Best Tent Camping near Anna Maria, FL

This location is utterly beautiful! So many different environments can be seen just walking the trials. The 4 primitive campsites we found were along the river and we did not see bathrooms or picnic tables or fire rings. The trails are marked well but not often maintained - so you really get the feel that you are in the middle of nowhere. No traffic was heard at night and I would not camp out there alone on a weekend due to the "local party crowd". This is a hike in and hike out site. We only stayed 1 night. No amenities. Lots of birds and wildlife in the late day and early morning. Parking is a small fenced in area before turn in road - no security/lighting appx 1.5 miles from camping area that we found

I would have given this location a 5 except for the large amount of trash we found on trails (that we carried out) and the obvious disregard for rules of no swimming and no alcohol.

Nice but small primitive state forest campground. Only 10 sites and one is for the camp host. About half the sites are back-in and can hold small RVs. The rest are tent only although the parking space is large enough to put a van-sized RV in sideways.

All the sites are quite large and well separated from neighboring sites. With the right mix of campers, you could have a super peaceful night in the forest without having to bushwhack your way in. (Our night included a site with small kids the parents kept yelling at. Ugh.)

All sites have a fire ring and picnic table

There are vault toilets available in the loop and there is a potable water spigot at the nearby ranger station (firewood also available there).

Nearby hiking trails are rated easy and moderate and the trailhead is just a quarter mile down the road.

The campground is gated (you get the lock code when you reserve a site). Note that this campground requires reservations.

If you're self-contained and looking for a nice quiet spot to camp, this would be a good spot to choose.

Cell service on Verizon was ok with a jetpack, better with a MIMO antenna attached. (1 bar without /2-3 bars with but data speeds with MIMO were decent).

T-Mobile service was good but kept bouncing between 4G and 5G on phone, which made it a bit erratic. On jetpack that only does 4G, had a strong signal with good data rates.

Stayed two nights here. Arrived in the afternoon and found site number (38) easily. The tent sites on the outer side of the loops are bedded in sand, and the ones on the inner side are bedded in crushed shells and are nearer the restrooms and facilities. The back side of number 38 leads to a grassy area lined by trees on the far side that block the sunset. Recommend site 30 or below so that the back side of your site leads to the water and beautiful sunsets. Be prepared to deal with mosquitoes and raccoons. On the first night, a raccoon approached the table without regard and tried to open the portable trash can! They're active and large, and can be seen at night throughout the campground raiding the trash bins. Went on a bike ride the following day, and upon returning saw that a raccoon had opened the Coleman 52-gallon cooler, taken out the carton of eggs, cracked all six eggs, and eaten each egg yolk, leaving the whites and the shells strewn about the picnic table and ground nearby. Thankful that it had not touched the Ferrero Rocher chocolates. Resolved to put the cooler inside the car when absent henceforth. There is a campground store near the entrance with everything from ice to wood to tuna, milk, fishing supplies... it's a mini-market. There is a souvenir shop and food shop near the fort part. Didn't go to the fort or museum. Had a delicious fish and chips meal at the food shop. The bike paths are wide along the main vehicular roads. The highlight of the site is the North Beach. It's ample and clean. White sands. Shallow shores. Pleasant, perfect.

close to the breweries in art district of St Pete Florida, Fort Desoto Campground has everything you could want for a long weekend or quick getaway. There's a general store if you want to stock up on snacks, fishing tackle, pool floats, or ice cream, or just catch a little air conditioning and Wi-Fi. The General Store also has a nice balcony overlooking the water and some oyster beds.

The campsites are suitable for car camping, hammock camping, tent camping, or RVs. Be sure to bring your rain gear and rain flies, as Florida thunderstorms are brief but no joke. You can rent bicycles down closer to the actual Old Fort where there's also a huge fishing pier and plenty of old military installations to explore. However don't rely on using the bikes to get back to the campground as there's no drop-off on the other side.

It can be a bit of a long walk from the campground itself to the Old Fort, which shouldn't be a problem unless you didn't pack the right clothes or shoes. If, like me, you find yourself a little under-prepared, there is Lyft and Uber in the area and in a pinch you can use that to get back and forth between the campground and the fort.

Our neighbors at the next campsite over we're, unfortunately, a bit of a party crowd, which made for a loud night and very little sleep. That said the restrooms were nice and easy to reach and all of the amenities or what you would expect at a bigger busy or campground.

We stayed here because we were visiting family in town.  It is a nice place, but we felt packed in around all the big campers in our little pop up.  Very small sites, but maybe this is normal at private campgrounds? We are used to being out in nature. I also did not anticipate no grills/fire rings.  The bathrooms/showers were very nice, we joked that they might be nicer than our house. ;-) We did not need to do laundry, but there are coin machines.  We were very bummed to not try the pool, as there were heavy rains the few days we were in town.  It looked lovely.  We did make it to Anna Maria Island one afternoon when the sun came out and Holmes Beach never disappoints.