Nehalem Bay State Park & Campground - Oregon Coast

Nehalem Bay State Park is located on the Oregon Coast roughly 20 minutes south of Canon Beach and near the small community of Manzanita, Oregon.  Nehalem Bay State Park has a large campground with 307 sites, most of which are setup to accommodate recreational vehicles and travel trailers.  The campground is well developed and  comes equipped with pretty much every amenity you could imagine except for wifi and cable television.

The campground itself is very modern and most sites come with electrical and water hookups (no sewer hookups).  There are two onsite dump stations that can be found just as you enter the campground and firewood and ice is for sale on site.  Nehalem Bay State Park campground consists of two loops – a north loop and south loop.  Both loops are basically the same however during our visit the north loop was first come first serve and south loop was reservations only.  This may vary depending on the time of the year. You can find flushing toilets and free showers on site as well as a playground for the kids.  Nehalem Bay State Park is dog friendly however Fido must be on a leash at all times.

Privacy in the Nehalem Bay State Park campground  is minimal.  Expect to be able to hear and see pretty much everything your neighbor does outside of their tent/RV.  The sites are spaced fairly close to eachother and there is minimal ground canopy to visually separate the sites.  Each site comes with a picnic table and fire ring.  Each loop has one main bathroom with flush toilets and showers.  The south end of the campground hosts a horse camp area with 17 basic campsites.

Nehalem Bay State Park is popular for many nearby activities including fishing, kayaking, paddle boarding, clamming, beach trips, horseback riding and visiting the nearby towns of Manzanita and Nehalem.  From the campground the beach is a short 5 minute walk up a path that crosses the sand dunes and drops right down to the ocean.  The town of Manzanita is just under a 2 mile drive north and there are walking/bike paths that lead all the way into town from the campground.

Overall Nehalem Bay State park is a great campground for what it is: A massive campground suited for RVs and Trailers.  In our opinion this will not be a great campground for those in a tent.  The plus side is that you will not hear the sound of generators all day long as there are electrical hookups for everyone.  If you are looking to camp in Canon Beach this is probably going to be your best bet as the next campground north can be found in Fort Stevens State Park near Astoria. We think Nehalem Bay State Park is a great place to call base camp if you are going to be exploring the northern part of the Oregon Coast.