St. Augustine Beach KOA

For those of you who find yourself hauling your vacation behind you and / or looking to rent a cabin in a small corner (er, intersection, actually) in the country’s oldest city, and don’t mind a completely pre-fabricated outdoor experience in the midst of an otherwise strip mall environ, then look no further than St. Augustine KOA. While there’s a lot of qualifiers here, I understand, one of the huge upsides to this otherwise overcrowded 2-lane 115 slot filled faux campground RV-slanted outpost is that it places you closest to St. Augustine’s greatest treasure (and no, that wouldn’t be the fabled ‘Fountain of Youth’) – it’s beautiful Atlantic coastline with white powder sand and shark-tooth strewn beaches. 

As for this KOA campground itself, you’ll find this urban jungle outpost on the corner of Pope & AIA, which you’ll stumble across just a block south after taking Highway 312 from St. Augustine proper to Anastasia Island, which is separated from the mainland by the Matanzas River. But don’t worry, for any of you who break out in hives at the thought of leaving civilization when upgrading for a night underneath the stars (which BTW will be drowned out by the light pollution here at this KOA), you will be comfortably surrounded by all the creature comforts of the materialistic surrounding you (pretend) thought you were trying to escape, as there’s a CVS, McDonald’s, 7-Eleven and Domino’s Pizza in a single stone’s throw of where you are ‘camping out in nature’ here at St. Augustine KOA. 

Amenities? Well, it’s KOA, so get ready for the massive download on what this camping theme park has to offer: heated pool w/ neon color lounge chairs & umbrellas, 50 max amp back-in RV slots, cable TV, KampK9 (that’s a doggie park in KOA speak), laundr-O-mat, thin tree lines, tetherball, picnic tables, dilapidated wooden fence, fishing (don’t ask me where or how good), firewood (for sale, of course), BBQ, ticks, fire frills, WiFi, propane refilling station, gift shop, tour shuttle, playground, little moat, paddle boats, fleas, banana bikes, automatic key-card security gate, designated trash dumpsters, showers & restrooms (quite in need of some decent cleaning and refurbishment IMHO), micro-swamps, deluxe cabin rentals (a dozen or so) and (the ever so marked-up KOA) convenience store. 

Insider’s Tips? Here’s a few: (1) This is easily the most outdated, run-down KOA I have ever had the unfortunate experience to visit. While I would EASILY recommend MANY other places to ‘drop anchor for the night’ and to have a REAL outdoors camping experience (just drive 3 minutes away to Anastasia Island SP or 15 minutes away to North Beach Campground), if it’s late at night, you’re tired of looking around and are excited to be this close to the beaches, then check-in, grab a coozie and chill at the pool until sunrise when you can leave; (2) While you may be tempted by some of those pretty un-amazing fast food or ‘hole-in-the-wall’ local joints, I would encourage you to drive just a little bit for some otherwise excellent restaurants, including Fillin’ Station, Beachcomber, La Cocina or Sunset Grille; (3) If you’re a tent camper like myself, you’ll be incredibly disappointed by this place, although they do offer up 10 or so designated tent sites (inconveniently located right near all the swooshing car traffic and honking on Pope Road; (4) While you might be living the blues while staying at this KOA, you can actually just head up the street and listen to the blues at probably one of the coolest outdoor venues in the country at St. Augustine Ampitheater; and (5) Make the most out of the fact that you are literally only ¾ mile from St. Augustine Beaches, so while this KOA is not ideal (to say the absolute least), you will relish the fact that you can leave it as early and return as late as you want to experience one of the best white sand beaches in the Sunshine State. 

Happy Camping!

 This is an urban type campground in St Augustine Beach, which is a small town across the water from St Augustine. The back of a strip mall protects you from the sights of A1A on one side. There's a neighborhood across the pond on the other side. Enter on West Pope Road, exit on 16th street. Traffic noise is loud during the day. Quiets down some at night. 

We spent the extra money & got a site overlooking the pond. We were at site 73, which is also by the bathrooms/showers. The bathroom/shower combos are aggressively cleaned at least twice a day.

 We didn't use the pool. 

The pond is very nice & there were turtles, friendly ducks & fish! My husband caught several, one a nice size bass. Catch& release only. There was a hawk's nest way up in one of the pines by the pond. 

It's a short drive to the beach & many restaurants. 

There's a free shuttle if you're using the St Augustine Trolley Tour Company, which is VERY convenient.

We stayed 4 nights. All in all, I would recommend this campground. Yes, the sites are close together, but so are many private campgrounds. We aren't in our site during the day anyway.

Let me start by saying I didn’t hate it here. There just things that could be better. The over all trip here was a decent overall experience.

The grounds were clean. The office/store building looks a-bit dated. Security could be better for sure as well. Grounds can be easily driven into from main entrance OR the open rear exit and a fence on the east side could be taller/solid maybe wooden fence? and more secure.

The bathhouse closest to my site was spotless. Now I only used it once was while biking around with the kiddos. My son needed to use restroom and from what I seen and looked around at it was a little newer and kept up with.

The sites are tight together. I have a 24ft trailer and my site (#20) was on the outer road along a wooden fence. They are backed-up to a strip mall. So at night when trying to sit by fire or enjoy a TV show outside you can hear all the A/C’s units from the strip mall compressors kick on and off non-stop. Kinda took away from the outdoor feel. Each site from what I could see and noticed had Full hook ups and cable. They do have WiFi but good luck getting anything from it (tried a couple times even just for kids tablets and no luck). I had full cell service so just use my hotspot for TVs and internet.

The pull thru sites seem like they could accommodate large class A’s. But they were very tight. Something else to note:...some of the the pull thru site had a decent incline hill/drop at one end or the other. I seen some guys using fully extended leveling gear and 4-8 leveling blocks to fill the voids to get level. In just a few people I had interacted with. They too were a little upset with how small/tight sites were.

All sites again had full hook-ups and fire-ring/grill. Our fire ring was very dated and falling apart and rusted with gasps along the bottom. The pond in the middle is nice to walk around. You can fish in it but with artificial bait. They have paddle boats you can rent to go into the pond with. Also bikes and other bike related things to rent. ( typical KOA things to rent)

All interactions with the staff were great. Everyone was super friendly, courteous and helpful. Some of the nicest staff I’ve come across.

The KOA is squeezed between the back of a mini strip mall and a neighborhood. And speaking of neighborhood there is a metal fence they could easily been opened/jumped over. You could see peoples back yards. (This is the fence I talked about for more security) the cabins were along this fence.

Overall thoughts...It wasn’t the worse place we been to or the greatest. The ground were clean, staff was great. Just (in my opinion) needs more space...and better more spacious location. And up the security of the grounds