Fort Pickens Campground

Mimi

Great place to camp for a short stay. Camped in Loop C with a 37' motorhome. Site was clean and well maintained with 50amp electric and water hookup at the site. They are very particular about not parking your tow vehicle on the grass since it does damage that costs the National Park money. There is overflow parking available if needed but it's limited so try to book a site long enough to fit all your vehicles. You cannot park your tow vehicle parallel on your site. All vehicles must be parked pulled straight in on your pad. You will receive a citation if parked the wrong way or touching the grass. Cell service on Verizon and T-Mobile is very slow and sometimes doesn't work at all. Check the Blue Angels practice dates on their website and you'll be able to view them flying over Fort Pickens. Best viewing is from the actual fort along the seawall.

Tony Datuin

The campground was decent, the rangers at park entrance were friendly. The view driving in was awesome. The campground lots were mostly unshaded and very small, they would only allow one vehicle at your campsite; so, if you bring two vehicles, one of them has to be inconveniently parked at what they call overflow parking. The park nazi rode around all day writing warning tickets, if you had a wheel off the campsite pavement, or if you had a second vehicle parked to unload gear or groceries, he would write you up. They prohibited pop-up shower tents for what reason; I have no idea. The showers at the C loop were not clean, the one I used would not drain, so you have to stand in backed up water, to add insult to injury, the bath and shower rooms had no air conditioning; it was like stepping into a sauna, after showering you could never dry off because of sweating. Extremely uncomfortable. There were zero amenities! The nearest store was like 5 miles away, and the speed limit was 25 mph. We will never camp there again; If we want a good beach camping experience, we will return to The Gulf Shores State Park in Alabama. The Alabama State parks by far blow Florida's away.

Emily Porter

Overall it's pretty nice but I'm giving it a one star review in hopes that some manager or somebody will see it and do something because I feel very passionately about this issue. The issue is light pollution. I stayed in tent campground loop B and pretty much every site in the entire loop is affected by the light pollution from the bathroom. The bathroom has orange turtle lights at least, but they are on all four sides of the building and quite bright and reach quite far, in addition to the white lights coming out of the windows of the building! When I go camping I want to commune with nature. I don't want to be bathed in artificial lights which is worse for sleep than at home in the city because at home I already have curtains for that kind of thing at home but when I'm camping I can't cover my whole tent. And believe me, I tried to build a little fortress in front of it with towels and car shades to try and block the light and have some peace. frankly, I don't think bathrooms need lights at night at all inside or outside. most people have flashlights . but if you're going to do it at least do it right and make it very minimal And respectful to the humans and wildlife. If you parks people knew anything about nature, you would know that science says It's really bad for human sleep and animals to have lights on at night. There are some campgrounds where at least they only come on on a motion detector which would be great, but I'd also recommend making any lights on the outside much more minimal and targeted toward the ground just to act as a beacon for the doorway. And inside at night you could have a nightlight type situation that's very dim so it doesn't completely disrupt the sleep of people who have to pee at night with the sort of blinding scenario you've got going on right now. It's not just about sleeping either. it's also about chilling out in the evening. I want to sit around the light of a campfire not be bathed in the light of a bathroom for heavens sakes. I expect better of you national parks!!!

C D

Beautiful natural area and the fort is great to visit. But unfortunately we won't return and have cancelled our two upcoming reservations. The bathrooms and showers are so nasty!!! The shower that I used seemed worse than I would imagine a prison shower. Walls covered in black mold. The shower water drizzled straight down so you would basically have to splash water on yourself and try not to touch the shower walls. I was cringing the entire shower. I mean it was really really disgusting!! Pretty much all of the towel/purse hooks were broken off in all the bathroom stalls. Seems like that could be an easy fix.. They cost a couple bucks and all you need is a screwdriver. No toilet paper. My husband said there was vomit in one of the bathrooms. Bathrooms were very dirty. Garbage and toilet paper everywhere. We really couldn't believe how bad it was. One of the water spouts available for campers to use was broken and just spraying lots of water. We visited four years ago and it was pretty bad then so I guess it's only gone downhill. And they don't accept cash for the entrance fee (or for the year pass that we purchased and now realize we shouldn't have).

Steve Thomson

Our first night at this campground in June did not go well. The water pump station broke down at one in the morning, leaving hundreds of people with no water supply and a hot location. They fixed the pump station within 12 hours, but it pumped out rusty water for the next two days. That was not very good for the camper. The campground was crowded, but it looked like a good place to have young kids since they were riding scooters and bicycles freely around the park. For us, RV Road Travelers it was too crowded with a lack of privacy. Surprisingly it did have a laundry room, but I wouldn’t dare use it when it had rusty water. The restrooms were not in good shape. There was a quarter mile walk to the beach, which was absolutely beautiful. The water was perfect with little safe areas to bring your children. The drive out to this place was terrible. The road was littered with vacationers every square inch and the speed limit is 25 miles an hour for several miles to get to your campsite.