San Elijo State Beach

This campground is all about the location. Yes the sites are close together, yes it can get noisy here and there are often lots of kids running around. But the views and sunsets are spectacular, and you can wander on the beach or watch the surfers just a few minutes from your site. The charming a SoCal surf town of Encinitas is walking distance away.

Other great things here include the taco shop on site that overlooks the ocean, the Seaside market across the street (no need to stock up before you come) and the restaurants,coffee shops and breakfast spots nearby.

All of this comes at a price of course, not only are the sites expensive, but if you want a weekend spot you need to plan months in advance. The weekend sites sell out on the morning they are released, within seconds of going on sale. But with a small cancellation fee it is worth snagging a few of these reservations on the off chance that you can make it to wonderful Cardiff by the Sea for the weekend 7 months from now!!

We stayed at one of the dry camping spots in the park during the shoulder season between Dec.10-Christmas. We called in our reservations a few days before arriving. Because it was shoulder season, we did get to stay a while--and through the weekend--but had to move spots twice. The place was booked out Christmas Eve through mid-January. I recommend ignoring the website reservation system and calling a reservation agent on the phone, for some reason the humans convey greater availability than the website shows.

San Elijo tends to become party central on weekends and holidays, so anticipate guitar playing, beer drinking and the like. It is a primo place to camp if you surf. Cardiff Reef, George's and Swami's are close; if you're less picky and have a longboard, you can find lots of rideable options right down the stairs from your campsite. It tends to get crowded at all times of day, but so does the rest of San Diego. During extreme low tides, you can run on the beach all the way to Leucadia and beyond, really beautiful.

It's one of the best places in San Diego to camp if you're into the dawn patrol-burrito-dusk patrol-beer circuit.

I love this campground but it is probably not for everyone. We arrived about a half hour before check in time and they would not let us enter the campground. They have a very strict policy prohibiting early arrivals even if the site is available. With the busy traffic on the PCH it ended up being a rather stressful event driving around looking for a parking space while killing a little time. Once we were finally settled in, we enjoyed our time at San Elijo and ended up extending our stay by a couple of days.

It is very much a beach/surf culture here. Beautiful beach and great surf conditions while we were here. The campground is high on a bluff, the sites facing the ocean have killer views but you do have to look through or over a chain link fence. Lots of people and activity along with noise from the highway and the trains. If one is looking for a quiet, private type setting this is not it. Other campers and people passing through do not respect individual campsites. A few times we had people just sit down at our picnic table and enjoy the views. At first this seemed a bit strange, especially compared to other campgrounds we have stayed at. However, we ended up meeting a lot of nice people and enjoyed the more communal vibe of the place.

The taco stand is great and really enjoyed the convenience being in the park. The Seaside Market across the street is killer. Great bakery, meat department, wine selection and everything else you might need. Truly a 5 star rating for the market.

They do keep the sites cleaned up, however the bathrooms aren't great but we don't use them so not an issue. Decent dump station. It is a little bit tight getting into the park past the entrance station.

We were able to get ocean side sites for 2 more nights but it was very busy so we were lucky. I'd come back in heartbeat but again for a beach, party atmosphere, not for a quiet retreat.

As other have stated this is definitely not a peaceful getaway campground. We were searching for the ocean and not solitude so it worked well for us.

If you are a surfer you will love this place but even if you aren't it is great to watch them enjoying themselves.

Sites are extremely close together and the length limit is 35ft so keep that in mind. With our 30ft rig we didn't have an issue getting into our site but I could see where other sites it could be an issue.

Let me just say if you like the sound of trains this is the place for you. All times of the day and night you will surely hear the horn blowing so light sleepers beware!

Don't let all of that deter you if you are looking for a great place to go to the beach and take in some amazing sunsets!

We were able to get one of the spots directly overlooking the ocean. There is a chain link fence protecting you from falling over the edge of the dunes. You can walk down the nearby steps and stroll on the beach.

My only complaint is that the roads are very narrow, and even our 27 foot RV could not avoid going over a curb when we entered the park.

Lots of families with young kids here, and plenty of dog walkers too. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the park.

There is a small store and a mini-restaurant with great outside seating. They allow fires in the fire pits and the site was very wide, which was nice.

I managed to get the last available spot on rather short notice, and it overlooked the beach and ocean. Good for the view, harsh for the wind. They probably could've used more staff to keep the restrooms cleaner and the vegetation trimmed back. The number post for my site was hidden in the weeds. Someone said the sites are close, but most of them are very large—some big enough to fit a 5th wheel in sideways. I'm guessing the sites were once smaller and had plenty of shrubbery between but that over the decades campers have trampled it down, run over it and increased the site sizes. After all, when the campground was built back in the '60s, not many people had large RVs and TTs. There's a good taco stand at the park store. Highway noise is only occasionally bad when some testosterone-fueled dude needs to roar away from the traffic light. One camper had the world's noisiest generator. And there were the usual assortment of barking dogs with selectively-deaf owners.

Like everyone else has said, between the trains, the kids, the tourists, it's what I would normally call a nightmare, but there's something about being camped right there next to the beach that sort of makes it okay. We came in on a Sunday during spring break without a reservation, and by some miracle got the one open spot because they were doing maintenance on it. FYI if you happen to get in with a reservation and want to stay longer than one night you will need to get up early to get in line, they advised us to get in line at 6am, this was overkill as nobody else showed till 7, you must physically lineup next to the entrance booth, at 8:15 they write down your names in the order you arrived, then you come back at 9:15 to see if they have a spot for you, and you have to do this every day, no multiple days allowed. Plus, you have to make reservations 48 hours out, so I would not recommend this place without a reservation, you can get in but it's a huge pain. The bathrooms were horrendous, otherwise fairly clean.

Love the store and taco shack...love the ocean being so close...but seriously the noise at night is soooooo annoying. Trains galore!!!!! Get a spot by the ocean, not by the road and train track and it should be better.

We originally planned to only stay one week, but luckily snagged a second week last minute as the California fires prevented us from moving on to our next destination. This campground was beautiful. You can’t really beat the proximity to the beach and ocean sunsets. It was a short walk to the grocery store and post office in Cardiff by the Sea- lots of restaurants and surf shops too. My only complaint is that there isn’t a gate closing the campground at night. There was quite a bit of non-camper foot traffic. The laundry was reasonable and convenient, but closed at 6pm to “keep homeless people from trying to sleep there”, or so said the gift shop attendant. It’s also close to the train tracks, but we got used to the noise rather quickly. We really enjoyed our stay, the park rangers were full of great local recommendations, and we overall felt safe. We had full E/W/S sites in both spots so we didn’t use the campground showers. Cell service was great without a booster on ATT and Verizon.

There's a lot going for San Elijo State Beach.

Yes, there's trains that come at all hours of the day and are so loud and sometimes shake the ground so much that it feels like they're coming through the campground.
Yes, it's a very busy campground with surfers, trailers, dogs, etc. coming and going most of the day.
Yes, it's right on a major through-way with heavy traffic most of the day.
Yes, it's $50 a night for a dry oceanfront site.
Yes, you need to book your campsite 6 months in advance the minute that it's available, even for the "off season" (seriously, they all filled up within a few minutes of becoming available).
Yes, getting into the campground is a pain in the butt as it's only accessible from the North, there really isn't any great turnarounds for large trailers, and the access lane is very narrow and you are guaranteed to curb it if you have a large trailer.

None of that really matters because you're not going to get a better oceanfront view in Southern California without being end-to-end or shoulder-to-shoulder at smaller "campgrounds" or camped along the road. Huge Pelicans fly within 20ft of your window many times an hour. Sitting in my Airstream with the rear window open and working all day has been fantastic and inspirational, and walking along the warm-ish sand barefoot in the afternoons after a day of conf calls is recharging. All this being said the non-Oceanfront campsites aren't spectacular, and the rear ones back onto the road. Book early to secure a spectacular oceanfront spot!

We were a few minutes late getting to the booking page and managed to get the last available oceanfront site - number 001 - but we did get to mooch off the neighboring camp store//taco stand wifi and avoid running our Verizon plans for YouTube. :)