Best Campgrounds near Ocean Shores, WA

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.

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.

This app shows the campground is full. It is not. During September through May, it's first come and first served. We arrived on Saturday around 1 PM and found a few open spots. It's located above the bluff overlooking the beach and easy to walk down to the beach.

I had a reservation for Friday, March 21 to Sunday, March 23. I arrived after hours and just drove right in to my campsite. The campground is set up in sections A, B, C, and D. Section D is near the entrance along a lake. The other sections are down a long drive close to the beach. Section C was closed. Each section is divided into smaller circles of 10 campsites each. Although there is not much privacy between sites, the sites are still spacious and mine backed up to woods. My trailer has a large stargazer window on the back and I was able to leave my shades open most of the time. Section A also has full hook-ups. While my loop was farthest from the beach, you could still hear the ocean which is lovely and relaxing. It's not a far walk to the beach and my toddler did it easily. Once on the beach, there is a big sign with a giant A so you can find your way back should you go for a walk. There are two lighthouses in the park, trails, jetty, and an interperative center. Once out of the park, Long Beach is a short drive. I enjoyed our time and would love to go back for a longer trip.

I got zero reception in the campground. I use Verizon.

South Beach Campground across the road was closed so I drove up the gravel road here a bit. Not many spots but if all you need is a place to park and sleep then you’re good. No amenities, but a place to park and sleep. Definitely stop at the campground picnic area and hike in 2 minutes to see the ocean. You’re up on a bluff and it’s beautiful

Located just past the restaurant on the southbound side there is a drive that goes back into Rock Candy mountain Road trailhead. I drove 5 mi up the road. There are few houses on the side of the road. Speed limit is a maximum 15 mph. There are signs posted thinking drivers for slowing down. Mainly a logging Road well if you pull out to the right on the main road. I noticed a road that had a pipe gate that was closed and locked. It gets pretty steep going up the road. The right steep. They wrote it on barely white enough for two vehicles to safely pass each other. Not suitable for anything wider than a class B. In my opinion this area is not suitable for winter camping. In my opinion if this road got congested it would become pretty dangerous thus why caution is needed driving on the main road and on other roads leading from main road. Definitely not road you want to be intoxicated to drive on. There is a long drop if you lose control and fail off road. I feel if you did and survived the fall it would be expensive to recover your vehicle. To me it's to dangerous to risk trying to camp here if it ever became busy.

It's ok just a spot to pull over and camp really. There is a trail next to it I don't know how far but, it's cool. The road up the Montana is dirt but some parts are very rocky. Not many dispersed camping spots just pullover spots really

Have been coming here my whole since I was a kid. It’s one of my favorites and they got hit hard with the heavy rains. No wind but man it was muddy at our site

The road was a little rough but my suv made it fine. No signal and got a little snow on the roof in the morning but it was a good spot with a great view.

Our friends have stayed here a few times for razor clam digging and seemed fine with it, so we tried it. We stayed 2 nights during a mid-November clam dig. There is a string of long-term campers and a string of short-term spots. It was really empty, so there were no close neighbors. I could see how it would be overly snug during a busy session with how close the sites are together. You literally have enough room for a slide out and 5 feet or so to the next site's picnic table. The covered fish cleaning station was very nice to clean clams. It's an older looking campground but we were happy with it.

Unless you manage to get one of the nice spots, you’re essentially paying a premium to park on grass with no privacy. It’s a beautiful area: but pick your site wisely.

Couldn’t get any cellular signal

Drove about 1 mile down the road and it was closed off. A couple of pull offs that were super muddy so didn’t bother. South Beach Campground just down the road is also closed.

Such a beautiful view, hard to beat! clean bathrooms and everyone was very friendly. Lots of little trails straight to the beach. Great place to watch the sunset and have a quiet campfire

This campground is part of the Olympic National Park, it’s FCFS only, and very bare bones. There are flush toilets, but no sinks or showers or water spigots- don’t forget to bring your own water! 

It’s $20/night, and you pay when you arrive after you select a site. You pay either via a QR code with PayPal or a credit card(if you have cell reception), or fill out your credit card information on a slip that you drop in a deposit box. No cash and no checks accepted. No campfires allowed at this time. The ATT phone had decent reception, the Verizon phone was very weak and basically unusable. 

There is a row of sites along the edge that are the primo sites- full ocean view. Everyone else can make do with the ocean views they get from in between all the other campers. The waves are calm and steady all night, very relaxing and nice for drowning out generator sounds. There are trash bins but no recycling bins. Each site is attached to a numbered picnic table. If there’s no free picnic table then it’s not a site (we were confused by this big open area that would have easily fit us, but it wasn’t actually a site. Look for the picnic table). 

There is a host on site. There are trails down to the beach, after climbing over driftwood and rocks, but otherwise no trails or hiking or anything else to do directly from the campground. We stayed one night.

We stayed in loop D, site 189, which I chose because I thought it would be nice to have a spot right on the lake. I wish I’d chosen one of the sites in the little off shoot roads though, because the lake was not visible and not very accessible, and the entire row of sites are just sites side by side with zero privacy. It was fine though. 

Cell service was very iffy for both Verizon and ATT, but the weBoost helped a lot. Lots of nice hikes here in this park, and the beach is a short walk away. The bathhouse for this loop has flush toilets and one shower for the whole loop. The shower was free and the water was nice and hot. The shower was so dirty and gross but what are you gonna do. 

Water spigots throughout campgrounds and there’s a free dump and water fill station in the park.

Just about 10 miles north of highway 12 near Elma. Got a great site right by the river. Nice toilets & showers (in old building so was pleasantly surprised!) wifi by information center, cell coverage limited (1 bar t-mobile with Weboost)

Wonderful spot to wake up next to a river. Need to be mindful of other campers in the area. Met a friendly dog. Looks like an ok place to float down the river 😉