Pismo beach, California

We had never visited Pismo Beach before, but wanted to camp on the sand (it's allowed!)  

We drove onto the beach from the Pier Avenue entrance to Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area and headed south.  There were a few other vehicles, but we found out the area right near the ramp was day use only.

Continued south on the sand about a mile until we got out of the day use area .  There is a creek you have to cross before you can overnight camp.  And the internet told us that at high tide it's not passable.  So we timed our crossing to be at lower tide.

There's lots of hard packed sand, but the hard packed sand is where the tide comes up to.  Then inland of the hard packed sand is some medium packed sand, and inland of that is soft white fluffy sand.  You want to park on the medium sand.

We tried to get a little further inland so we wouldn't wake up in the middle of the night with our camper drifting out to sea, but as soon as you get onto the soft sand, you sink like a rock.   We had brought two sheets of 2'x4' OSB just in case we got stuck (to put under our dually wheels) and ended up using them since we went a LITTLE too far inland.

But once you're settled, it's a lot of fun!

We loved sitting on the beach with a campfire!  

We only stayed one night, but we're likely to go again next time we go up that way!