a section, especially for rigs over 38′, near the park’s far end and up the hill. That section also has the best views in the park. We had to navigate sharp turns and narrow roads to get there. Fortunately, we knew the challenges before we arrived and weren’t surprised. It was also helpful that the office staff told us about this section.
We could have stayed at numerous sites throughout the campground. If we had driven around the loops for a while, we might have found a 50-amp site with 
sewer available, but we opted to go straight to the over 38′ section. This campground is relatively long, narrow, and parallel to the coast highway.
All loops are nicely landscaped and populated with giant fir and cedar trees, many of which are hundreds of years old. Several walking paths through the woods lead to other sections of the park. Penny and Little Bit loved their walks on the trails and roads within the park. They also enjoyed running on the beach, just a short walk across the highway and down a well-maintained trail.
The weather was perfect during our stay, with highs in the low to mid-60s, fog in the morning that usually dissipated by midday, and only light rain once.
Pacific City is tiny and caters to tourists and conventioneers willing to pay for overpriced restaurants. Not our vibe. Cloverdale is also small but doesn’t seem to cater to anyone, with virtually no restaurants. Tillamook, about 45 minutes away, is rather shabby but has a few decent restaurants and microbreweries that feature Tillamook Cheese in one way or another. After failing to find several restaurants listed on Yelp, we enjoyed an excellent cheeseburger and local brew at Pelican Brewing.
Unfortunately, we didn’t stop at Tillamook Creamery to take the tour and have lunch as their restaurant’s menu was too limited.
