Things to Do on the Long Beach Peninsula
Between a genuine world-class kite festival, two historic lighthouses at the mouth of the Columbia River, real Lewis and Clark expedition history, and a working cranberry museum, this peninsula's attractions are specific and sourced -- not a generic list of 'enjoy the beach' filler.
The Washington State International Kite Festival
Held annually since 1981 during the third full week of August, the Washington State International Kite Festival is described as the largest kite festival in North America, drawing more than 100,000 attendees over its week-long run. It's hosted by the World Kite Museum, headquartered in Long Beach, and set along the vast sandy shoreline at the Bolstad Beach Approach, right alongside the Discovery Trail and the Long Beach Boardwalk. The festival draws professional kite fliers from around the world alongside tens of thousands of spectators, making it a genuine, internationally recognized event rather than a small local fair -- and one that fills the peninsula's lodging capacity specifically during that week.
Cape Disappointment State Park: Two Lighthouses and Real Lewis and Clark History
Cape Disappointment State Park, at the peninsula's southern tip near Ilwaco, holds the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center and two working lighthouses. The Cape Disappointment Lighthouse, completed in 1856, is the oldest operating lighthouse on the West Coast -- built after an 1848 government survey recommended one due to a large number of shipwrecks near the Columbia River's mouth, one of the most hazardous river-bar crossings on the entire West Coast. The North Head Lighthouse, completed in 1898, guides mariners approaching from the north. The cape itself was named by English fur trader John Meares in 1788 after he failed to find the river he was searching for. The park's interpretive center covers the Lewis and Clark Expedition's real November 1805 presence in this exact area, including William Clark's famous journal entry upon first sighting the Pacific and the expedition's ten days spent exploring the cape while searching for a winter camp site.
The Vote at Station Camp: A Real, Documented Historical Event Nearby
Near present-day Chinook and McGowan, just off the peninsula's southern base, the Lewis and Clark Expedition held a formal vote on November 24, 1805, deciding where to spend the winter -- described by the National Park Service as the first election held by Americans west of the Mississippi. Every expedition member voted except Sacagawea's nine-month-old son; notably, both York (William Clark's enslaved manservant) and Sacagawea herself cast votes, roughly 60 years before the end of slavery and more than a century before women or Native Americans would gain full citizenship voting rights nationally. The group voted to cross to the river's south side, where they built Fort Clatsop. This is real, sourced, specific regional history, not a generic 'explorers passed through here' claim -- worth visiting the actual interpretive markers near Station Camp and Dismal Nitch for the full context.
The Discovery Trail and Long Beach Boardwalk
The Discovery Trail is a paved, multi-use path running through Long Beach along the dunes, connecting to the Long Beach Boardwalk -- a real, free, low-impact recreational amenity for walking, biking, and simply accessing the beach itself, and the specific setting for the kite festival's beach-based flying and competition events.
The Pacific Coast Cranberry Museum
Located mid-peninsula between Long Beach and Klipsan Beach, the free Pacific Coast Cranberry Museum traces more than a century of cranberry farming history in the region, dating to commercial cultivation beginning in the 1870s and 1880s. It sits on working farmland connected to the Washington State University Cranberry Research Station, established here in 1923, and offers a genuine, specific window into an agricultural industry that most visitors to a beach destination never think to associate with one -- and that remains a real, active part of the region's economy today, contributing to Washington's status as a producer of roughly a third of the nation's cranberry crop.
The World Kite Museum
Beyond hosting the annual festival, the World Kite Museum in Long Beach operates as a standing attraction covering kite history and design, a real, specific, single-subject museum that reflects the depth of this peninsula's connection to kite flying beyond just the one August week.
The Long Beach Creative District
Downtown Long Beach anchors a designated Creative District encompassing most of the town's core, home to a concentration of art galleries, museums, and music venues including the Peninsula Arts Center, which presents live music and art in an intimate, house-concert-style setting on Pacific Avenue. This is a real, if small-scale, arts scene worth knowing about for anyone assuming a beach town this size has no cultural infrastructure beyond tourist shops.
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Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. Data sourced from: the Washington State International Kite Festival's own materials and Wikipedia entry, and the World Kite Museum's own site (worldkitemuseum.com), for festival history, scale, and location; Washington State Parks (parks.wa.gov) and the National Park Service for Cape Disappointment State Park's history, the Cape Disappointment and North Head lighthouses' construction dates, and John Meares's 1788 naming of the cape; HistoryLink.org and the National Park Service for the November 24, 1805 vote at Station Camp, including York's and Sacagawea's participation and the expedition's subsequent move to Fort Clatsop; the Cranberry Museum's own site (cranberrymuseum.com) for cranberry industry history and the WSU Cranberry Research Station's 1923 founding; and regional tourism sources (evergreencoastwa.com, peninsulaartscenter.org) for the Discovery Trail, Long Beach Boardwalk, and Long Beach Creative District. Facts not independently confirmed and not invented here include: current museum hours, admission fees (beyond the Cranberry Museum's confirmed free admission), or festival ticket pricing. Confirm current hours, pricing, and event schedules directly with each attraction before planning a visit. Nothing on this page is a comprehensive events directory.