MacKerricher State Park

The beach does NOT look like that. It's your average beach not unlike many along the same stretch of coast.

We came to Fort Bragg to visit Glass Beach and wanted to stay at a state park. This one fit the bill, though in the off season only 1 of the 3 campgrounds are open. Nevertheless we had no trouble at all finding a spot on a Friday night (campground is first come first served in the off season). There aren’t a lot of spots for large rigs; you’ll have to hunt for those as well.

The campground is wooded, so you’ll have to hunt around for a good solar spot; if you can’t find one, they do allow generators between 10am and 8pm.

Showers are $1.00 for 5 minutes. Firewood is $7.00 per bundle from the camp host.

Had both Verizon and ATT cell signal (2-3 bars of LTE each); used the ATT hotspot with Netgesr MIMO antenna and got about 27 Mbps down and 4 up.

My overall feeling of this campground was that it was pretty overpriced at $40 per night for dry camping, but this is California after all (camping in general is expensive here) but fine in terms of safety, accessibility and amenities.

This is dry camping, no water, no sewer, no electric hookups. There is a dump station on site that is easily navigated.

This is a nice campground, most slots are in a shaded area so unless you have portable solar panels you will not get full power out of them. I had portable panels but was moving them regularly to keep them in the sun, and was successful in charging the batteries daily.

All the spaces I saw were very nice with good spacing, and lots of nature growth around them. The shore is a very short walk from the camping area and it is well worth walking along. We where there when the seals had their pups on the beach it was a lot of fun to watch them.
The town is a fun little town to explore but I imagine it will be very crowded during peak season.

It is a great place to use as a base to explore the coast line. There is a lot to see, light houses, arches, seals, and so forth. The glass beach has been picked clean. I am pretty sure I have seen more beach glass in jars in peoples' garages.

Nice wooded state park near a beach. There is also a walkway to viewing decks to see Harbor seals, sea lions, and whales...and there are tide pools to explore!

Our site was not level, nor were any that we tried (we tried all four available at the time). They are nicely sized and spaced though. We had to leave our site and day camp near the beach to get solar (as it is all dry camping in the campground). Bathrooms kept up well. The staff is great!

About three miles to Glass Beach! Fort Bragg is a nice little town. Speaking of which, a HUGE shout out to North Coast Tires in Fort Bragg! They helped us (free of charge) and we avoided being towed 127 miles to Eureka!

Cell reception:
AT&T - 2 bars of 4 bars LTE, 22mb down, 8 mb up
Verizon - 2 bars of 3G (varied from 2 bars 3G to 1 bar of 4G/LTE)
Sprint - not much on extended

We stayed here 2 nights Sunday-Monday without a reservation in October. East Pinewood was closed but West Pinewood and Surfwood were both first come first serve. If you have a larger trailer I think the West Pinewood might be more accommodating than Surfwood since its a smaller and tighter loop. We opted for Surfwood since we have a cabover camper.

The sites are clean and tidy with a picnic table, fire ring and locker. Showers and flush toilets were clean. It probably took a minute or so before getting hot water and it wasnt super hot.

We have a dog and it was easy to walk on leash along a paved road towards Ft Bragg. Most of the beaches near this park are NO Dogs allowed. We had to walk over 4 miles to Noyo headlands to let the dog off leash.

I wish I brought my bike. You can ride to Ft Bragg no problem and go to the North Coast Brewery or to breakfast or putt around the park. It's pretty large and I didnt get to explore the lake.

Verizon coverage was great and I was able to work a little.

Wow! We are so glad we opted to stay in a state park while in Fort Bragg. We are full time travelers and this MacKerricher State Park is one of our most favorite spots! We had no reservations and found a spot to fit our 28ft TT. Spots are nestled in the woods with beach access within walking distance. There was a ton of mosquitoes, so bring something that works. We did not have any hookups at this side but the site itself was fairly leveled. Getting into this spot was TIGHT! But we made it! We loved this location 😍

$40 for a campsite for a night is a lot. Especially when A. The showers were not available and B. You have to pay to use them! $1 for 5 minutes?! I call bullshit. The only redeeming quality was that it was quiet and close access to the beach. Even the huge trash bins were overflowing. Never again.

This campground is located on such a beautiful location it’s hard to not love it, but the campground itself is such a disappointment it’s sad. For $40 a night (less my whopping $2 senior discount) I expect more. The shower/toilet house was a disaster. No soap, towels, or dryers at the sinks. The shower was filthy and considering it cost extra it wasn’t a tough decision to stay away from that. The toilet space was also a mess with toilet paper on the filthy floor. The water spigot near my site didn’t work. I had contact with the camp host who seemed completely annoyed that I should ask him any questions. Seeing his site, which looked like a junkyard helped explain why the campground was a mess. The picnic table at the site was rotting away. I know California has their fiscal issues but they need to get major work done here. And the final straw was when I left I went to the dump station. They wanted another $10 for dumping. Truly sad since the site has a gorgeous beach and the boardwalk out to Laguna Point is beautiful.

Paid $45 per night for the RV plus $10 extra for the car. The location is beautiful and thats about it. No hand soap in the restrooms. Toilets blah. And showers also very disappointing. If you need to dump that will also cost you an additional $10 which you paid at the dump station with a credit card.

$45 with no hookups; walking distance to Laguna Point; clean bathroom facilities with hot showers ($1 for 5 mins). Conveniently located close to Fort Bragg door services.