Best Tent Camping near Doral, FL

My husband and I lucked out to get an absolutely gorgeous day to tent camp at this campground. The next day was back to Florida’s hot and humidity. This campground is in one of natire’s most wonderful places, big cypress national preserve. This campground has tent and rv sites. No electric sites. We went on a Sunday and the whole campground was full, it’s a popular spot, would recommend making reservations in advance. There are vault toilets over on the rv sites and flush toilets by the tent sites. There are campground hosts, fire pits in the tent area, and a lake that does have alligators, because this is Florida. The nite sky was perfect so many stars to see. Little to no noise pollution. Make sure to bring your insect repellent, I got eaten alive once the sun started setting. No trails at the campground but there are trails within big cypress. Tent campsites were level and not right on top of one another. There were a few trees for shade as well.

Kings Kamp is a unique property that will work for all visitors. Personally, I camped in a tent, but they also have RV spots and on-site cabins. It was right off the main highway through the keys so it was very easy to get to. Very close to John Pennekamp and everything else in Key Largo. Pretty standard tent sites, nothing glamorous. The campground is in The Keys, so you can't complain about anything! It actually has a small marina, so bring the boat or kayak and launch right there. We found a nice little spot where we fished and had our lunch by (pictured). We did not stay for very long, and truthfully, we ventured out around town for most of the day. That being said, we didn't worry about our gear while out. It felt very safe.

Very beautiful location and reasonable price compared to most other options in the area. Would stay again.

It was tight getting our 32ft pull behind back to our spot, but folks all came out to offer tips and help us get around. So we actually got parked in fairly short order.

The dog walk area near our site was pretty small and it’s bookended by tent camp sites. My dogs were more interested in the goings on than doing their business and we couldn’t really walk them away from it.

That being said. The location is great! As I mentioned in the title. It’s cozy and friendly and pretty quiet.

The marina is nice. And the beaches were great launch points for kayaks.

I would, and probably will, stay here again.

TL;DR Great for RVs, sucks for tents

Stayed for 2 nights in the tent loop in early January and encountered several problems with the campground.

1. Every night at 7pm the tent sites were swarmed with a fly hatch (may flies, I’m guessing). We couldn’t breathe without inhaling them. All campers were forced inside their tents at that time and for the rest of the night. Fires didn’t help. We mentioned the situation to a Ranger who was picking up the trash outside of our campsite and suggested that they refer new comers to a different section of the loop because sites 8-10 were the worst. Ranger said it was not her job and that she would not pass the information on to the camp host. Their RVs were parked RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER and we saw them drinking together at sunset, since their sites didn’t have the fly hatch, but no: She would not pass this along and spare the next campers. The positive is that the mosquitos weren’t bad. Just cleaning the dead bugs from your ears and nose gets nasty fast.
2. Old reviews on the campground mention that there are showers. In fact, there are showers in the restrooms. However, no one is allowed to use them except apparently the camp host and ranger. We had been snorkeling the day before and wanted to rinse off the saltwater. When we asked the camp host where the closest place to buy a shower was, she said she had no idea and suggested we go ask some other campgrounds and see if anyone would let us. This seems like something a camp host should know. But for reference, the answer is: there aren’t any showers for sale. The best we could find was 10 miles west down the road at the Skunk Ape Museum there’s a campground that will sell you a $25 tent site and as many people as you have with you can shower and then just not use the site. For a family, that’s a decent deal. For the 2 of us, we just went on without them. We did see people washing their hair and taking birdbaths in the dish sink if you need.
3. As we were packing up, a ranger dropped by and we spoke briefly and pointed out a fire ant mound near our site that we had been fastidiously avoiding. She immediately came back and threw some kind of stuff on it that causes them to run away and create a nest elsewhere. She clarified that it was NOT an insecticide and all it did was make them mad. No surprise, they ran over onto us and started biting us. She could’ve just waited until we were done packing up, but again, no one who works there seems to think that tent campers are part of their job. I’m pretty pissed about the fire ant stings though. It’s one thing to not know about showers, it’s another to sick fire ants on people while knowingly saying “this’ll make them mad!”

So basically the review is this: if you want to boondock in an RV, this is a beautiful place to do it. It’s got a little pond with a couple of gators and beautiful views of marl grass prairie. You can get away from the fly hatch, take a shower, block out the night traffic noise, and hopefully avoid the fire ants. For tent camping, this place was the worst we’ve stayed in for a while. While a lot of things can’t be controlled, the host nor ranger were ever helpful (and sometimes actively making the experience worse!), though they were very chummy with RV campers. Bathrooms were clean though, which was fantastic.