Bolivar Flats Beach Dispersed Camping

There is nothing better than parking your rig right on the beach. We stayed here for the Thanksgiving week, and there were only 6 other campers on over a mile of beach. We talked with a local Sheriff Deputy, and he said that spring break through September, the beach is packed. This is true boondocking. There are no hook-ups and no sites. Just find a spot to set up. There are garbage cans every 100 yards. At high tide the water came within 10 yards of our trailer. Check the tides, because a king tide could possible get all the way up to the grass line. The surf was the only noise we heard. You will get sand everywhere. It is the beach. The only negative is the trash. We cleaned up all of the garbage within 200 yards of our site, but the next day the tide brought more back. I will be coming back again.

We initially hit the Crystal Beach scene in the “zoo” zone - in the middle of spring break party mayhem. Then we learned about the quieter beach area better for camping (accessed via Rettilon Road). Wide beach and hard-packed for all manner of rigs. Garbage cans services regularly. Decent cell coverage. Lots of room to walk the dog. This was our maiden beach boondocking experience and we give it a thumbs-up.

This is the epitome of creation! I could live here during the winter. Very busy during spring break, otherwise heaven
Great ferry service to Galveston; less than an hour. Beach passes are available at local businesses for $10.00 per year. Shouldn’t tell you this because now you’ll all want to come here. Promise to save me a spot
Had excellent cell service, no wifi.
Some toilet facilities, no services..

This was our first time Beach boondocking, the experience was everything we hoped for. Huge beautiful beach, easy to drive on, very quiet at night, and very uncrowded (January).
The temp was mild ( for us NewYorkers) although one night very windy, we brought the slider in because we were afraid the wind would tear up the awning above the slide. Lots of sand but it is the beach! Try this beach you will not regret it!

This was our first experience camping on the beach in our van and it was amazing! The kids loved taking the ferry and we arrived to Bolivar Flats around 11am on a Sunday. The sand was easy to drive on, even for our 2 wheel drive haha and we had no issues! We picked a spot at the end where everyone turns around but since we stayed in late December there wasn’t much traffic! It felt like we had the entire beach to ourselves and weather was warm enough that the kids were able to splash around in the gulf! Several cars seemed to show up early for fishing and always found a spot right around the entrance but left in the evening so all we heard were the sounds of the waves at night. Definitely take bug spray as the mosquitoes came out once the wind calmed down...even in December!! Overall the beach seems well maintained and garbage cans look to be changed daily. Highly recommend!

We loved it here, stayed mid January and had 50’s and 60’s. A little fuller on the weekend but we still had space to ourselves.

We had no issues with party people or loud noise.

The very end is where everyone turns around, just a heads up that it’s not the best spot to park.

Since it is off season we got our annual pass for $5.

Some mosquitoes when the wind died down.

No problem at all with the sand, hard packed!

You can't get anymore oceanfront than this. This is the first time we gave dry camping a try. We couldn't have asked for a better experience. There is some trash around. I don't know if it washes up from the Gulf of some people are just slobs. We did our part by picking it up around us. We wanted to stay on the permit side figuring it would be less crowded. When we went to the store to buy the permit, we were told that the beach is rarely patrolled this time of year and not to waste our money. There were maybe 5 other RVs on the free beach and permit beach combined. No one was within 150 yards of us. There were a few others that came for the day. There was no noise to speak of except for the crashing of the waves. Definitely a great first time dry camping experience.

The location is great, there is lots of room to set up camp wherever you would like. The negative points outweigh the positive in my opinion however. Lots of folks with loud music, which you can avoid, but once you setup camp its a pain to move again. We were unfortunate enough to have campers show up at 11pm and party till 5am right next to us (god knows why, the beach was completely empty). They had little kids partying with them (who does this??).

The worst of course where the mosquitoes, 1000s of them, there is marsh land right behind this site, maybe it was just the time we were there, but by evening we could not open the door of our motorhome without swarms of them flying in, we could not walk. We had dozens of bites by nights end.

We could not wait to pack up and leave. We went to seashell beach for the rest of the next day