Which is why I was intrigued by Zipcar. It’s hard to imagine a road trip with more novelty than the ability to drive a different car every time.

I took Zipcar for a test drive for a 300-mile road trip to the Oregon Coast:

The Zip trip reminded me that novelty can sometimes be magical–and sometimes be a little too open to chance.

First, the things that are fantastic about Zipcars:

• No more time in the grey waiting rooms of rental car dealerships. (The only thing more bleak in travel is soul-numbing travel conferences.)
• Living in the wondrous iPhone-ful future. (I should add Zipcar’s iPhone app to my list of iPhone app favorites for travel.)
• Having cars immediately available on short notice, if you live in one of the Zipcar cities.

In short, Zipcar is the kind of Gen Xish idea that seems like a stroke of genius: Use the Internet to help make car ownership less appealing (and therefore inch us Americans towards a greener future) and provide a quick service to those of us with limited attention spans.

Win.

Plus the card itself unlocks the car, which is very Blade Runner:

Now, the downside.

After my first few Zipcar rental experiences, I was ready to write an unending rave about how wondrous this idea was.

The problem with all great human enterprises–especially when novelty is involved–is that it actually involves the humans. Sometimes, you visit a beach that’s pristine, because everyone’s taken incredible care to pack out their garbage. Sometimes, it’s the tragedy of the commons. Zipcar is beholden to the same dynamic.

Zipcar does its best with its 6 rules of the road. But as any frequent flier knows, people are often selfish jackasses.

One of the rules of Zipcar is no smoking, ever. I picked up a rental car in a seedy garage (that should have been my first sign), and was motoring down the road before I realized that there was a creeping smell of cigarettes permeating the car. Nasty.

I had the idea of having the car for a day-long trip, but realized that the subtle stench was giving me a headache. I drove the Zipcar back, returned it early, and wrote them an email once I was home.

Zipcar rules state that you have to declare any damage (including smoke) before you leave with the car. Because I didn’t do the sniff test when I first got in, basically, I was hosed–I wound up paying for hours of a car rental that I didn’t use because someone else was a jackass. To top it off, the email response from the company didn’t offer to refund my cash–and was a little snippy, reminding me that I should have called immediately when I picked up the car, but since I didn’t, there was nothing they could do. (They don’t check every car between every use.)

So that’s the highs and lows of novelty car rental in a nutshell: Sometimes it pays off huge dividends in the form of novelty and convenience…sometimes it reminds you how much other people can suck.

That said, I’ll still use Zipcars again. They have a built-in advantage, since rental cars are certainly no better of a customer experience, and their techie ingenuity is charming and well-designed. But I’ll go into the experience eyes wide open, remembering that some people are still the equivalent of the jackasses who would throw their empty beer bottles on the beach.

Getting There

Chances are, if you’re heading to the north Oregon Coast from anywhere but the south Oregon Coast, you’ll start in Portland, which is 2.5 hours away. You’ll probably want a good dinner for your trip to the coast, since the only landmarks between Portland and the Pacific are a few sad truck stops and a corn maze.

Dinner at Imbrie Hall

Highway 26 connects Portland to the coast.  A funky, popular, Oregon-to-its-core chain of pubs named McMenamins has an excellent joint just west of Portland. It’s an easy exit (#62) and return to the highway, but it feels like miles away and your first step towards the coast.

Cornelius Pass Roadhouse faces the street with a Victorian home, but tucked behind is Imbrie Hall, a converted barn decorated with Dutch street signs.

The entire enterprise sits on a large parcel of land dotted with gray clapboard buildings and Christmas lights. The facilities are often booked for weddings, for the bride who likes the smell of hops wafting over from the distillery during her big day.

The View from Highway 101

Back on Highway 26, it’s a straight shot until the coast, where you turn south onto highway 101 towards Cannon Beach and Manzanita.

If you’re traveling to the coast from mid-October to mid-May, most of your trip will be in pitch darkness and most likely in rain, fog, snow (Highway 26 passes over some coastal peaks), or some combination thereof. It’s possible you’ll see an elk.

But if you’re driving this route during the summer months, you can expect daylight until 9 p.m. If it’s light, plan to pull over at one of the impressive pull-out viewpoints on the way, built during the WPA era.

My favorite is the pullout just north of Manzania, where you can see the town’s beaches from a staggering height–and you can cross-check the view against how it looked in 1943.

Checking in to the Coast Cabins

Some people like to wake up in the morning, throw aside the curtains, and see the ocean. Me, I’d trade the view for all the comforts I don’t have at home, plus a modern design sensibility and possibly some fixtures imported from Europe. That’s why the Coast Cabins are a winner.

Even though they’re up the street from the beach, these cabins are like a boutique hotel in the middle of Manzanita. Each cabin stands apart from the others, including this two-story number that peeks out over the trees and stares down Laneda Avenue, the town’s main drag.

The Coast Cabins aren’t cheap–we’re talking $200+ a night, and they have an insane 14-day cancellation policy because, well, they can.

If you need a true budget option, I have one word for you: Yurt. Truly, I didn’t know what a yurt was before moving to the Pacific Northwest, but essentially, it s a round tent-cabin. You can rent your yurt–and book them ahead of time online–at Nehalem Bay State Park (located on the southern end of Manzanita) for $27 bucks a night.

The Next Morning: Coffee (of Course), a Beach Walk, and Book Shopping

Here’s the reason why I’m not concerned with a beachfront view. Because after popping in to Manzanita Espresso for your to-go coffee and treat, you’ll walk down Laneda until you hit Manzanita beach. You’ll enjoy this view as you take the obligatory morning beach walk, noticing that every single local is doing the same and with good reason. This is the view looking south toward Nehalem Bay:

In this view, looking north, you are looking at the mountainside where you stopped at the recommended Manzanita overlook on highway 101:

Beach-walk for as long as you like (and if you brought a dog to enjoy dog-heaven out here, please, for god’s sake, clean up after it with the bags provided by the town).

Afterwards, wander back up to Laneda and peruse the shops you missed along the way, especially the single best bookstore on the coast: Cloud & Leaf.

The owner, Jodie, used to work at Powell’s, the Portland institution (and another favorite bookstore of mine). While the store gets very crowded during the peak season because of its tiny size, Jodie never caters to the beach-book-buying crowd.

Her selections are really just the best books around. You’ll find McSweeney’s and Penguin Classic editions, but not a single copy of Cosmo.

I love this bookstore. I am in love with this bookstore. I love the little hand-written cards on all the hand-selected books. I love it so much that I am conflicted about publicizing it.

All I ask that is if you go, buy good books and make room for everyone else in the store. And please leave your cell phone OFF.

Choose Your Own Adventure: Short Sands or Indian Beach?

From this point on, you have a major decision to make about where to spend your afternoon: Short Sands Beach (about 7 minutes north of Manzanita), or Indian Beach (about 20 minutes north).

Let’s be real: If it’s summer on the weekend, both of these gorgeous beaches will be extremely crowded (by Oregon standards). If you’re crowd-averse, you can delay your Manzanita beach walk (which never gets too crowded, because of its sheer size) and go north earlier in the day.

Also, go ahead and wear your swimsuit and a bring a beach towel for sunbathing if the weather is warm, but don’t plan to get into the water. It’s only 60 degrees on a good day.

Indian Beach in Ecola State Park

If you fancy a hike–and by that, I mean a real hike, with precipitous drop-offs as you walk on a trail that winds along a cliff’s edge–Indian Beach is the way to go. Located in Ecola State Park in nearby Cannon Beach, it’s worth the time you’ll spend waiting in a line of cars to pay your nominal fee to enter.

It’s worth noting that Cannon Beach is a place that everyone talks about. It has the world-famous Haystack Rock, which–to me–was just a giant, um, rock. Shaped like a haystack. Not so exciting. But people familiar with the coast will probably ask if you’ve seen it, so if you care about that, consider yourself warned.

Cannon Beach also has a much-more-commercial-than-Manzanita downtown. It’s worth avoiding, unless you need a $2,000 painting of a dolphin swimming in the moonlight. (And if so, you’re reading the wrong blog.)

Back to Ecola. Having made it into the park, if you head out on the cliffside trails, you’ll be rewarded with views like this one:

If you’re heading for Indian Beach and need food first, the Lumberyard on the north side of Cannon Beach, not far from the road to Ecola State Park, is a favorite.

Short Sands a.k.a. Shorty’s a.k.a. Oswald West State Park

Oswald West is a hero, since because of him, Oregon’s beaches are open to everyone, unlike California’s.

A visit to Oswald West State Park goes like this:

• Hunt for parking
• Take a trail down to the water through immense forest
• Nod to the surfers coming up and down the trail (pulling over for politeness’ sake and letting them pass you with their heavy boards)
• Be greeted with an immense view of a spectacular, protected cove, rumored to be a smuggler’s port back in the day
• Appreciate said crazy surfers as they brave the waves in full-protection wetsuits because it’s so damn cold, even in summer

If you go the Shorty’s route, stop in Manzanita’s Bread & Ocean before you head out for a great $9 to-go box sandwich lunch, complete with cookie.

Pizza!

After all that beachy, hikey activity, pizza hits the spot. Back in Manzanita, Marzano’s is excellent. It has a  laid-back vibe (unlike the recommended-for-lunch Bread & Ocean, which is reservations-only for dinner). Marzano’s is low-key, but still nicer than the average pizza place:

The Next Morning: Brunch of the Gods and Saying Goodbye to the Coast–with a Trip to the Dump

Wanda’s, 5 minutes south in the town of Nehalem, is home of the a truly fantastic cinnamon-oat waffle.

Wanda’s doesn’t look like much from the outside. But their breakfast is fantastic. Need more proof?

Hello, Sunday morning:

Post-brunch, on the way back from Nehalem towards Manzanita, follow the green-and-white signs for the Community Action Recycling Team of Manzanita, a.k.a. CART’M.

Bear with me on this one. If you want to visit the north Oregon Coast as a traveler, not just a tourist (although both are OK by me), CART’M will show you Manzanita’s soul.

That soul deeply loves two things: dogs and recycling. Or better yet, dogs near recycling.

CART’M is impressive. These folks really want to get to zero waste for this area, and there’s something endearing about ordinary townspeople testing their cans to see if they’re tin or aluminum and sorting them appropriately.

They love this wildly beautiful area, and are serious about not wrecking it with giant landfills.

But they’re not too serious. Take, for example, the instructions in the newspaper-recycling area: With wild abandon, fling that newspaper way back.

It’s the most joyous dump you’ll ever visit, and very, very Oregonian.

For all the photos from the north Oregon Coast, see the full Flickr photo set:

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For a map of all the recommended locations, see this custom Google map: