On cartwheels and beach walks and family fun in Seabrook, Washington

SEABROOK, Washington – The beach on the west coast of Washington is as wide and flat and glorious as any I’ve seen.

Perfect for cartwheels, I thought, as the young people in our group started to flip across the sand.

Maybe it was the saltwater spray that made me delusional. Maybe it was the goading from my kids and their cousins.

Whatever the reason, I found myself tempted to show off my acrobatic skills, too, performing first one cartwheel and then another. It was the second one that did me in.

I had never pulled a hamstring before, but my brother recognized my ailment right away. He and my husband helped me limp up the staircase that led from the beach to the town of Seabrook.

A bag of ice and the hot tub at our rental home did the rest.

I suppose if you’re going to injure yourself on the first day of a big family vacation, Seabrook is a pretty good place to do it.

The small, compact community has everything you need within a short distance – a grocery store, several restaurants, a book store, bike rental shop, swimming pools, pickleball courts and a terrific ice cream shop.

And did I mention the beach?

After one day of intense pain, my leg slowly, gradually got better, even though I did a terrible job of taking it easy.

I was on that beach the day after my injury, and the day after that, and that day after that.

I’ll blame the saltwater spray. And the goading kids.

Exploring Seabrook, Washington

How 13 members of my extended family – a majority of whom live in Ohio – ended up on the Washington coast for a family reunion isn’t all that complicated.

My two nephews recently relocated to the West Coast – one in Seattle, the other outside Portland – and we decided to go to them.

This extended clan has been traveling together for decades, mostly with my parents, both of whom died in recent years.

I know they would be happy that we have continued the tradition.

My sister-in-law – the mother of my nephews – discovered the community of Seabrook earlier this year, looking for a place approximately midway between her boys. She found a terrific house with five bedrooms and a hot tub and gas fire pit out back.

I had never been to Seabrook – never heard of it – but it was very familiar to me.

Seabrook, founded in 2004, is modeled after the community of Seaside, on Florida’s Panhandle, a town that was developed in the 1980s based on the ideals of new urbanism – with a walkable commercial center, pedestrian-focused neighborhoods, plenty of community gathering spaces and a similar architectural style throughout.

I first visited Seaside in 2021 (along with nearby Rosemary Beach, another new urban community) and was impressed with its purposeful development – a tight community center, with well-designed residential areas spread out from the hub.

True, it maybe seemed a bit too perfect. Seaside, after all, was the filming location for “The Truman Show,” the 1998 film that starred Jim Carrey, who unknowingly lived on a TV set.

Still, for a weeklong family vacation, what’s wrong with too perfect?

Read more: A first-timer’s guide to Seaside, Rosemary Beach and the rest of 30A on Florida’s Emerald Coast

Seabrook, too, had that TV set vibe, with an abundance of strollers and Golden Retrievers and handsome homes that have names like Sand Dollar and Sip N Sea.

Spread across 700 acres of formerly clear-cut forest, Seabrook features 600 homes, about 15% of which are occupied year-round. Many of the rest are vacation properties owned by wealthy Seattleites.

Lily Walsh, the marketing director for Seabrook, led a tour of the town on the first full day of my visit. While the rest of my family took a yoga class, I limped along and learned more about Seabrook.

“We’re just getting started,” she said. And indeed, there’s construction in nearly every direction, with new homes and commercial buildings being erected throughout town.

Town maps include 5- and 10-minute walking circles, showing how close certain intersections are from the bakery, for example, or to the beach.

Said Walsh, “We want to make you feel silly getting in your car to go somewhere.”

And indeed, there’s plenty here to keep you busy for a weekend, or longer.

Among our many activities: a Friday night concert, Saturday art market, morning yoga, afternoon pickleball, bicycling, jogging and shopping.

There are a couple of community swimming pools, mountain biking trails, hiking trails, shuffleboard courts, bocce, basketball and numerous other activities.

The biggest attraction, of course, is the incredible beach – plenty wide at high tide but absolutely massive at low tide.

Seabrook sits on a cliff above the water, which offers protection against flooding. Even so, you can’t help but notice the numerous tsunami warning signs on your way to the sand.

The beach, located across two-lane Washington Route 109 from most of Seabrook, is accessed either via a flight of stairs on a meandering downhill path.

It’s worth the modest effort to get down here. On a sunny day, you can walk for miles.

As for swimming? The chilly ocean water felt great up to my knees. My nephew, Ethan, was the only one in our group to get his hair wet.

(Note: The weather here is extremely variable; in early September, we had a mix of beautiful sunny days and misty cool ones.)

About 3 miles south of Seabrook is Roosevelt Beach, part of the state’s Seashore Conservation Area, managed by Washington State Parks, where you can drive your car onto the beach. (“The Seashore Conservation Area is considered a public highway,” says the park system website, with a maximum speed limit is 25 mph.)

Among our destinations on the sand: Copalis Rock, a rock formation accessible at low tide, where we marveled at starfish and sand dollars, sea anemones and other creatures.

Seabrook is also an easy drive to the southern portions of Olympic National Park, a glorious piece of public land that features mountains and beaches and rainforests.

The park is huge – nearly 1 million acres – and can’t be easily visited in a day (or two).

Members of our group spent an entire day hiking the difficult 14-mile Colonel Bob Trail near Olympic’s Lake Quinault, and another morning making the 8-mile trek from Kalaloch Beach to Ruby Beach on the park’s western shore.

My ailing leg gave me a good excuse to avoid both of those treks. Also, my immediate family spent our first night in Washington at the lovely Lake Quinault Lodge.

For our five nights in Seabrook, we were content to stay in or close to town. We made daily trips to Fresh Foods Market, rented bikes at Basecamp and picked up morning treats at Vista Bakeshop.

We ventured out only once, to drive on Roosevelt Beach, and continued south to the Ocean Sunset Drug store in nearby Ocean Shores, where I purchased a compression sleeve for my leg. (I always buy the best souvenirs.)

By the end of the stay, I was walking (almost) normally. (Still, the biggest test of my fitness was yet to come – on the trails of North Cascades National Park. More on that next week.)

My sister-in-law scolded me for even attempting a cartwheel “at my age.”

“Do you think you’re still a kid?” she asked.

Well, yeah, sometimes I do. I’ll blame it on Seabrook.

If you go: Seabrook, Washington

What: A small beachfront community on the west coast of Washington, roughly equidistant between Seattle and Portland, with numerous homes for rent, from two-bedroom bungalows to oceanview mansions.

More information: seabrookwa.com

How to get there: Seabrook is approximately 2 ½ hours southwest of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. We flew nonstop from Cleveland to Seattle on Alaska Airlines.