South Carlsbad State Beach

Who doesn't love amazing ocean views?!! I love this campground. Half the sites overlook the ocean, while the other half are close to highway 101 and have a lot of road noise. Sites are up on a cliff, so steep stairs are required to get down to the beach. Sites are pretty spacious. Most do not have any hook-ups. Worst part of this campground is that reservations are difficult to get during prime season! But once you get here is is heavenly :-D

This is a state park situated on a bluff overlooking the beach and ocean. There are steps to access the beach. Beautiful view. The park is fairly compact but the sites are reasonable size and level. No problems for my 32' class A.
Very few hookups. I dry camped with no issues. There is a dump station and potable water.
The campground was about 80% full (I was here Monday-Wednesday).

There are quite a few people, I usually prefer more remote places with less people. But if you want a beach location in Southern California, you got to expect people around.

We stayed here for a week recently and was kind of shocked to find a rather lack luster campground when we arrived. It's super cramped with no real divider between you and the camper next to you. People come here to party, which good for them, but if you are full timers and just looking for a quiet place to spend a week, this might not be your place.
It is right on the beach so that is definitely nice and it's close to both Carlsbad Village and Encinitas. Both of which are adorable little towns with fun places to eat and drink.
We paid $36 per night for a spot without hook ups that backed up to the road that run alongside the park so it was rather loud at night. However, it would be equally as loud if you were to pay for an "ocean view" spot since they are far apart. They're only separated by a narrow road.
The facilities were rather gross and not well kept. But they may just be due to the fact they are highly trafficked and hard to keep up with.
It's hard to say we wouldn't come back because there are very few places to camp in the area.
They are VERY strict about arrival times. You cannot check in until 2PM and they do not let you check in a minute early.

Another excellent California State Beach campground. The views are great, the facilities are not great but serviceable (I'm not towing an 8000 pound trailer around to use public toilets and showers). We stayed on a site that backs up to the ocean and it did have pretty good privacy with vegetation on both sides. Only downside to our site was limited cell data coverage on both ATT and Verizon, I'm sure due to the site dipping down a bit. Overal, it was pretty low key when we were here in Feburary. Location is good with lots of great restaurants and things to do but overall we prefer San Elijo with a more of a surfer, younger vib.

Be sure to hit Haggos Organic Tacos and also Fish 101 down the road in Encinitas if you are staying here. Both are great!

Upon arrival, I was greeted by incredibly helpful and friendly staff. Having no reservation, they quickly found me an unreserved space for the night. Upon arriving at the actual site, I discovered that they gave me what might be the best, most private space yet I still feel I'm camping on top of my neighbors as if in some crappy highway RV resort.

Anyway, the views are, in fact, amazing and the sound of the breaking waves is almost enough to drown out the noise from the road located about 30 feet from my site.

I'd come back, but I am surprised by the lack of privacy and the road noise.

We wanted to be by the beach - the view is forever although through a chain link fence due to the steep bluff you are camping on. There are a few beach access stairs and dirt ramps for walking down.

Site 16 was pretty private with a hedgerow on either side so you couldnt see the people in the sites next to you. Was also across from the lavatory/shower combo.

We liked the campground. The view was awesome. Mostly quiet and very clean. Nice little store for supplies.

Only minor complaints- Need tokens for showers ( which is ridiculous- why not just allow quarters). And NO soap in the bathrooms! What is it about CA campgrounds not having soap????

I recommend this campground highly! Get the waterfront site! Relax and enjoy the view!

The focus of this spot is the beach. You can ride a bike or run on the path along the road, too. There are surfers everywhere, and it’s great entertainment. As far as the campground:
Bathrooms and showers are clean. Showers take tokens, which is an inconvenience, but they are easily obtained. The water is hot and pressure is good. No soap in the bathroom. Ick.
The campsites are sandy, but pretty level. It says the limit is 35ft, but we saw some even bigger rigs fit right in. We reserved on ReserveCalifornia, and when I reserved, t showed that there were not many available spots. So we took a 35$ Spot (on the other side of the road) for 2 days, then moved to the only spot that was available for the weekend. Weird, there were lots of empty spots over the weekend. And we had to pay a 7.99 fee for each reservation. So I’m not sure about other times of the year but in December before Christmas you should not have any problem finding a good spot here . I gave four stars for noise because you can hear the highway sound quite clearly .

I've stayed here several times. It's great for what it is: A beach-and-highway adjacent campground. Sites and facilities are always tolerably clean. The campground is almost always full, the weather is almost always great, and the sunsets are almost always spectacular. Campers here regularly cram quite a bit of equipment onto relatively small sites, so it can feel a bit cramped. Also, as others has noted, I've been near some sites where the campers have been over-served.

After coming up from staying at San Elijo SB for a week, we didn't think it could get better, but in many ways South Carlsbad has many things better than San Elijo. We managed to find a last-minute Oceanfront site for 5 nights Sun-Thur and cancelled our reservations at Crystal Cove SP so we could be even closer to the ocean.
1. Trains that run along the nearby tracks don't blast their horn nearly as much as when we stayed at San Elijo.
2. The beach and campground during the week is far less busy than San Elijo.
3. Access is much easier, with a far wider entry gate. If you're heading north into the park, there's plenty of places along the road to pull-over and wait until 2PM to check-in, and there's an easy U-turn just past the park to head back south for the right turn into the park.

However, one downside is that the beach isn't nearly as nice as San Elijo, where South Carlsbad is far rockier and shorter. While the beach condition can change daily, for the first couple of days it was quite difficult to walk on the beach due to the large rocks. Thankfully for the last two days it cleared up and there was more sand.

Also, the Verizon towers nearby were problematic, occasionally bouncing between 5 bars of LTE and 2-3 bars of 1x. Thankfully, T-Mobile service was excellent at a constant 5 bars of LTE, and it served well as fail-over.

Overall, it was a fantastic stay, and really can't complain about having the gorgeous oceanfront views. Would love to stay for much longer next winter - hopefully Verizon sorts out their issues in the future!

At first glance, this campground has some negatives. There's the busy road that runs past, the lack of privacy at sites, and the fact that with no power hook-ups you will inevitably be subjected to the roar of your neighbor's monster generator powering their TV/coffee maker/microwave (it's called camping people). But then there's the view. Perched high on a bluff overlooking the ocean, it's the view straight out onto the Pacific makes this a 5-star campground. We spent our four day stay gazing at the ocean and strolling up and down the beach. The sound of the waves was even almost enough to drown out the neighbor's generator :) Oh yeah, and don't bother with the non-ocean side sites. Not at all worth it in my opinion.