teatravel

We plan to drive from Northern California, just south of Medford, OR to Portland on I5 this weekend. We want to break down the drive and spend a night somewhere off I5 near Eugene. Need recommendation for a place to stay not too far from I5. A small charming little village or town would be nice. Any places that we should stop and take a quick visit along this route? We will visit Crater Lake on our way back later in the week.

Thanks in advance.

janisj

Yreka to Portland is only a 5 hour drive - do you really need to stop anyplace? Ashland is nice -- but it is practically a suburb of Medford (less than 30 mins away) so it doesn't really break your journey.

If you really need to stop over, maybe Cottage Grove??

christabir

I agree with janis. It's an easy drive, but why not the coast drive and stop somewhere on that route? But if I5, just stop in Salem and you'll have just an hour drive to Portland the next day.

onemoneygirl

I agree... we did this drive last summer and there is no need to stop.

teatravel

Actually we plan to drive a lot further south from CA. I used Medford as a reference point. We plan to spend Fri. night near the Avenue of the Giants and then drive along the Northern Coast of CA to Crescent City for Sat. night. Found the hotels from good Fodorites' threads.

From CC we want to take the inland route of I5. We need a place to stay on Sunday night since our Portland hotel is reserved for Mon. & Tues. only. Cottage Grove sounds lovely. We definitely will look for a hotel there. Thank you very much for your responses.

daisee

If you have kids-you can drive from No. Ca to Olympia in one long day and stay at the Great White Wolf lodge with the indoor water park and super fun 'Quest' game. My kids still rave about this place

janisj

teatravel: You posted I-5/northern CA just south of Medford so we all assumed you were starting out from on/near I-5 in far northern CA. Stopping over/Cottage Grove now makes more sense.

(It is easier to give good advice when we have the full picture.)

easytraveler

If you are already on the coast at Crescent City, was there a particular reason you wanted to cut back inland to the I5?

Otherwise, it's a much more interesting and pleasant drive just to keep going along the coast and stop off somewhere along the Oregon, like Yachats.

passerbye

I agree with easytraveler. Crescent City to Cottage Grove is only about 3.5 hours, and Portland is only 2.5 hours beyond that. So why not take a leisurely drive up the southern Oregon coast; the stretch between Brookings and Port Orford is jaw-dropping beautiful. I also agree that Yachats would be a good choice for Sunday night. The Overleaf Lodge, Adobe Resort and Fireside Motel north of town all have spectacular oceanfront settings. The quickest route to Portland from there is about 3 hours. Or, you could continue on up the coast on Monday, turning inland on hwy 18 north of Lincoln City or hwy 6 at Tillamook.

By the way, there's nothing particularly lovely about Cottage Grove, except for maybe the name.

teatravel

Unfortunately I didn't make it clear that this isn't a planned vacation. We have to be at certain places on certain dates due to family matter and meetings during the week.

As senior citizens, we do not want to drive such a long stretch at one time. We love to make stops here at there as we drive.

Yesterday, we slowly drove thru the Avenue of the Giants and made several stops and did some easy hiking along the way and spent the night at Scotia.

Today we slowly drove to Ferndale and saw all those pretty Victorian houses and then stumbled into Arcata's oyster festival. We stopped and had a great time eating lots of oysters at 11am. We also stopped at Klamath lookout. A very nice docent lent us her binocular, and we saw 3 whales which she pointed out where to look. We even stopped at Lady Bird's Grove and took a docent-lead tour of the redwoods at 2pm. It just happened that way. Didn't even know there was a docent-lead tour here. None of the things we did today were planned!

I agree that driving from CC to Cottage Grove is about 3.5 hours for many people, but not for us! We need the break, that's why my original post was all about where should we stay at this break. We also have to be in Astoria for another meeting after a few days in Portland.

After taking care of business in Astoria, we are going to drive south along the Oregon coast, then turn inland at Florence to visit Crater Lake. This may take 3-4 days, and we try to be flexible and not making any hotel reservation.

I sincerely want to thank all of you for the great suggestions. We will certainly follow some of these great suggestions.