My husband and I are planning a trip to Oregon probably from September 7-23 or 24. Based on a lot of help you gave me below, I've come up with a very preliminary itinerary which I hope you can help me with:

Fly from NY to Portland and stay four nights using one of those days for a day trip to Silver Falls State Park and one day for a day trip to visit some wineries.

Drive to see Mt. St. Helens (if the weather is clear) and then head to the coast. I figured 3 nights in Cannon Beach and 2 or 3 nights further south in Yachats or some place like that.

Drive to Ashland and stay one night or, if we can get in to Crater Lake Lodge, not stay overnight in Ashland at all.

3 nights in the Bend area.

2 nights in the Columbia River Gorge area.

Fly back to NY.

Thanks for any suggestions.

It is a good start. If you get an early start to Silver Falls, you can do the wineries that same day, returning to Portland that evening. It would be a longish day, but you would avoid making 2 separate trips.

Mt. St. Helens takes a full day. The drive each way is an hour just to the exit, then another hour to get to Johnston Ridge. Nevermind any other visitor stops, and whatever time you spend at the top. Allow a full day for this, which means you probably wouldn't want to drive to Cannon Beach that same day. Either leave for the coast the next morning, or you could do Mt. St. Helens when you are based in the gorge.

Thanks so much for this very helpful information. I guess if we do Silver Falls and the wineries on one day we could do Mt. St. Helens as a day trip from Portland.

Crater Lake is farther off the beaten track than it may appear on a map. I don't know of anybody who would advise you to go there without staying at least one night. Book now and if nothing is available, keep trying. Many travelers book and then cancel.

Jacksonville, near Ashland, is a town well worth visiting. http://www.jacksonvilleoregon.org

I think you will find it worthwhile to spend one night in Ashland. If you do, investigate if there is free pre-theater entertainment. It can be fun.

Rather than spend three nights in Bend, I would include Mt. Rainier on the visit to Mount St. Helens and spend a night in that area before driving to the Oregon Coast using this routing: I-5, WA-14, Astoria Bridge, 101.

HTTY

I would forego Mt. St Helens and add in some Redwoods by Brookings.

Thanks so much for the suggestions. We've been to Mt. Rainier on our trip to Washington state (not that I wouldn't love to go back some day) and we saw a lot of redwoods in Yosemite last summer. I think we can leave both of those for a later trip. I'm trying to decide whether Mt. St. Helens would be worth using a whole day for or whether to skip it.

What happened to Gold Beach? You aren't doing the southern coast? IMO it looks like a lot of time on the coast. I would do 2 nts in each location - we on the left coast forget how big those right coast states are!! Add nights in CL and Mt Hood/CG and maybe south coast?

It's about 2 hours to Mt St Helens. I'd do it. We were there before the visitor's center was finished and it was still pretty cool. The damage is fascinating to see.

Give Crater Lake a little more time. It's far from everything.

You can do SFSP on your way back to Portland at the end of your trip. You can break up the drive with a night in Salem.

Don't forget to buy some wine for your evenings on the coast! I love watching sunsets with a drink and a little cheese.

I went to the Oregon tourism website and ordered a few travel mags. They came yesterday and are full of great info. Highly recommended.

Have fun planning!

Thank you so much for taking the time to give me this information. It's so helpful. I eliminated going to Gold Beach because it seemed like I was running out of time. I will add more time for Crater Lake and pray for clear weather. Doing Silver Falls is an idea for the end of the trip if need be. I'll check out the Oregon website. They sent me some magazines but perhaps they have some newer issues available. They are very useful. Thanks for the reminder.

I would move things a little-

Go to Bend area after Yachats, then Crater Lake, SFSP (maybe a night to break up drive), Mt Hood/CR Gorge. Or do it backwards so you are on the coast at the end to relax before getting back home.

If we do that, we would skip Oregon Caves National Monument and the jet boat rides at Grants Pass both of which sounded like things we would like to do. It also seemed that if we go to Crater Lake, then to Bend, we would just head north from there ending up by the Mt. Hood/CR Gorge area for two days and then west to Portland and the airport. Now I'm wondering whether we should do 2 days at Cannon Beach, 2 days in the middle of the coast and then 1 day at Gold Beach which seems much closer to Oregon Caves and then we could do the dinner jet boat that evening, stay in Medford and leave early the next day for Crater Lake and stay there one night if we can get into the lodging.

IMO Crater Lake can be done as a stop "on the way" from the Grants Pass/Ashford/Medford area to Bend. Not to take anything away from the lake's beauty but I personally didn't find it compelling enough to spend more than a few hours especially since your time in the area is limited. I'd err towards more time for Bend and other OR locations rather than overnighting in/near Crater Lake.

Also, IMO the jet boat trips that go from Gold Beach are preferable to the ones from Grants Pass.

Oh geez - I thought you meant North Bend by Coos Bay! Never mind! Sorry to confuse.

Thank you all for your help and, based on your suggestions, here is what I plan:

Fly to Portland Tuesday and stay for 5 nights using one day for a trip to Mount St. Helens and one day for Silver Falls State Park and a winery or two if there is time.

Leave Portland on Sunday and spend the day visiting Astoria and stay for two nights in Cannon Beach exploring the coast area.

Continue down the coast staying in Yachats for two nights.

Continue to the southern coast staying in Gold Beach or somewhere nearby for one night.

The next morning take the jet boat ride and then continue on to Oregon Caves. Spend the afternoon in Jacksonville and stay the night somewhere in the area either Jacksonville or Medford.

Continue on to Crater Lake and hopefully stay the night in the lodge there.

Finish any activities at Crater Lake and continue on to Bend where we will spend 3 nights.

Then drive to the Mt. Hood/Columbia River Gorge area for two nights maybe one of them near Mt. Hood and one in the Gorge area.

Fly back to NY

This seems to take into account the many wonderful suggestions I received. Thanks.

Crater Lake Lodge is not available for any of the dates around when we could be there. I will keep trying in case someone cancels but does anyone have any suggestion of an alternate? Would it be too much to do Crater Lake as a day trip going from Medford to Bend? Someone recommended the Prospect Hotel in Prospect as accomodations near Crater Lake.

TL, Crater Lake is a 1 1/2 hour drive from Ashland. It is perfect to hit Crater Lake on the way from the RV to Bend.
You can even take the Back way up to Crater Lake through the Sky Lakes Wilderness.
Here's one nice place in Ashland, there are many more:
http://www.ashlandcreekinn.com/

Thanks so much.

Make sure you make reservations by phone at Crater Lake Lodge. I just called this week to reserve a room in June. There was not any availabilty online, but there were rooms available by phone.

I love the Prospect Hotel - but its an older funky place - the main building is furnished in antiques - but there are buildings out behind that are more like a motel 6 kind of place- I belong to an outdoors group that stays there every year for a snow shoe trip - they serve you enormous meals, will make a lunch to go for you - but it is not the quality of the lodge for sure

http://www.prospecthotel.com/


another nice place not terribly far from Crater Lake is Steamboat Inn - beautiful spot- nice restaurant, close to some nice waterfall hikes
http://www.thesteamboatinn.com/