Best Glamping near Pismo Beach, CA

Pismo Beach is known for its white sand dunes that go on for miles. Located right on the Pacific Ocean, this campground is a perfect spot if you plan on riding the nearby dunes but not if you plan for a quiet weekend getaway. During the summer, lots of people (young, old, families) seem to stay at this campground which cause a lot of noise. Sites are close together which doesn't offer much privacy. Dust is everywhere! The campground has showers which are necessary but just when you think you are clean, you aren't. Very close to stores for ice, food, etc. If you want to experience Pismo Beach for the dunes, this is the place to stay. If you are there jus to camp, I'd recommend finding something elsewhere.

The resort offers RV camping, cottages Airtream rentals, canned ham rentals and safari tent glamping. Endless amenities include soccer field, basketball court, bocce ball, pool/spa, playground, store, restaurant, LP refills, self service ice machine, firepit rentals, covered bike parking. Impeccably clean and well maintained. The site staff is very friendly, helpful and quietly accomplishes their tasks with hardly any disturbances to campers. Much appreciated. Was pleased to see roaving security regularly.

This campground is in a very cool location. You can walk straight out to the beach. There’s a monarch Grove right next to you. And it’s about a 15-20 minute walk to Pismo beach Downtown and the Pier where you’ll find all of the main attractions in the area.

Most of the campsites have little to no shade unfortunately. Each campsite has a fire ring though and each campsite has plenty of space between each site. While it’s not private, it’s spacious!

Good cell phone service too.

If beach access while camping is your thing, this campground may be the ticket. Tucked behind the dunes (and you definitely want a site next to the dunes!), sites are not entirely on top of each other (but avoid the two middle rows if you want a little breathing room), and all have decent access to the clean bathhouses. There is a nice trail that goes around the outer edge of the campground through the dunes out to Hwy 1 and on to Pismo Beach. It also connects to the Monarch Butterfly Grove on the other side of the creek. Each campsite has the usual picnic table and fire ring. Go buy your firewood from the camp hosts, it’s a big no-no yo gather firewood in the park. I was also warned about locking up my car with valuables hidden; apparently there have been some thefts from cars in the campground in past years (the hosts said it hadn’t happened in a while, but rangers are of the belief of using an ounce of prevention). The best sites are 20,22, 24, 25, 27, 29, and 31 if you want to be next to the dunes and have good beach access.

Just south of point conception. Amazing fields of poppy flowers and then boom right on the coast. This is a very windy location, with offshores howling in the early morning and then offshores howling during the day. That is not really the problem. The problem is the run down campground. The bathrooms are insufficient for the amount of campers and they are on the disgusting side. Think California State parks bathrooms were dates, check out this county park. In need of a major overall!

There's a lot to like about Flying Flags RV park.  Its clean, has lots of full hookup sites, an onsite restaurant, clean facilities, as well as tents and cabins for rent. Why a 3 star rating then?  Well, per my system, 5 stars are the truly special places (i.e Yosemite, Zion) where one should travel to for multiple days. 4 stars are top-tier spots for locals, and should be part of a larger trip to the region for out-of-staters (examples include Lake Sonoma and Lopez Lake). 3 stars are perfectly fine, but you mostly go there for convenience. Flying Flags in Buellton is such a place. You come here because you can explore Santa Barbara, Solvang, and the surrounding wine region. The RV park itself is big, and the spots are pretty close together, and while it's not necessarily beautiful itself, it is clean and comfortable. If I'm planning a trip to Santa Barbara in my 28' Airstream, this is absolutely a park I'd stay at again. I prefer dry camping (i.e. limited or no hookups) in my trailer, but I certainly appreciate full service as well, and Flying Flags delivers.

If you own an RV, this is a perfect "home base" for exploring the area.  Solvang is a town in central California that looks like a Scandinavian village. It was featured prominently in the movie Sideways. Buellton and Solvang are both basically right in the heart of Santa Barbara wine country. Many, many wineries are within short driving distance. Santa Barbara is an easy hour-ish trip.  The coast in Santa Barbara and just south in Carpineria is some of the most beautiful in California. The surfing is exquisite (these are well known, popular spots so expect the usual "locals only" aggression in the line up). Paso Robles is about 100 miles up the road from Buellton, so it's entirely possible to do an "up and back" in the same day.

Flying Flags RV park won't take your breath away with natural beauty, but it's close to a lot of places that will.  It's convenient, clean, and a great place to park an RV for a couple of nights as you explore the surrounding areas.

We stayed here a few years ago, but on the primitive / non-hookup side. We stayed on the E/W hookup side this time and liked it as well, though it does have the more typical RV/parking lot feel as compared to the other side.  There's a nice walking trail that connects the two sides. It's $50 for an E/W site, plus an $8.25 reservation fee.

There's a cool lagoon that you can walk all the way around on, with lots of birds, and much of it accessible as well which is nice. There's a cool visitor center, open 12-4. The beach is a short walk away. There's a great Mexican restaurant down the road also, Old Juan's, it's so good and has great vegan options.

The showers here are nice and clean, and $1 gets you 4 minutes.  The showers are individual, private, and non-gendered. There was no host on site when we were there, but the rangers were very present.  This campground, like all California State campgrounds we've been to recently, has trash, recycling, and a food compost bin which I love.

There's a fun game for kids where you download an app and go on a scavenger hunt and complete other challenges.

No dump station here, but there's one just 2 miles north at North Beach Campground, and it's $10 for dump and water fill there.

We rolled through on a Friday night in May with no reservations and got absolutely lucky to snag the very last site.  Would not recommend chancing it on weekends in the high season.  We only were able to get a site because the ADA sites are released at 5pm and we happened to be there right at the right time to get one.

Very nice campground - one side is hookups at $40 (electric and water only), and this side is kind of boring with RVs all lined up in a row. FYI there are no sewer hookups here and no dump station. You can drive two miles up the road to North Beach and use their dump station and water fill for $10.  We stayed on the tent side for $25, no hookups and much more pleasant and green and beautiful.

There's a lagoon and a boardwalk to walk around it, but the boardwalk ends and the trail turns to mud and it was pretty much impassible when we were there - thick black muck that will suck your shoes off and get your dog's belly all dirty. Watch for mosquitoes, especially the sites along the lagoon.

Beautiful walking trails to the beach - we saw a coyote here!  We heard them yipping all night as well.  Interesting experience for us to see and hear them right on the beach. 

As with all state parks now, there are recycling and food waste bins available, thank you California!

The visitor center is right at the entrance of the campground and there's a good Mexican restaurant within easy walking distance as well.

Overall a great place, amazingly cheap, and we're happy we got lucky and snagged a spot!

I’m sure I could imagine a more idyllic central coast beachside campground, but it would probably look a lot like this one. The road winds for 14 miles through farms and the California coastal sage scrub ecosystem which when we were there, April, was just going off with wild flowers.  Gorgeous sunsets to boot!

There are very tightly packed full hook up sites on the upper loop, know your backing up skills, in addition to some dry camping sites down closer to the water for those running off solar power or just old-school tenting.  In a twist of irony, the lower loop sites without electricity offer more space than those with hook ups...go solar folks!  The beachfront sites are always the first to book out, and are truly lovely. 

The camp store and cafe has a few good grocery options, in addition to ice, wine and beer, and also serves the famous Jamala burger, even in a vegetarian version!  It’s a delicious option for when you don’t feel like cooking. Definitely check this place out, it’s exactly what you imagine a beach side burger to be. 

The flush bathrooms are clean and the coin operated showers were efficient - when they say 3 minutes, they mean it, but they were hot and clean.  Great dishwashing sink too!

There aren’t a lot of hiking or biking options in this park, simply the beach or walking on the road. This beach is popular with surfers and is a great spot to just walk up and down and do a little tide pooling. The Amtrak train goes through a couple of times a day, but since it’s a passenger rail it doesn’t offer the long and annoying disruptions of a freight train. 

The closest services are in Lompoc or Buellton, where you can find groceries, gas and restaurants -- everything that the camper might need -- but it's a heck of a drive there, so stock up before you come down.

[ PROS]

• Super close to the beach! There are a couple beach trails that lead you right to the ocean.

• Love that you can walk to the dunes and spend the entire day there.People bring the craziest beach set ups and have bonfires and cookouts here. Souped up trucks with ATVs roll through and drive right along the beach. It’s quite the sight to see.

• Very convenient location to ATV rentals, beach/convenient stores, and a few eateries.

• Fantastic park rangers serveiling the campgrounds every hour. The ranger presence definitely keeps the rowdy crowd here in check.

• There looked to be a very nice Visitor Center. For some unknown reason, they were closed both days that we were there.

• Really big and clean showers and restroom facilities. They were very well maintained considering how packed and heavily used they were. Toilets ran out of toilet paper so make sure you come prepared.

• We saw tons of cool birds around the campsite. My favorite of the weekend were the swallows that flew around dusk. They fly like bats! We also enjoyed seeing a couple ospreys by the beach. We even saw one catch a fish!

• Campfire is sold here for$8/bundle at the camp host.

• Each site comes with a picnic table, fire ring, and 2 parking spot. Our neighbors had 3 cars so we let them use one of our parking spots since it was a madhouse here.

**[ CONS]
**

• Hard to find availability. This place is usually pretty booked up.

• Very, very crowded campsite. Sites are extremely close together so there is very little privacy. It feels like a giant parking lot

• Sites are small so setting up two tents feels very cramped already. Luckily we just stayed in our tent trailer on a parking spot so we felt like we had a little more space.

• Loud campground! This place attracts a party crowd so be prepared to listen to people roll in with their loud souped up trucks and blast music on speakers throughout the day. Hope you like listening to hip hop from 10am-9pm!

• It doesn’t seem like the 8 person max/site rule was regulated. People had upwards of 12 people at a single campsite so you can imagine how crowded the place was.

• There was constantly a long line for the showers throughout the day.

Overall, this is not my favorite place to camp by far. It feels more like a giant tailgate party than it does camping. We were looking for a nice relaxing weekend by the beach so had an unexpected weekend. This is one of the few places left in California that allow cars, trucks, RVs, and ATVs to drive right on the beach. It’s pretty weird to see. They also allow people to have bonfires right on the sand so be careful where you walk. There’s ash and coal everywhere. And sadly, also lots of trash left behind from people.

We’ve stayed here twice over the thanksgiving holiday while on our way to the SF Bay Area. Spots are close and no pool, but the beach is a 5 minute, easy walk. We plan to return again.

This is a convenient campground being so close to the city, but being so close also means many homeless people in the area. The campground is nicely located within walkng of the beach and offers the services you typically find. I was dismayed at the number of homeless people wandering through the campground and was not comfortable leaving my gear alone very long. It was loud at night with the campo host off-duty. Law enforcement came late at night to remove homeless. Paid $25 for hike and bike.