Wildwood State Park Campground welcomes pets at all types of accommodation sites including tent areas, RV spots with full hookups, and cabins. Suffolk County parks including Blydenburgh, Cathedral Pines, and Southaven maintain pet-friendly policies across their camping facilities with clean, accessible grounds. The hiking trails throughout these parks remain dog-friendly with proper leashing, particularly at Blydenburgh where the 7-mile loop around the lake offers excellent dog walking opportunities. Sites at Cathedral Pines County Park provide spacious wooded camping areas for tent and RV camping with pets, though raccoons can be invasive so food must be secured properly.
Several Long Island campgrounds feature specific amenities for campers with dogs. Blydenburgh County Park contains a dedicated dog run area where pets can exercise off-leash. Most campgrounds enforce standard leash policies when pets are outside designated areas. Camping with pets near Port Jefferson typically costs between $14-30 per night depending on season and amenities, with some parks offering year-round access. Water access varies between locations, with Wildwood providing rocky beach access on Long Island Sound suitable for dogs with water shoes or protective footwear. During summer months, campers should be aware of tick warnings posted throughout the parks and take appropriate precautions with pets by checking them regularly and using preventative treatments.
$20 - $225 / night
"The beach is in a walking distance. You can swim or fish there. This camp site has a relatively new and clean facility. There are many farms near by where you can get fresh veggies and fruits."
"However there are too many loud families and the sites are too close in proximity for me."
"Great park with a nice 7 mile loop around the lake with decent fishing. Lots of horses and dogs on the trail. 30 or so sites around a central public restroom."
"Hiking trails are beautiful. Dog friendly. Clean bathrooms"
$33 / night
"Recently went camping in our pull behind, met some old friends and had a great time. Rangers have a hardon for people screwing up tho. Think they're all that and then some..."
"Great Location Clean Park."
$20 - $285 / night
"* cottages far enough away from each other
- fire ring with Adirondack chairs
- dumpster and recycling within walking distance
- lots of bone dry firewood around for campfire
- walkable beach"
"Overall my experience was positive. Camping Sites
Each camping site has a picnic table and barbeque grill."
"Literally steps to the beach."
"A short walk from the ocean to the bay, both accessible by walking from your campsite. No shade so be prepared to wake early if you’re in a sweltering tent. Staff has been great, no complaints."
$35 - $197 / night
"Beautiful location steps away from the beach. Listen to the waves crashing as you sleep and stargaze over the clear ocean. Not ready for full on camp-life? No problem!"
"Camping gets you away from the bustle. It is a little less than a half mile walk from the ferry dock and located behind the dunes which offer some protection. Take a quick walk down to the beach."
"Campsites are located close enough to the beach/marsh. Multiple playgrounds for the kids although they were closed due to Covid."
"There are dog friendly which was very nice. It is a lil tight from each site but you have the beach and a little hiking trails that makes it worth it."
$20 - $70 / night
"The showers were outside the bathroom- there was a bench & hooks OUTSIDE! We found out all the other loops had modern bathhouses."
"Beautiful Connecticut beach sits just steps away from your campsite. Well kept showers and bathrooms are abundant and the camp store has the majority of what you need."
GuideI grew up in Long Beach. If you’re looking for a spot to camp so you can surf, this is perfect! It’s basically a parking lot, but it’s steps away from some of the greatest waves on the east coast. Showers are clean, there’s a dog park nearby, and the island is very bikable to get around.
benefits: allows dogs childrens playground beach programs like movie nights throughout the summer
GuideCamp Gateway in Brooklyn New York is one of my favorite places to visit. I went to college in New York, and loved to get out of the busy city and go camping and be outdoors. Camp Gateway was always a place that I loved to go. It is pretty close to town-which is crazy because you feel like you are miles away. Camp Gateway does offer a lot of different activities for everyone. One thing I love to do is go kayaking and stand up paddle boarding. My girlfriends and I tried to do this once a month to get away from the city and school. Because you are so close to the city, you can plan outdoor activities as well as some activities in the city. My friends and I stayed 1 night in the campground, and the next day went to a recital show that took us 10 minutes to get to. You can also walk, hike or ride your bike along multiple paths- I have done the Fort Tilden trail (I just walked, but there were multiple people that passed us on their bikes). Within the campground they do have some fire pits- which my friends and I always use because we love cooking smores and hot dogs for dinner. A little further away from the campground, about 10-15 miles there is a place where you can do horseback riding, see the Statue of Liberty (which is gorgeous!), and there is a little beach area. This beach area is where I do my kayaking and stand up paddle boarding. Again, its not very far away...you can either drive there, walk or ride your bike. The road is paved, which is nice. I stayed here also with my parents, and I know my dad went golfing one day (I didn't go, but he said it was awesome)- and again that was only a 10 minute drive from our camping spot. This campground like I said, does offer quite a bit. Sometimes it doesn't really feel like you are "camping" because things are pretty close by, but it definitely is worth going to and trying.
LegendWe tried this campground without knowing what was safe and where to stay for visit New York City. It is located in Brooklyn and is little removed from everything. The sites are at Floyd Bennett Field which is an old airfield. The atmosphere here is eerily cool at the same time. You basically park and camp on the asphalt by the old hangars. No hookups at all but they do have a camp store and bath house. If you are tent camping, there are some grassy sites.
The campground is located right on Jamaica Bay so there were people fishing all the time from the seawall. At night, you could hear cars doing burnouts right next to us. To get to all the action in the city, we had to take a bus and then the subway. The travel was a headache but better than trying to drive in to New York City in our RV. One way to improve here would be to have some security at night as well as access to clean water and dump station. They remained locked most of the time for some reason.
The best part of this place was the free tour of Hangar B by some guys doing restoration of old planes (HARP). They had some great stories and gave us history of the planes on display.
GuideThis place is kind of a toss up for me. On one hand, I enjoy it because it's a little slice of heaven in the hell of one of the busy areas of New York. I hate this place for the same reason. It's not really camping if you're going to see a play and then go tour the Statue of Liberty. It just doesn't seem right to me. If I HAVE to be in New York, maybe I'd consider staying here again just to get myself out of the city for a bit. But this definitely isn't your "great outdoors/rest and relaxation" kind of place.
GuideSmall campground with good electrical, clean water, sewer and a friendly owner. Each site has grass and a picnic table. There is a wonderful little frozen custard shop down the road called roses farm stand. It’s a perfect campground for seeing the local area or even catching the train to New York City.
RangerThe park itself is lovely and close to some other green areas. The nice thing about this campsite is that it’s so close to NYC. The bad thing about this campsite is that it’s so close to NYC. If you live in NYC this is a good, cheap, super quick escape accessible by public transport. If you’re visiting the area I’d recommend staying in Manhattan/Queens in an AirBNB for the full NYC experience or heading to Long Island, Pennsylvania, “Upstate” New York, or New Jersey for a better nature camping experience. For what it is, this site is a nice green little oasis. It’s National Park Service land and they try really hard to keep things clean and working well with so much traffic. Bring earplus for the airport traffic and the noisy neighbors. Tent sites are pretty and wooded, but there is also a TON of concrete from an old WW2 airfield.
GuideSears Bellows in New York is a lot of fun. It really does offer a lot of outdoor activities for you and your family. I have stayed at this campsite 1 time, and stayed 2 nights. This campground does offer tent sites as well as RV/trailer sites. When I went with my friends in college, we just stayed in the tent sites and really enjoyed it. The campground is very well kept and clean which I really liked. They do have quite a bit of garbage's to dump your trash in. One thing I really liked about this campground is that there was a river/pond close by (Bellows Pond). The first night I stayed here my friends and I rented some rowboats and went on the water. It was a lot of fun, and the price of the rowboat was pretty cheap. The next morning we got up and did some hiking. The trails were beautiful, and the flowers were in bloom. There were people who were also biking on these trails, which looked like so much fun! We also saw some people fishing in the pond- and it seemed like most people were catching. The people who stayed in the campsite next to us were cooking up some type of fish for their dinner that they caught that day. One thing to note is that there are not any electrical hook-ups, so if that is something you need you might now want to come stay here. I would love to come back here someday, but stay maybe a day or two longer to do more things- I would also bring my bike and fishing pole to do more outdoor activities. I would also advise to rent the rowboats because that was a lot of fun!
ScoutCroton Point Campground is a modest little campground, located along the Hudson River within Croton Point Park in NY. In addition to camping, the park itself offers many of its own attractions, including swimming, hiking, kayaking, cabin rentals, and a host of other family-oriented activities just along the Hudson.
The park, which is honestly probably the largest attraction here, is located just an hour and a half outside of the city. This proximity is both its perk and its downfall, as the park itself, but particularly the campground, has become laden with all sorts of inexplicable and burdensome rules, endless guidelines, and restrictions only a New York State-run bureaucracy could ever make sense of, let alone hope to justify.
This includes all manner of restrictions on how you can camp, where you can camp, what equipment can be used, and use in relation to what particular site you may have been lucky enough to reserve. Much of this you can understand while imagining what may have taken place here to bring them to such measures, but it doesn't make it any easier to contend with.
In terms of the actual camping conditions Both the tenting section and RV sites are each very clustered together, and quite crowded, with regular patrols🚓(actual patrols) being made day and night, by both the Park Rangers and what appears to be general park staff members, all looking to see if you or your family might be doing something that they might consider outside of the guidelines or not in compliance with the many restrictions.
This is not to say you can't possibly have a good time here. It just might mean being a bit more diligent toward reviewing the potential legitimacy of your normal camping routine to ensure it meets with many restrictions and guidelines imposed, while also making yourself comfortable with some fairly regular surveillance during your stay here. These all being things we hoped to get away from while camping ourselves It just turned out to be a bit much for our particular liking.
TravelerI have camped here many times. There are three campsites; two that require short hikes (.5 miles and .75 miles, respectively) and a third that can be driven to. Each one is far away from the others. The two that are closest are still divided by several hundred feet of wooded area; you can hear if someone at the other campsite shouts loudly enough, but you can't hear normal conversation or see any lights.
There is no cell phone coverage at any of the campsites (if you care about that while camping).
All of the campsites are right next to the Shepaug River. There is a very crude outhouse between campsites #1 and #2, but none at #3. Each campsite has a designated fire pit, and the Steep Rock Association provides ample firewood. SR 1 and SR 2 both have picnic tables at them; SR 3 does not. Pets are welcome; there are many people hiking and camping with dogs, and people ride horses down some of the trails.
On 9/2/17, when camping at SR1, we saw a Dumpster on the side of the trail that leads from campsite SR1 to campsite SR2. I have never seen a Dumpster anywhere at Steep Rock before, so I don't know if that is a permanent new addition or if it was there temporarily.
Reservations are required and can be made by contacting the Steep Rock Association office during the week.
Suffolk County parks near Port Jefferson offer year-round camping on diverse terrain ranging from coastal beaches to wooded inland areas. Campgrounds in this region span from sea level to 100 feet elevation with predominantly sandy soil that drains quickly after rain. Summer temperatures average 75-85°F during day with cooler 60-70°F nights that often require light jackets for evening campfires.
Beach activities: 1-minute walk to Atlantic Ocean. Smith Point County Park provides immediate beach access with sites overlooking the bay. "A short walk from the ocean to the bay, both accessible by walking from your campsite. No shade so be prepared to wake early if you're in a sweltering tent," notes camper Ali O. at Smith Point County Park.
Hiking trails: 7-mile loop at Blydenburgh. The trails offer excellent wildlife viewing and are well-marked. "Great park with a nice 7 mile loop around the lake with decent fishing. Lots of horses and dogs on the trail," reports Erik R. about Blydenburgh County Park.
Water recreation: rowing and kayaking. Several parks offer water access for small watercraft. "They have some items you can rent - I rented a rowboat, and used that for a large part of the morning. They also have some kayaks available to rent as well," says Kari M. about Southaven County Park.
Group camping areas: natural separation from general sites. Cathedral Pines offers secluded group camping that feels remote. "The group camping on the fox sites is accessible by a dirt drive in. I felt like I was suddenly transported upstate when in fact I had only driven 2 towns over," shares Linda A. at Cathedral Pines County Park.
Platform tent sites: improved camping comfort. Some campgrounds offer wooden platforms for tent setup. "This is one of my favorite campgrounds solely because there are platform sites so I can place my tent on a concrete or wooden platform," explains Giselle P. about Wildwood State Park Campground.
Backcountry beach camping: increased privacy. Fire Island offers permit-based backcountry camping for those seeking solitude. "You can get a permit to backcountry camp instead of reserving a designated campground spot. Just walk down to the beach after check-in and walk east until you see a pole with a tent symbol on it," explains Emily S. about Watch Hill on Fire Island.
Raccoon precautions: secure food properly. Wildlife can be problematic at several campgrounds. "Be sure to lock food away as the raccoons are pretty invasive," warns Connor M. about Cathedral Pines County Park.
Firepit availability varies: bring your own at some parks. Not all campgrounds provide fire rings. "Lame not having a fire ring, you have to rent one or bring your own," mentions Ossama B. about Wildwood State Park.
Rocky beach conditions: water shoes recommended. The north shore beaches have different characteristics than south shore. "Beach is beautiful, very rocky, bring your water shoes, sunset scenery is beautiful!" advises Ossama B. about Wildwood State Park.
Insect preparation: mosquitoes abundant at certain parks. Some locations have severe insect issues, especially near water. "It was nearly impossible to enjoy ourselves because we were getting attacked by mosquitoes and horseflies the entire weekend," warns Rosie R. about Watch Hill on Fire Island.
Playgrounds: accessible from campsites. Indian Island offers family-friendly amenities within walking distance. "It's nice for kids they have an open field with a playground for kids. There are dog friendly which was very nice," reports Gino D. about Indian Island County Park.
Nature center visits: educational opportunities. Several parks offer nature programs and exhibits for children. "You can ride your bike from your site to the playground, store, beach, local ice cream shop, coffee shop, or our family favorite, meig's point nature center," shares Tiffany T. about Hammonasset Beach State Park.
Evening quiet levels: varies by campground. Some parks are quieter than others for families needing early bedtimes. "People are friendly and its a great place to spend your summer nights," notes Ali O. about Smith Point, though adding, "This is not a quiet campground, campers stay up late drinking by the fire."
Site spacing: varies significantly between parks. Some RV areas offer more privacy than others. "RV pull through sites were fantastic. It was a great campground for maiden voyage in new rig. Plenty of amenities," shares Lori R. about Wildwood State Park.
Dump station access: convenient at most parks. Clean facilities are available, though specific arrangements vary. "Nice location but previous campers did not clean up after their visit. Shore power was without any problems and park has clean heated bathroom and bike station near dump site," reports Frank P. about Indian Island County Park.
Water/electric hookups: seasonal availability. Winter camping may have limited services. "Water was off because we were a week shy of the season opening. Needed to move to dump station prior to leaving (2 night visit) and had to drive to fill the fresh water tank once while there," explains Janelle G. about Indian Island County Park.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is the most popular dog-friendly campsite near Port Jefferson, NY?
According to TheDyrt.com, the most popular dog-friendly campground near Port Jefferson, NY is Wildwood State Park Campground with a 4.2-star rating from 24 reviews.
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