Watch the Distance
With the whole Pacific Coast to choose from it shouldn’t be too hard to find an area that suits all the family. You will be smart to pick a spot not more than an easy day’s drive from home. If it is only a few hours away, so much the better. Within less than one day’s drive from most points on the Pacific Coast you can lose yourself in a paradise of forests, lakes and mountains, or stand on the ocean shore and hear the breakers boom.
Naturally, you’ll want to invest most of your money in the cabin or beach house itself. That being the case the best place to go for low-cost mountain cabin sites is the United States Forest Service, which controls millions of acres of the finest timber and mountain country in the world. Beach property, on the other hand, is largely a commercial proposition, and you’ll more than likely have to consult your real estate dealer.
The National Forests offer cabin sites to suit every taste and every purse. However, certain areas are not open to settlement, and all cabins must conform to standards set by the Forest Service. You can’t buy the land, but you can occupy it under Special Use Permit. You get low cost, freedom from crowding and assurance that the area will not be ruined by commercialization.
The Forest Service opens new tracts for summer cabin sites when those opened in previous years are filled. Cabins are not crowded together as they are in some commercial tracts.