Best Tent Camping near Olympic National Park

This campground is right next to a state park. It’s also very close to a river and lots of woods. We stayed here to see Olympic national park, (I wouldn’t recommend this location to travel to Olympic every day, it was very far.)

The amenities were nice, bathrooms with warm water (one shower per bathroom.)

No laundry, no Wi-Fi and both Verizon and AT&T worked with about one bar.

The sites were level spacious and had a fire ring and picnic table at each. We chose the full hookup option. Firewood could be purchased through the camp host.

The best part about this day was the surrounding area. Every night, my husband and I would walk to the wildlife viewing platform to see lots of birds, or walk down by the river and see lots of elk and bald eagles.

This Olympic National Park Campground along the Washington coastal route is highly coveted, and frequently packed. If you’re lucky enough to get a reservation, or a cancellation (see the Dyrt Alerts), you’ll be treated to some of the best sunsets that the Olympic Peninsula has to offer, if you don’t mind a little traffic noise. 

Many of the campsites are tucked away under the spreading canopy of trees and moss, and little sunlight filters in. While others face the ocean and have more expansive views of the sky. We were lucky to grab one of the latter and had plenty of open sky for solar power and satellite internet. 

The bathrooms offer clean flush toilets and sinks, but no showers. The sites all have the typical picnic table and fire ring, but pay close attention to size limits within each site on recreation.gov because the sizes vary widely as does the space between sites. 

Activities abound in this park of the park, road cycling, nearby hiking in the forest, or miles and miles and miles along the wide sand beach. The shore is quite shallow here so the tidal flats are very wide. Many different beach access areas within a short drive bring you to different types of beaches, some with sea stacks, stellar tide pooling rocks and backcountry trails.  Head to the Kalaloch Lodge for a tasty dinner out!

Many NPS Park Ranger programs meet at these different beach locations. The Hoh Rainforest Visitor’s Center is about an hour and 20 minutes from the Campground. Also be aware of the traffic congestion at any of the visitor centers in Olympic NP, which can have you waiting for several hours to get into the park. 

The nearest town with groceries, laundry and restaurants is Forks, about 45 minutes away, but the nearby Kalaloch Lodge served an excellent table, reservations suggested.

One of two reservable campgrounds in Olympic National Park, I chose this because we would be here over a weekend and didn’t want to chance not being able to find a campsite. It’s a long drive in so you would not want to arrive and not find a place to rest your head. By late Friday night, the campground was full. There is an RV section with hookups and two other loops with no hookups. Our site(B70) was a bit awkward and we ended up pulling our van in forward instead of backing in, otherwise our heads would have been lower than our feet. This space could easily accommodate two cars if you were tent camping. Our senior lifetime pass was not accepted at this campground as it was listed as an RV campground. However, upon arrival, I didn’t understand why they called it an RV campground. There were no hookups or other amenities that would make it any different than a tent-only facility in the A and B loops. In fact, many of the sites had pads that would not accommodate anything larger than our 17-foot van. The bathrooms were reasonably clean and had soap. No hot water or showers but again, typical of National Park campgrounds. Quiet hours were not enforced and, in fact, the people in Site 65 were loud until 2:30 am. The next morning, garbage was strewn all over their site, an ax was still stuck in wood, and food was left out all over the table, including a jar of honey(I swear I am not making this up). This campground has signs at the entrance and on every site picnic table that it is an active bear area and how important it is to keep a clean campsite. By 10 am, everyone at the site was still asleep, and neither the camp host nor ranger had done nothing to roust/oust them. (By the time we returned from our hike/soak in the hot springs, they were gone but the people who came after had to clean up the site.) The main draw to this campground is Sol Duc Falls and the hot springs. It is over a six-mile hike roundtrip from the campground to the falls and there is a trail to the hot springs(or you can drive to the trailhead and walk.08 mile to the falls). There is an additional charge for the hot springs($15 for adults,$11 for 62 and older; optional towel rental for$3) but it is so worth it to soak your weary muscles after a hike, despite the crowds. The bonus is being able to take a shower since there are none in the campground. No cell service. We would stay here again only if we wanted to visit Sol Duc Falls or the hot springs but it was not my favorite campground.

We’re not even sure that we should be reviewing this one… maybe we just need to keep it to ourselves?  Cuz, it’s that cool!  But since it's part of the Olympic NP campground list, it's publicly known, so here goes...

Upon arrival, we grabbed our beverages, our chairs, and walked the short path from our campsite to the shore of Ozette Lake. No sooner had we settled in to watch the evening’s color change than scores of water fowl claimed their nightly roots and an otter swam by on its way into its home in the grass – already totally worth the drive in. 

This small campground lies at the end of a long winding, but well paved, road in Olympic National Park. Getting there is part of the adventure, but from here one can hike out to the western most point of the contiguous 48 US states, Cape Alava. The sheltered lake offers many great miles of paddling and small boat fishing holes, as well as access to some great backcountry camping spots. 

We paddled from the campground to Ericson Bay and then hiked the very wet trail out to the Pacific coast, which was a great day trip.   The next day we took the path more traveled out to the coast via a boardwalk trail which will take you  to Cape Alava and you can walk along the beach for miles and miles.  Be mindful of the native territory in this area though and head the warnings.  Absolutely worth every moment!

The campsites are smallish and most won’t accommodate large RV’s but have a lot of grass area for tents, picnic tables, and fire rings. The toilets are a bit of a walk as they are located at the Ozette Visitor’s Center.  They have clean, flush toilets and running sinks, fresh drinking water, but no showers.  The campground could really use a couple of vault toilets as the toilets are a 1/4 mile away, and it's the only reason we gave this a 4 out of 5.   Trash and recycling is located near the visitor's center as well lots of information about hiking in the area.

Many of the sites have good to decent open sky for solar power and satellite internet, the mobile phone service was non-existent. Nearby towns with any services are Neah Bay and Clallah Bay, which are both super cool to check out.

This Olympic National Park Campground along the Washington coastal route is highly coveted, and frequently packed. If you’re lucky enough to get a reservation, or a cancellation (see the Dyrt Alerts), you’ll be treated to some of the best sunsets that the Olympic NP has to offer, if you don’t mind a little traffic noise. 

Many of the campsites are tucked away under the spreading canopy of trees and moss, and little sunlight filters in. While others face the ocean and have more expansive views of the sky. We were lucky to grab one of the latter and had plenty of open sky for solar power and satellite internet. 

The bathrooms offer clean flush toilets and sinks, but no showers. The sites all have the typical picnic table and fire ring, but pay close attention to size limits within each site on recreation.gov because the sizes vary widely as does the space between sites. 

Activities abound in this park of the park, road cycling, nearby hiking in the forest, or miles and miles and miles along the wide sand beach. The shore is quite shallow here so the tidal flats are very wide. Many different beach access areas within a short drive bring you to different types of beaches, some with sea stacks, incredible tide pooling rocks and backcountry trails.  Head to the Kalaloch Lodge for a great dinner out, then walk along the beach at sunset.

Many NPS Park Ranger programs meet at these different beach locations. The Hoh Rainforest Visitor’s Center is about an hour and 20 minutes from the Campground. Also be aware of the traffic congestion at any of the visitor centers in Olympic NP, which can have you waiting for several hours to get into the park. 

The nearest town with groceries, laundry and restaurants is Forks, about 45 minutes away, but the nearby Kalaloch Lodge served an excellent table, reservations suggested.