Nehalem Falls Campground — Hotel in Tillamook

My life partner & I are the kinda folks who love to make spur of the moment decisions on what to do & where to go. Although there can sometimes be a negative outcome, the positive experiences absolutely outweighs the negative ones. This camping experience is just another example of that. We started the morning traveling south from Astoria looking for a campgroud. Our 1st stop was Fort Stevens which was totally full & reservations were required. Next place we stopped at was Nehalem Bay campground which is by reservations only as well. We were told by a very nice ranger that the Nehalem Falls campground had 1st come 1st serve campsites if available. It is located about 7 1/2 miles east of Nehalem. It was a Tuesday afternoon about 4:30pm when we arrived. The stars were in total alignment for us, because the #1 campsite was the last open site still available. As fortune would have it we grabbed it just in time because we were only 3 minutes ahead of someone else that pulled through looking for a spot. There are only 12 campsites available. Many of them are excellent for RV campers as well as tent camping. There are 2 pit toilets (1 is located midway of the campground & the other at far end of the loop). Water is available at a hand pump about midway as well. Another location for water is by the camp hosts site. This is well water that is of excellent quality. There are no hookups for electricity or RV blackwater. It is dog friendly & highly recommended you have your dog or cat on a lease or tether at all times. The camp host shared a few stories of folks that did not follow these guidelines & lost their dog by running off never to be found again. This is very close to the Nehalem river which runs alongside the length of the campground. From the end of the 1st week in July until the 1st week of October there is a camp host staying there named Steve. He is an older gentleman with a white beard. He was very helpful and very knowledgeable & had great suggestions to offer on places to visit & eat. He is very easy to talk to, & really enjoyed getting to know him. It was mid September when we tent camped here. There is the constant sound of rushing waters of the Nehalem falls & the river. The sounds were soothing to fall asleep by every night. On another note, there is NO cell coverage available at the campground. The signal drops about 1 1/2 miles out of town going towatds the campground. This place is definitely on our list of memorable campgrounds to stay at. We will be back here often. Check it out & I hope you enjoy staying here as...

The campground is beautiful, but our experience was HORRIBLE! Oh, and campsites are $20 a night now, and it's quite a ways in, down a very poorly kept, narrow, windy road, followed by gravel road at the end, and no cell service.

Anyway... Every campground on the planet uses a piece of paper with a name and date on it to reserve camp sites, and everyone who has ever camped knows this, except people who camp or host at Nehalem Falls Campground. They don't take reservations, it's first come first served, and it takes a good 30 minutes to get there and back from Manzanita. So we drove all the way there in the morning for the sole purpose of securing a site for the night, picked a site, paid for it, put my proof of purchase in the clip on the site we chose, spoke with Cindy, the camp host both on the way in and on the way out, which was less than 5 minutes between, and even told her which site we had picked and paid for... only to return later to find our site OCCUPIED!!!

The host Cindy said "it's because you didn't leave anything there". Uh yeah I did, I left my PROOF OF PURCHASE!!!!! SO RUDE!

So we picked another site, which we actually ended up liking better than the first, camped, got up the next morning, paid for another night, put proof of purchase on clip AND made a sign out of a paper bag very clearly stating that this was our site for that day through next, put dates, etc in HUGE LETTERS so you could not possibly miss it. Also put a large branch across the front of the camp site entrance with a bright pink bin lid being held up by the branch. We car camp, as in no tent, we sleep in the car, that was literally ALL I HAD that I could "leave behind" while we went to play at the beach, oh except a bag full of magazines for starting a camp fire later.

Got back that night and once again, someone had STOLEN our spot!!!! I asked them if they had my bin lid, they had no idea what I was talking about. So THE HOST STOLE MY BELONGINGS that I had left there very specifically so that others knew it was NOT available!!!! And IN WRITING no less! So we chose yet another spot which was small, loud, surrounded by people & barking dogs, slept-ISH and left early the next morning NEVER TO RETURN AGAIN. SO UNBELIEVABLY RUDE!!! AND THEIVES to boot! We actually cut our entire trip short and went home because there was nowhere else to camp, because they all fill up month's in advance.

I wish the state parks were FCFS so you don't have to plan everything two + months in advance and have zero option of...

The Good: It's in a beautiful area, right on the river. There aren't too many campsites and it's fairly clean. They sell firewood at $5 per small bundle, just in case you don't bring your own. There are two primitive pit toilets that are maintained by the camp hosts. Garbage dumpster and recycling on site. The Bad: The fees went up from $10 last year, to $15 a night this year, plus $5 for a second vehicle. There aren't many campsites, but they're pretty crammed together and you can hear people yelling and everyone's dogs barking. It feels like you're still in the city. The toilets smell really bad, and depending on which way the breeze is blowing, you might be smelling it the whole stay. The camp hosts were less than helpful. Now, this was The Bad from my personal experience: The camp hosts were less than helpful because... A neighbor's son was walking their dog by, and got the attention of our dog, and he literally yanked his stake out of the ground and went after her dog. It was unfortunate and we felt really bad and apologized up and down. We wanted to smooth it over so her family and our family could enjoy what was left of the trip. But unfortunately, she couldn't let it go and the camp host just perpetuated her frustration. She spent so much time at the woman's campsite just listening to her rehash the situation over and over, and only got one side of what happened. She then insisted that we go apologize (again), and said that she was going to have to go around the camp and warn all of the other campers about our dog. We were literally the Campsite Villains, just because our dog wasn't secured well. It was a total accident, as he had never been able to pull it out before, and we promised not to let it happen again. As a matter of fact, after that point, we hardly had him out of the tent trailer, and he was supervised 100% of the time to prevent any more problems. Yet, the camp host still continued to spend even more time with that family the next day, and she and the woman continued to harass us about our dog. I think that almost all of the campers there had dogs, as they were barking almost non-stop, and ours just happened to be the one that got loose and went after someone's dog. I'm not saying it was okay, but dogs are unpredictable sometimes, and it wasn't worth ruining our family's vacation, her family's vacation and wasting the camp host's time. It was a stressful and upsetting trip for all, and we will not return....