Your August in Seaside: A Local's Playbook for Volleyball Week, Hood to Coast, and the Quieter Corners In Between
August 6, 2026
August 6, 2026
If you live in Seaside, August isn't one month. It's two surge weekends bookending three weeks of quieter local rhythm, and the difference between enjoying it and enduring it comes down to knowing which is which. The 5,000-player volleyball tournament and the finish-line chaos of Hood to Coast get all the press. The nature journaling class three miles south of downtown, the Wednesday farmers market, the newly protected 24 acres of habitat behind Rippet Road — those are the ones that reward the people who actually live here.
Here is how the calendar actually breaks down.
Both of these are worth attending on purpose or avoiding on purpose. Neither rewards indifference.
The Seaside Beach Volleyball Tournament is in its 44th year, and the numbers have quietly grown past the point where "big event" covers it. For five days, more than 3,000 volleyball teams, about 5,000 players and over 40,000 people are set to bounce over to the Oregon Coast for a week of fun in the sun, and Seaside beach will be covered with 245 volleyball nets. That's a temporary population roughly twenty times the town's residency.
A few specifics worth knowing before the weekend starts. There are 61 divisions, from 12U through adult and up to Dino, a combined-age-80 bracket, plus a new triple division added this year alongside doubles and quads. Play begins on the beach at 9 a.m. Wednesday, August 5, and runs through Sunday, August 9. A new after-hours addition is worth flagging if you have kids or curious houseguests: the pay-to-play Glow Volley is $5, running 8 to 10 p.m. with nets and balls lit by LED and EDM music throughout, and organizer Sadie Mercer hopes it helps push the Seaside tournament past the AeQuilbrium event in Venice, Italy for global bragging rights.
Last year gave the community an unusual walk-on moment. Olympic Gold Medalist Phil Dalhausser came to Seaside and played in the open division, and the 45-year-old Dalhausser and his partner, Brendan Onischenko, took home first place. That kind of drop-in appearance is why a certain slice of the volleyball world treats Seaside as a required summer stop.
Three weeks later the second surge arrives from the opposite direction. Known as the Mother of All Relays, the event takes 8-12 member relay teams through Oregon terrain, starting from the top of Mount Hood and ending at the beaches of the Pacific Ocean, a 196-mile relay that has filled its team limit for the past 37 years and on Opening Lottery Day for 33 consecutive years. The 2026 finish runs from Fri, 28 Aug at 04:00 am to Sat, 29 Aug at 05:00 pm at Seaside, Oregon.
If you live within earshot of the beach party at the finish line, plan accordingly. If you love a good finish-line scene, this is one of the best in the state.
| Weekend | Dates | Character | Best local move |
|---|---|---|---|
| Volleyball Tournament | Aug 5–9 (Wed–Sun) | 40,000+ visitors, 245 nets, day-long play from 9 a.m. | Bike or walk into town; leave the car parked |
| Hood to Coast Finish | Aug 28–29 (Fri–Sat) | Rolling arrivals through Friday night and Saturday | Grocery run Thursday, dinner reservations booked early |
This is the part most out-of-town coverage misses. In the same weeks the beach fills up, a completely different Seaside is running on its usual schedule. A short list of what a resident might actually put on the fridge:
The through-line: on any given day in August, there is a local option running an hour away from where the crowds are.
If you drive south on U.S. 101 out of Seaside, you pass the North Coast Land Conservancy's Circle Creek Habitat Reserve without noticing it. That reserve got materially larger over the winter, and almost nobody outside the conservation world has heard about it.
The Circle Creek expansion, finalized on Dec. 17, added 23.85 acres to the existing 364-acre reserve and connects to the adjacent 340 acres of Boneyard Ridge Habitat Reserve. The property, formerly owned by the Dimet Family, lies within Seaside's southern city limits near Rippet Road. Read that again: nearly 24 acres of the town itself just moved permanently into conservation, linking two reserves that together now protect more than 700 contiguous acres of coastal rainforest, salmon habitat, and elk range along the southern edge of the city.
It's also NCLC's fortieth year. North Coast Land Conservancy has been working since 1986 to conserve and care for the landscapes of Oregon's North Coast, from the Columbia River south to Siletz Bay and from the Coast Range west to the Pacific Ocean, and it began when a group of neighbors met around a kitchen table in Seaside and considered a new way to approach conservation. Since then, NCLC has protected almost 14,000 acres of land in Clatsop, Tillamook, and Lincoln counties. The 40th Anniversary party is Saturday, Oct. 3, at Circle Creek Conservation Center in Seaside, but there's a lower-key reason to walk in the door before then.
Through the middle of the month, NCLC is running a small workshop series on the property. The North Coast Land Conservancy will host a free four-part nature journaling workshop series from July 23 to Aug. 13 led by KT Blue and Marilynn Blacketer, and no experience is necessary, but registration is required at nclctrust.org. Basic supplies, including journal, colored pencils and tote bag, are provided. The sessions begin at the Circle Creek Conservation Center in Seaside and will take place whatever the weather. Those taking part will take a short walk to a spot then sit, observe and journal. No dogs are allowed on site; restrooms will be available.
To find it: Circle Creek Conservation Center is at the end of Rippet Road in Seaside, on the west side of U.S. 101, 0.7 mile north of the junction with U.S. 26. Follow the road west and north a short distance, passing a gravel quarry on your left, to where it ends between two barns.
The last session lands Thursday, August 13. It's a strange and useful counterprogram to the beach chaos twelve blocks north.
If a friend visiting from Portland asked what to actually do in Seaside this August, a resident's honest answer looks something like this:
That's the pattern of a good local August: know when the town is not yours, know when it is, and pick the right side of Broadway on the right day.
The people who own homes here already know some of this by feel. What changes year to year is the specifics — a new division at the tournament, a new 24 acres behind Rippet Road, a new comedy at the Coaster. If you'd like to talk through what a place on this side of the calendar might look like for you, or how your current home fits into what the North Coast is becoming, Andrea Mace and the Mace Team would be glad to schedule your concierge consultation.
Want to sell now or in the future? Let's start a conversation about how my services can be put to use to market and sell your home to a qualified buyer.