Frisco Campground

We only spent a single night here, arriving late in the afternoon and leaving the next morning, but from what I saw it was a really nice campground that we wouldn't hesitate to return to again. The only reason it gets a 4 instead of a 5 is because the sites are on the small side. You are camped in the dunes though only a short walk directly to some of the most gorgeous beaches on the Atlantic coast. Some of the sites at the top of the campground have a view out over the dunes of the ocean below.

This is not a luxury campground by any means, with no hook-ups and bathrooms only offering cold showers, but it's all about the location. Not only are you next to the beach, but you're also only 25 minutes from the famed Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. A great campground for a beach visit.

We love the Outer Banks but always head to Hatteras away from the crowds. Frisco Campground is a great no frills spot to experience all this area has to offer. There are bathrooms and showers, very clean. No electric hook ups. There are sites on the upper level of the loop that offer a view of the dunes and ocean beyond, but the lower sites are closer to the shore and a few offer seclusion of surrounding foliage. There is a hiking trail that starts here and leads all the way to the lighthouse. We were here in late April so there were very few campers here. That's our favorite time to come.

Site C3 is very close to bathrooms, cold showers, and dumpster, but still lots of privacy and quiet because the picnic table is down in a tree shaded area away from the road. LOVE it here!

Super quiet campground, most sites are spread out with a good amount of trees and brush separating the sites. When you go, try and get a spot on top of the hill for the best views. Stay at the bottom of the hill if you want easier access to the beach.

The only downside to this campground is picking a spot. When you check in, the have you go around, find your spot then come back to the front to reserve. During which time someone else in front of you can reserve that spot (happened to us twice and very annoying).

While in the area, explore the Hatteras Light House!

We made reservations far in advance for a week in early May. Upon making reservations online, you are not reserving a specific spot. We arrived on a Friday evening and picked a spot in the lower loop to avoid driving all over the place (we were ready to be done and out of the truck at that point). The spots, as others have mentioned, on the upper loop have great views of the ocean. We had great views of the dunes and could hear the ocean. We also had deer running through our site the entire week. Being this close to the ocean means the potential for lots of wind. Our outdoor rug/mat thingy got blown around a little bit. So just be aware and don't leave anything out that you don't want to blow away.
Being early season, there were no rangers present in the hut upon our arrival. They had a kiosk set up so you can claim your spot on paper then return to the kiosk by 9am the next day to pay, if you haven't, or pick up your paperwork if you reserved ahead of time. There were plenty of spaces to pick from and all are well spaced with plenty of privacy and space to spread out. Sites range in size from tent only to large rig size. Some of the tent only sites have specific signs to keep tenters from setting up in the dunes to allow birds to nest.
There is easy access to the beach via two boardwalks and over the dunes. At the far end of the campground is the beginning of a trail that leads to Cape Hatteras Light. It's a great trail through some dunes, forest, a pond, graves of 2 Royal Navy sailors, but be warned, it is VERY buggy. Being close to the beach, bugs were nearly nonexistent at our site so we didn't even think to bring bug spray. Big mistake. Luckily we were able to buy some in the National Park gift shop at the lighthouse that made the hike back seem like a different hike altogether. It was so much more enjoyable. I recommend the hike and the walk up to the top of the lighthouse for spectacular views!
There's easy access to water throughout the campground. The facilities seemed clean. Everything was well maintained and clean.
We had some friends stop by to hang out one day. The ranger was a little rough with them at first but we were able to get them a "day pass" requiring them to either park completely on our site or in a parking spot near one of the boardwalks.
All-in-all, great place to camp. It's obviously a bit further away from a lot of the OBX things people might like to do but we didn't mind doing day trips and exploring all over the place. It was worth staying in a quiet, beautiful campground and having to make those drives north.

We did like the campground, but it turned really swampy after a heavy rainstorm. Guess we should have expected this in the spring when we camped. We had a good tent with waterproof bathtub floor, and cots, so we kept dry. But could have been a disaster for other tent campers.

If you like to be sardined in a campground this is not the place for you .
Those sites are farther north.
On our vist we enjoyed the closeness to the beach, great fishing, or just relaxing.
No hotels in or houses in sight.
The only quirk that I found was that if you have a camper/trailer, you will back in your site, that said, most all of the sites have the picnic table and bbq pit on the drivers side of your rig, customarily it would be on the passenger side. Not a big deal.

The only other wrinkle would be that when we arrived on a Sunday afternoon, the ranger on duty had no clue what he was doing.

I asked the ranger about filling our water holding tank. I was emphatically told there's no water in the campground available, I would have to go to a commercial campground out of the park or travel 25 miles north to get my water. REALLY NOW??
However, not knowing any better, we traveled out of Frisco and went 7 miles north on 12 and turned to the hatteras light house. [Take Lighthouse road, go 1.5 miles and on the left there will be a free dump station and water, no need to even go into the campground) Great find!
When we arrived back at the campground, we drove to our site to find there is fresh water available at all of the shower/ restroom facilities.
Thank God the campground and beauty of the OBX overshadowed the the events of the day.
It was wine thirty, enjoy!

Absolutely nothing to complain about here. Beautiful and fairly secluded campground. While we were there, they were repaving the whole campground (Oct 19) and the repaved sites looked nice and level. A short walk to the beach on the boardwalk. There is also a 4 mile, fairly packed road that goes to Cape Hatteras which would be convienent for fat tire bikes but we were too lazy. There is also a hiking path through the woods. Close to town for your seafood fix. Verizon, AT&T and TMobile all suitable for streaming, unboosted.

Big campground with decent space between sites. Watch out for cacti and other prickly things in the grass.

Parked on the P loop to be closer to the beach boardwalk. He sites at the top are up the hill and have a nice view of the water.

Two of the bathrooms were open (post-Covid). They were ok. A used tampon on the floor of the shower turned us off!

They don’t have first come, first served anymore. Every site has to be reserved in advance.

The beach was pretty with lots of shells, but tons of 4x4 trucks and jeeps driving around was less than appealing to those who just want to walk on quiet beach.

One bar of Verizon service.

The basics: the campground is clean, the bathrooms are clean, the sites have some privacy, and some sites have shade but most don’t. The beach is close but not right next to the campground. The campsites might require some leveling blocks, ours did. The campground is a bit hilly.

What does this campground have? Cooking grills at each site, picnic tables at each site, garbage dumpsters, free permits for beach campfires. The campground only has cold water outdoor showers with lockable doors. If you need a water fill and dump station you’ll actually need to drive over to Cape Point Campground and use it there. It’s the sister campground to the Frisco Campground. As far as I could tell this campground doesn’t have water, power or sewer hookups. At the time this review is posted there’s warning signs everywhere telling you the water in the campground isn’t potable due to high chlorine levels. So plan your water carefully.

Much like in Ocracoke, prepare for your trip. If it’s cold, you probably don’t want to use the ice cold water outdoor showers. In the summer the water might feel nice. But then it’ll be hot and you’ll need to prepare for some shade. This campground had some mosquitos and it was only about 75 at the warmest. Be careful of the sandspurs EVERYWHERE. Even at the path to the beach because people brought them over on their footwear.

I give this campground 5 stars because it fulfills every need. But to be honest we really didn’t spend much time at the campground. In this location, we stayed away most of the time doing stuff elsewhere.

Internet. At campsite P038, we had bad cell signal. As we discovered, your location in the campground dictates your cell reception because the campground is hilly. The higher in altitude your site is, the clearer line-of-site signal you’ll have. The speeds were pretty fantastic with good line-of-sight. But at campsite P038 with Verizon on an iPhone 12 we had 1.6 Mbps down, 0.4 Mbps up and 61 ping. With a cell booster I had a much better connection but I wouldn’t have been able to video chat.