Situated along the scenic Connecticut coastline making great camping near New Haven, Rocky Neck State Park is a is a small recreation area that features white sand beaches, salt marshes, and the rocky remnants of Ice Age glaciers. The park is located about 1 hour southeast of Hartford, near the town of East Lyme, with a view across the sound of Fishers Island, Gardiners Island, and Long Island. The park showcases several examples of ancient glacial terrain, including rock scouring and polishing, potholes and erratic boulders. In some places, the overlying sediment has been completely eroded away to reveal interesting outcrops of banded granitic gneiss.

The campground at Rocky Neck offers 160 drive-in campsites for tent and RV campers. Visitors can choose from open, grassy sites and wooded, shady sites. Each site is equipped with picnic tables and fire rings, but RV hookups are not available. Sites can accommodate vehicles/trailers up to 35 feet; some sites are tent-only. Water faucets, restrooms, and trash/recycling receptacles are located throughout the campground; a dump station is located near the campground entrance. Dogs are not permitted in this park. Camping is available from May through September; sites are $20–$30/night; reservations accepted.

The main attraction at Rocky Neck is its wide, sandy beach, where visitors can lounge in the sun, or go for a dip in Long Island Sound. The park has several picnic areas for family and group gatherings, several miles of hiking trails for exploring the park’s salt marshes, waterways and natural features, and anglers can fish for saltwater bass, blackfish and flounder. Along the park’s western shore, the historic Ellie Mitchell Pavilion has concessions, and dining and lounging areas. The park also offers a variety of seasonal interpretive programs, guided hikes, wildlife viewing, and evening entertainment.

Rocky Neck State Park Campground

The beach is about a 1 mile walk or drive from the campground.  The walk is lovely and I have seen deer, turkeys, many birds, skunks, raccoons, and other wildlife along the way. There are several osprey nests too. Many families bring bikes. 

  

There are several camping areas at Rocky Neck - I think Crane is the best because it is quiet and the bathrooms are updated. 

  

The tent camping area is in a field without much privacy or shade. I recommend setting up your tent at a traditional site.

  

The beach is great for relaxing and beach combing. The water is warm and shallow, very calm. No floats or toys are allowed in the water, not sure why. Don't bring your kite either as the Amtrak is next to the beach, it's interesting when it goes by!

  

Sometimes generators are an issue, but there are limited hours at which they can run.

  

Lots of dumpsters for easy trash disposal. Firewood available for a low price on site, don't bring any outside wood. 

  

Campground is not too far from a Walmart if you forget something. There's a gas station close by too for ice.

  

This campground books up FAST, I usually book in the wintertime. I stay for a week at a time.

Best New England beach campground!

Great Beach, but beware, it can be crowded!!!!  So get their early if you do go to the beach.  Sites are nice, there is a dumping station and some great sites for group camping.  Reasonable rates since it is a State Park!

Great Beach

On our way to through Connecticut, we needed to stop for a night. This was on Long Island Sound and had walk-up sites available. $33 per night gets you a site with bath house/restroom close by but no hook-ups. There is a public "beach" nearby which is way different than our Florida ones. We had to walk under the railroad tracks through a tunnel to get there. Interesting but still a nice feature and probably the main attraction here. There was also a concession stand, nature center, picnic area and boat ramp here at this park. Since we were getting a walk-up site they let us drive around and pick our site from a list of available ones. Most of them were on the small side accommodating tents or pop-ups. We found one in the Osprey loop which was very shaded. The bath rooms were clean and up to date. Good for a night on our way to Rhode Island.

Large campground close to beach 

every campsite has its own fire pit with a grill attachment and a picnic table. my site was tent only and you couldn’t pull your car up to the site so unloading and loading was a hassle. beach is a short drive on site and the showers were one site over. I had a great time 

great experience

Nice CT state park campground with clean well maintained campsites. Mix of open field and well shaded campsites with reasonable space, some sites have decent privacy, most are pretty open. Good access to shared drinking water, restrooms and dishwashing stations. Most sites are mixed use allowing RVs but no hook ups or dump stations available. Bathrooms/showers are ok but could use better cleaning and upkeep. Rocky Neck state park beach is within walking distance if your ambitious otherwise its a 2min drive from camp. We like it here and return often for the opportunity to camp and enjoy beach time during the summer.

Wooded camping near the beach

I’ve lived in CT all my life but never used the Rocky Neck State Park Campground until now.

The campgrounds are named after water fowl: Crane, Egret, Osprey, Heron etc...We stayed in Egret. We camped at site #4 (sunny) then moved to #38 (shady).

Both  spots were quiet, music low and people minded their business. Equal mix of RVs big and small as well as many tents.

Bathhouses and toilets were not as cleaned as I would have liked but passable. Coronavirus social distancing required. 

Sites include one paved parking spot (ours was very muddy) a fire pit and a picnic table. No water or electric hookup. Wi-fi not available at this campground. Fire wood is sold at camp office. There is no store in park - no ice either.

A lot of you children. Short walk to Rock Neck beach. Nature Center has movies on weekends for kids. 

Anyone with kayaks can’t easily get to boat launch. It’s 4-5 miles by car at 4 mile river boat launch. See photos. 

Shady Spot walking distance from Beach

To be fair, I stumbled upon this site last minute with zero expectations. 

The site I was able to snag had quite the puddle in the middle of it and the campground was loaded with several large groups. 

Many kids on bikes (which I didn't mind and actually really enjoyed biking from my site down to the beach myself). 

The downside was that they weren't very mindful of getting their trash into the park's receptacles. 

Not much the staff could've done with it being such a large group, but I wound up picking up quite a bit of others' trash while there. 

Aside from that though, it was convenient to going into Niantic or over to New London for work during the day and relaxing on the beach in the afternoons was much-needed!

Crowded Campground, but Excellent CT Beach!

Nice cozy campsite in a small loop. Relatively clean bathroom. Water stained due to age, but not dirty.
Washing station at the bathroom.

Short bike ride to the beach. Can also drive if preferred. Though some cars do go over the speed limit...

You can hear the train in the background, not loud enough to bother you. 

Short distance to the beach

Clean average sized lot. Huge bonus was the beach and being about to spend one full afternoon there. We highly enjoyed and early morning walk to the beach as well probably took 20 min from out site to the water. Seemed to be a bit noisy over night, a lot of late night car movement and driving around. 

June Camping

Quiet during weekdays, we were on the crane loop inside, a little too wide open for my taste without a clear definition of the sites. It appears that youngsters run the place , very polite and helpful. What they need is some better guidance from management as to cleaning &amp; upkeep of bathrooms/showers… pretty disgusting &amp; we tried all four loops in search of a clean one. That said, it’s a short drive to the beach with no extra fees for parking. The beach area is large &amp; very nice with outside showers for for rinsing off the beach sand. 

Nice Beach Dirty Restrooms

Stayed one night at the end of the season. Park staff were very friendly and helpful. Stayed on an inner loop site at Heron and found it very difficult to back in my small trailer due to the alignment of the sites and other vehicles. Once we were parked and situated though, the site was fine. Partly shaded, level, picnic table and fire pit all in good condition. The loop is wide open, so no privacy between sites and they are quite close together. Bathroom was nearby and clean enough. The beach was a short ride away by bicycle which we enjoyed thoroughly. Overnight noise was an issue. Lots of cars coming and going. Overall enjoyable, just not as peaceful as I’d hoped. 