Camping near Gulf Islands National Seashore

I spent Tuesday-Thursday of May 2025 at Gulf State Park at The Outpost Campground at the Bonanza site with my mom and two aunts. The site was a 1.1 mile walk in on Cotton Bayou Trail which is a paved bike path. We parked by the Orange Beach water tower by the Cotton Bayou Trailhead in the overflow parking area.

You have to first drive into Gulf Shores to enter the campgrounds main entrance to get the key to the bathrooms, your parking pass, and a map of the state park.

This part was very frustrating for us as the woman working that day was very confused at us needing to check in (no clue why) and ultimately gave a lot of attitude and misinformation and tried to send us on our way without the bathroom key or maps. She handed us instructions on how to get to the parking area for The Outpost sites, which was in Orange Beach.

We brought rolling coolers and a wagon to carry everything. I would suggest renting a bike nearby and bringing your stuff in behind your bike (not sure how plausible that is though). I do wish I had a bike here though as Gulf State Park has some awesome bike trails.

The place seemed rundown as ours seemed to be the only functioning tent setup as two were completely taken down, and one’s screen was completely broken. I will say the screen to our tent was broken and it was poorly duct-taped back together, causing us to get eaten alive by yellow flies.

You could tell no one had stayed there in a while and that it was rundown as I previously stated. The water pump pumped very irony and sulfury water, so we didn’t use it at all. There had been trash left in the sinks, empty water bottles. The shower was soo cute but sadly it didn’t work. We tried to pump it and no water ever came out.

The toilets were in little outhouses that were like port-a potty’s. They hadn’t been emptied and had trash in them when we arrived, they came at 7 am on our final morning to clean the toilets but still didn’t throw out the trash left in there.

The wood that was provided cost $1 for 2 sticks. We ended up also collecting our own sticks and pine cones to help with the fire. The fire pit didn’t come with a poker or anything but made it work. There were 3 benches around the fire pit in addition to the two chairs on the porch that could be brought out to the sand.

We very much enjoyed having a tent already set up for us with 4 cots inside. The cots were great for sleeping in the heat. There is a light switch and a light that didn’t work, it looked like solar used to be set up there. There were some small solar lights in the sand that were great to have at night.

On Wednesday, we went to the Gulf State Park Pavilion and paid $10 to park, not realizing our parking pass worked there. It was a great place to lay in the sand on the beach and then take a shower and use an air conditioned toilet.

We then drove into town to eat at my all time favorite pizza joint- Papa Rocco’s- for pizza and oysters which was delicious. Other than that we ate all of our meals at camp- mostly cured meats and cheeses, hot dogs, meat sticks, yogurts, and hard boiled eggs.

Overall we had a great time spending family time outside together and in the beach town we grew up near (they’re from Mobile and I’m from Baldwin county). I would definitely come back and pitch a tent in the main campground, but as far as the outpost sites, I think one time was enough for me lol.

The location is everything with this one. Right by the beach, the florida trail is right there for hiking. Lots of biking trails. The sites are not very private or shaded, but that worked in my favor because I needed to charge with solar panels. I had Verizon and was able to work with my hotspot, although for zoom calls I drove closer to town for optimal signal. The fort is really nice for a day trip. My only real complaint were the showers. They were very dirty and the water was scorching hot, like burn my skin type of hot. But overall great experience.