Welcome to Oregon Coast Quests!

Quests are fun, place-based  adventures that use clues and hints to encourage you to explore the natural, cultural and historical treasures of Oregon's central coast. Suitable for groups of all ages, Quests allow you to search at your own pace through parks and other public spaces throughout coastal Lincoln County.

The clues are found in the Oregon Coast Quests guidebooks, available at bookstores around the region (including our own HMSC Bookstore). The "treasure" is a hidden Quest box where participants will find a log-book to signand a rubber stamp to mark their own guidebooks as they successfully solve each Quest.

Quests are great fun for families and school groups - and once you've gone questing, your group may even want to help create a new Quest for the next edition of the guide book!

WHERE DID QUESTING COME FROM?

Questing was born out of a popular, 150-year old British pastime called letterboxing, which has grown to include thousands of boxes hidden in locations of natural or cultural signficance. In the US, the same tradition got a technological twist in the form of geocaching, in which participants use hand-held GPS units to follow clues posted on the Internet.

In Vermont in the early 1990’s, an organization called Vital Communities came up with the award-winning Valley Quest program, using paper-and-pencil to follow clues and learn about their region. Our Oregon Coast Quests are among many across the country modeled on the Vermont program, and is the first such program in the Pacific Northwest. 

Read on for details about Oregon Coast Quests - including some printable Quests you can try out on your next visit to the HMSC Visitor Center.