Road trips · Oregon

Oregon road trips & hidden gems.

The stops worth changing a travel day for in Oregon — crowd-voted gems, events worth traveling for, and the public golf you can actually book. Curated by Roamward, the scenic road-trip planner.

What locals say you shouldn’t miss.

Crowd-nominated in the Gem Hunt. Add yours and vote the finalists into the app.

Prehistoric Gardens

Twenty-three life-size hand-built dinosaurs hiding among giant ferns and old-growth redwoods in the coastal rainforest near Port Orford — a shady, all-ages walk off Highway 101.

Thor's Well

A churning basalt "hole in the ocean" that seems to swallow the Pacific at Cape Perpetua near Yachats, best caught around high tide from the overlook just off the coast highway.

Peterson Rock Garden

A folk-art wonderland of tiny castles, towers, and bridges built from local stone by a Danish homesteader, between Bend and Redmond in central Oregon.

Toketee Falls

A jaw-dropping two-tiered waterfall plunging over columnar basalt cliffs, reached by a short forest trail off the Umpqua Highway in the southern Cascades.

Metolius Balancing Rocks

Slender rock spires capped with boulders that perch like hats, in the Deschutes National Forest northeast of Sisters — a quiet, otherworldly central-Oregon detour.

Painted Hills

About 90 minutes east of Bend in remote Wheeler County, banded gold, red, and black hillsides of 35-million-year-old fossil soils that glow at low light — a John Day Fossil Beds unit that still feels secret.

Public golf you can book in Oregon.

Bandon Dunes

Bandon · $$$$$ — The dream that started it all

Bandon Preserve

Bandon · $$$$$ — Ocean-view par-3 gem

Bandon Trails

Bandon · $$$$$ — Forest-and-meadow change of pace

Old Macdonald

Bandon · $$$$$ — Template holes, huge greens

Pacific Dunes

Bandon · $$$$$ — Often called the best here

Sheep Ranch

Bandon · $$$$$ — A mile of clifftop, no bunkers

Get the scenic route, the stops, and the timing.

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