Kirby Cove is a campground different than I have ever experienced before. You’re clearly very close to everything (i.e. San Francisco), while feeling like you are away from everything at the same time.

The campground is located in the spectacular Golden Gate National Recreation Area and down a 1-mile dirt road from Hwy. 1. You’ll get a gate code when you make a reservation so you can access the road.

All sites are walk-in, so depending on which site you get you might want to bring a cart of backpack to haul your gear to your site. We camped in site #1, which was awesome, but also the furthest from the parking lot at about 800 feet each way.

The views from site #1 are spectacular. You’ve got front row seats to the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco to your south. The site is located on a bluff just above the Kirby Cove beach.

Battery Kirby is right there at the campground and interesting to explore. Active from 1898 to 1934 the battery in quite interesting to walk through, despite the vandals that have clearly spent a lot of time there. Aside from the battery there isn’t a lot to do at the campground and we spent half a day picking up garbage at the beach.

There is however a ton of wonderful hiking in other parts of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, but you will need to drive to access the other trailheads.

Before camping here we were warned about the fog horn going off all night, but we didn’t hear it once during the night, so maybe we got lucky.