After moving to the PNW, I remember my first drive up to the national park with big plans of seeing all the famous beaches. Instead I came around the corner on the 101 and was treated to the view of the magical Lake Crescent. Right then and there it became my favorite place in the state. I’ve been regularly camping at Fairholme for a few years now and I LOVE this place. Road noise kind of sucks at night because of how close you are to the highway, and GOOD LUCK finding a spot during the summer months as this place doesn’t take reservations and is strictly FCFS, but if you manage to get a trip in during the off season, you won’t be disappointed. The walk in sites down on the lake are totally worth all the trips back and forth to the car carrying gear, and it gets surprisingly empty during the cool season. One visit that I made in October, I practically had the place to myself. This campground is a serious gem.

I foolishly took off to the coast during the month of July without a reservation to head to Fairholme or mora campground, thinking I could snag a first come first serve site - wrong. After making it up to lake crescent and finding the place was full, and then spending hours winding all the back to sequim and checking every campground I came across, I was becoming disheartened. It was 7pm on a Thursday night and I was about to just rent a hotel room when I stumbled on this place. Driving into the Rec area I was treated to the ocean bluffs, beautiful open fields with tons of deer grazing and a beautiful windy road into the campground. The full sign wasn’t up yet so I started scanning. There were two sites left in the whole campground so I jumped on one of them for the night. Site 28 I believe. It was small but had dense vegetation/a solid privacy screen. I planned on staying just one night before heading back towards la push, but I totally fell in love! I foolishly didn’t have cash on me as I usually camp at Fairholme and have been spoiled by being able to write in my debit card on the site deposit slip, so I left an IOU with my phone # and site # and the rangers were totally cool about it when they stopped by in the morning to check in with me. I ran into town to grab cash, paid the IOU and ended paying for the rest of the weekend. I got lucky and was able to move over to another FCFS site, #6 when the previous occupants took off and it was a killer spot. The campground was wildly clean, well maintained, quiet and the access down to the Dungeness spit was unbeatable. Plus falling asleep to the sound of the ocean was pretty dreamy. Spent the whole weekend combing the beach for agates and sea glass and had some pretty good finds. All in all, I didn’t mean to end up at this campground, but now I can hardly wait to go back.

Beautiful location but $50 a night for a tent site is outrageous