Best Glamping near South Padre Island, TX

The park is located on the southern end of South Padre Island. It’s a very popular RV campground with hundreds of sites and multiple loops. This very large site is a little overwhelming in size but offers a number amenities for the RV and camper community. The park has a new outdoor picnic pavilion with the bathrooms, outdoor showers, grills, and a huge picnic table area under a large canopy. They offer parking areas for boats and the camp has ample restroom and shower facilities. The sites have picnic tables, water, and electric. The sandy beach is huge and great for families. They provide lifeguards during the summer months. This park is very crowded on weekends and holidays and reservations for RV sites are highly recommended. Just outside the cafe they have pub but most of the restaurants and other sites are a few miles to the north by car or bike. This is also the dock for ocean site seeing boats. This may be a good choice for RVs looking for long term stays or locals enjoying a day at the beach.

Boca Chica Beach is the end of the road for South Texas. The beach is about 15 miles outside of the Port of Brownsville Texas and very close to the Mexican Border. The beach is a wild and desolate place. It’s quite a contrast from the overly commercial and manicured beaches to the north on South Padre Island. The beach has a lot of debris from river run off and storms. The amount of trash and plastic waste can be overwhelming at times. The campsites are primitive and only include metal trash barrels. This is a good day trip for locals or a place for visitors who really want to get away. Of note, the beach is currently closed due to Covid 19. However, locals are exercising and walking their dogs despite the closure. When it’s open, you can drive on the beach but will need a 4x4. They don’t allow atvs or RVs on the beach. You will be able to see the Space X facility on the road near the beach.

We arrived at check-in time & was told to sign in on a waiting list. They called names by yelling out the door. Waited about an hour to finally check in & was told to fill out 3 pages of info (I could have been doing during the wait time). However staff was friendly & obviously overwhelmed.

Campground was okay. We were in D26 which was alright. Slight leveling of the RV needed since no concrete pads on Dodson St. No trees or shade. Everything got pretty dirty. Windy & hazy in January. We work remote & data service was tough to get. Lots of people seemed to always be changing sites as they said they extended their trip longer.
Overall it was a decent campground but I’d prefer to head to Florida.

Our specific site was probably what influenced my five star review. This is a huge rv park where they cram rigs very close together, which is not my usual idea of a good time. But we decided to try it out anyways, and we chose our own site off the map on their website. It’s off-season in January, and still it’s packed. site S24 offered much privacy. We could see the water and were surrounded by cactus and agave instead of other RVs. It’s clean and quiet. Really a nice place. Dog friendly. Right on the beach and board walk. It’s a couple miles away from most of the restaurants and shopping, yet still walkable.

The park was nice, close to the beach, and had pretty low traffic compared to the rest of the island. The roads weren’t great and needed to be resurfaced. I picked a premium site that didn’t happen to be very premium. While the location of the site was perfect, all of the sites around me had concrete pads but mine... (I guess they hadn’t upgraded my site pad yet) the online map was showing a finished park with a boardwalk, showers and restrooms right behind my site (hints: the reason I chose this site) but it was all still under construction and not available for access. Other than those minor issues, it was an okay experience and for the size of the park, it was pretty quiet.