Why e book?
If you like Kyoto ryokans and Pacific Northwest scenery with equal measure, Snow Peak Campfield Long Beach is your house. Nestled alongside the shores of Long Beach, Washington, the campground marries Japanese minimalism with PNW ruggedness.
Set the scene
The grounds sprawl 30 acres throughout the sleepy coastal city of Long Beach, Washington (inhabitants: 2,000 or so). Walking in, you’re met with tall evergreens towering overhead; look down and also you may see wild strawberries clustered alongside the paths. The website was initially an RV park in want of rehab. Now, it’s a leafy campground for individuals who need to really feel one with nature (whereas nonetheless accessing scorching showers). It’s dotted with a handful of buildings: a gatehouse the place visitors test in, a café and retailer to lounge and purchase snacks, a communal wash home, and a spa. A strolling path meanders from the gatehouse by the grounds, connecting the constructions earlier than looping again to the doorway.
Everything appears to be like soothing and minimal. The camp buildings’ pure tones and stylish strains are tucked into an idyllic panorama of huckleberry bushes, shore pines, and vine maples. The constructions are designed by native father-son crew EFA Architects; the greenery is the work of Knot Studios, Portland, Oregon-based panorama architects. The result’s a campground that seems like a tiny, cohesive village.
The crowd is a mixture of diehard Snow Peak followers, first-time campers who like having every thing already arrange, and outdoorsy households sporting Patagonia fleeces. With public fireplace pits known as takibi to collect round, the place has a communal vibe, so it’s maybe not fairly for solitary campers. You’re additionally joined by some locals—deer and geese that roam freely. If you’re fortunate, you may even spot one of many resident beavers.
The backstory
Snow Peak, the Japanese out of doors model behind this glamping floor, already operates 5 beloved Campfields all through Japan’s countryside, alongside the grassy pastures and rivers of Niigata, Oita, Kyoto, Hokkaido, and Kochi. Long Beach is its first Campfield in the US.
The rooms
The campground presents three tenting choices: You can camp with your individual tent at one of many 53 Field Sites, keep in one of many eight multi-person Tent Suites that the positioning crew units up for you, or luxuriously reside in one of many 14 Jyubako Suites.
A Jyubako Suite is a comfortable, climate-controlled cabin with sand-colored partitions, floor-to-ceiling home windows that allow in a number of mild, and, exterior, a private fireplace pit and two tenting chairs. Inside every cabin is a small kitchenette with an induction stovetop and mini fridge, a dwelling space, a queen mattress, and a personal rest room and bathe with fairly good water strain. It suits as much as two adults and two children.
It’s additionally functionally a Snow Peak showroom. The kitchenette is stocked with the model’s cookware, together with a kettle, espresso drip, and santoku knife (with carrying case). The dwelling space is kitted with its modular futon and folding desk. The lighting fixtures are Snow Peak lanterns. Everywhere you look, you’ll see the model’s tiny snowflake image etched into the furnishings—possibly to the purpose of absurdity. Other high-quality manufacturers are current too: The kitchenette boasts native favorites Proud Mary espresso and Bardo tea; the mattress, Pendleton blankets; the lavatory, Slowtide towels.
Food and drink
At the middle of the campground sits the Campstore, a mixed all-day café, lounge, and store with meals, tenting gear, and ice and firewood for buy. Inside feels ethereal and peaceable because of huge home windows and a cloud-like paper lamp hanging from the ceiling. Along the partitions, cabinets are lined with books on design, journey, and Japan, plus board video games for visitors to freely peruse. At the café, you may order snacks and lightweight lunches. Go for one of many freshly handmade onigiris. You can nibble it at an extended picket desk within the lounge that’s additionally a great spot for distant work—the Wi-Fi is superb.
The store is a treasure trove of curated native meals: teas by Portland, Oregon-based Bardo Tea, beers from Fort George Brewery in Astoria, Oregon, and Tre-Fin tuna from Ilwaco, Washington. Wine lovers, rejoice—award-winning native vineyard Syncline is the official wine accomplice, and there is sake too. Plus, a number of Pocky for Japanese snack followers. The retailer can also be a Snow Peak shopper’s paradise, displaying lots of the model’s merchandise, from tenting chairs to bento packing containers to quilted sweaters.
The spa
The open-air Ofuro spa is the Campfield’s crown jewel. It’s constructed with hinoki, the aromatic, lemon-scented Japanese cypress utilized in many conventional Japanese tub homes. The cypress is imported from Japan by Nakamoto Forestry, a family-owned firm that focuses on conventional charred lumber methods. The no-glass construction seems like a pure outgrowth from its woodsy environment, and the entire house is hugged by a low, sloping ceiling, giving it a comfortable but grand feeling.
When you enter, you’re met with a wall of material barrels (Snow Peak-branded, after all) to retailer your garments and footwear in, identical to you’d in a conventional onsen. Past that, you’ll discover a temple-grade cypress sauna, a scorching soaking pool, and a chilly plunge. Take deep breaths in that sauna—the woody aroma in there’s superbly wealthy and heady. A strand of alder bushes frames the view from the pool, which overlooks a pure pond and extra forest.
The neighborhood/space
Long Beach is a tiny, toothpick-shaped little bit of land that’s quiet however massive on allure. In the middle of city stands a big white archway emblazoned with the declare of “The World’s Longest Beach.” It’s not fairly that, however it is the world’s longest beach on a peninsula, which isn’t too shabby a title both. The campground is only a brief stroll to the seaside and its trails, however it’s value peeking into city too. There’s Marsh’s Free Museum, a set of kitschy antiques together with old style vacuum cleaners and a roulette wheel allegedly from the Alaskan Gold Rush, and the Cranberry Museum, the place you may find out about cranberry harvesting and tour the cranberry bogs exterior its door. Be positive to attempt the do-it-yourself cranberry ice cream; it’s delightfully tart.
The service
Service is low-key and pleasant. Need assist together with your fireplace pit? They’ve received you lined. Want suggestions for an ocean-view restaurant close by? They’re pleased to oblige. (Pickled Fish Restaurant; I like to recommend the poutine.) They additionally provide golf carts and hand carts that can assist you schlep your gear to your website, in case you don’t need to carry a cooler for half a mile.
Eco effort
The campground is constructed on a protected wetland, so there’s a mitigation plan in place, together with meticulous planting of native flora resembling wild strawberries, blackberries, huckleberries, Oregon ash, dogwood, and foxglove. It’s additionally a car-free campground (the parking zone is separated from it) with a restrict of 1 automotive per reservation.
Accessibility
Two of the common campsites are ADA accessible, and one Jyubako Suite is ADA accessible. Six of the Jyubako Suites are pet-friendly. Some guests may discover the car-free coverage inconvenient: The distance from the doorway to the farthest campsite is half a mile, and the loop across the campground itself is a 3rd of a mile. Again, these golf carts and hand carts come in useful for transportation.
Anything left to say?
The finest time to go to is early summer season or early fall, when it’s not too scorching and the panorama is emerald-green and dewy. (Unless you’re into moody Pacific Northwest climate, which has its personal allure.)