At the risk of sounding ridiculously and painfully obvious, lots of people in the world have been to the seaside. But impressively, at this time there are only seven towns officially named Seaside, and these are all in the United States: in Connecticut, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, California, and Oregon.

Although I love the seaside, I haven’t been to five of these. I think I may have driven through Seaside, California once. But the Seaside I know well, having visited many times throughout my life, is the one on the northern coast of Oregon. Incorporated in 1899 and named after railroad tycoon Ben Holladay’s luxurious Italian villa-style hotel, this popular resort town has a population of just a little over 7,000 during the non-tourist season. It’s probably best known for its surfing spots near Tillamook Head as well as being the end of the Lewis & Clark Trail, which is marked by a bronze statue of the two explorers that stands in the centre of a turnaround at the beach end of Broadway, which is the main drag. Just north and south of the turnaround is the Promenade, built in the 1920s. The “Prom”, as it’s called, offers a seaside walk just under a mile south to Avenue U and about the same distance north to 12th Avenue. In the summer months tourists flock to Seaside from inland cities to enjoy the long and wide beach, the Aquarium, and the amusement-park atmosphere of Broadway.

On the south end of the Seaside’s beach is Tillamook Head, where one can hike up a forested trail for 2.8 miles to Ecola State Park, where there are views of the 19th-century Tillamook Rock Lighthouse. I’ve never actually done that walk before, but it was probably because I never really knew about it.

The reason I know Seaside so well is because my mother grew up there. My first memories of visiting the town were as a little girl on our summer holidays, when my family would drive up the Oregon coast from Southern California. When my father retired and my parents moved out of Long Beach, they lived for the warmer part of the year in a house they bought in Seaside, returning to their mobile home in Banning, California, for the winters. As I lived four hours north in Seattle by then, I used to come down for long weekends. It was definitely a fun place to be, both as a child and as an adult.

In 1995 my dad passed away, and a couple of years later my mother sold both houses and moved back to Long Beach. So when my good friend Mistah Rick and I met up in Portland, Oregon in May of this year, I asked Rick if he’d mind us hiring a car for a couple of days and driving down Highway 26 to Seaside. I didn’t really need to twist his arm, as he’d only passed through the town once very briefly. It had been nearly 30 years since I’d been in Seaside, but a lot of things looked pretty much the same as I remembered -- except, perhaps, for the sushi bar and a couple of brewpubs.

As soon as Rick and I reached Seaside after a gorgeous drive from Portland down pine forest-framed Highway 26, we parked and walked down Broadway in search of a coffee. When we walked into Controversial Coffee, we found ourselves in a wonderful museum/shop of a cafe which sells all sorts of stickers, old coffee cups (including a most appealing mug decorated with a tourist version of the Hawaiian Islands), art, cartoons, skulls, and multigender miscellanea. Judging by the event and group posters on the walls, the place is very transgender friendly, which is a positive thing to see in a small coastal town. I would say the decor of the cafe has a real Transgender Day of the Dead vibe to it.

Our cortados were served in paper cups and were a bit too hot to drink at first. But that was okay, as we had plenty of time to sit and chat and plan our day while waiting for them to cool. The coffee they use, from Sleepy Monk in Cannon Beach, is very, very smooth, which is perhaps the style that the residents of the Oregon coast prefer.

As we sat slowly sipping and enjoying the gradual caffeine rush, we continued to take in all the details of our surroundings, including a Mortal Kombat video game next to a giant OP-art mural on the far wall which was above a skull-motif sofa.

Besides coffees and other drinks, Controversial Coffee also offers breakfast and lunch sandwiches. And the cafe is home to As Above So Below (formerly Inverted Experience), which is sort of an upside-down photo studio featuring a variety of inverted sets available for quirky tourist snapshots. As it hadn’t yet opened for the day and there was an entry fee, Rick and I decided to pass on the experience, as we had other things to see, places to do, and fish to invert.

The next morning, our first call of the day had to be coffee and a light breakfast, so we headed from the hotel over to Beach Day Coffee.. Located just off Seaside's famous Turnaround, this cafe seemed like it would be the perfect place to start off our morning, having advertised “gourmet coffee” on its website. But after we ordered our cappuccinos, it was difficult to tell what the coffee was actually like. First of all, our “small” cappuccinos were served in 12-ounce paper cups with plastic sipping lids, which of course we hadn’t wanted because not only were we expecting proper cups, but we wanted actual coffees, not tumblers of hot milk.

Oh, well. Then we decided on our breakfast pastries. I noticed they had proper homemade American biscuits, which I would have enjoyed; but the only biscuits they offered contained cheddar and bacon. The woman behind the counter proudly told us that she bakes everything fresh; but that still doesn't remove the bacon. So we ended up choosing two seeded “bagels”, (more like soft rolls) which we had to toast ourselves in a fully-automated toaster.

We sat at a couple of seats on a wall counter and I suppose were just relieved that our “bagels” didn’t contain bacon. But my “small” 12-ounce “cappuccino” contained at least eight ounces of milk, which would take a person like me all day to drink. So I figured I would just “dispose” of most of it and get myself a “tiny” coffee somewhere else.

I apologise for all the quotation marks, but they do help to describe our “gourmet coffee” experience. Considering one can also order a 16-ounce or 20-ounce “cappuccino” if they prefer (or if they simply love milk and hate coffee) reminds me that Seaside is still a “small town” and not a cosmopolitan city.

The coffee is from the Columbia River Coffee Roasters, and their chocolate is from Ghiradelli. So at least they use locally sourced “ingredients”.

Anyway, we ate our bagels, and I dumped most of my cup of hot milk after we decided to try again later in the morning. So after a long walk up to the bottom of the Prom, with a quick stop to see the Lewis & Clark Salt Cairn, we headed back to Broadway to browse through some shops.

By late morning we were really craving caffeine, so we found our way to the Seaside Coffee House. Located just off Broadway and across the street from a salt water taffy vendor, this is a fun cafe and the home of Seaside Coffee Roasters. When we walked in, the place smelled great, and friendly, interesting-looking locals were sitting around here and there, looking as if they’re constant fixtures. The walls are covered with framed art, mostly portraits, that look as if they’re the work of local artists. There is comfy living room furniture all around the room, antique toys and trinkets up on the shelves above the art, fun books on the window counter, and a guitar and a homemade box-shaped instrument over in the corner.

After we told the woman at the counter that we’d had horrible “cappuccinos” earlier and badly needed some proper ones, she smiled knowingly and served us exactly what we were hoping for, and in proper-sized cups as well. We took our drinks to the window counter and thoroughly enjoyed them while browsing through the books and enjoying the view.

Having opened 13 years ago, the Seaside Coffee House serves breakfast and sandwiches, and the baked goods look really good. It was a shame we hadn’t stopped here earlier for breakfast, because the rosemary goat cheese scones sounded quite appealing. But we had an old friend of my mother’s to meet up with for lunch, so we needed to get off. At least we left happy with the knowledge that there’s at least one coffee house in Seaside where the people actually know what they’re doing.

On a final Seaside note, according to the estimate of seismologists, there is a one in three chance that Seaside, Oregon will be hit by an earthquake and tsunami within the next fifty years. So if you needed a good reason to hurry up and visit Seaside, there’s one.