Fort De Soto Park Campground

The waterfront sites at this park are my favorite place to camp. You can kayak right from your site. Ours was a great size and private. Camp store has bikes and fire pits for rent. There is also a bike/kayak/paddle board rental location closer to the beach. I spent one day kayaking and it was a beautiful trip. St. Pete has lots to do when you are looking for time away from the campsite. Downtown is worth a visit. There are several museums including the Chihuly, which was amazing, and a few cute shops and restaurants.

We were able to snag a 14 days in the same site while at De Soto - a true feat! Especially since we did it by snagging a cancellation only 3 weeks before arrival. It wasn't 'the best' site in the park... but I would argue that there isn't a bad site in the park - there are just 'super amazing', 'amazing', 'sweet', and 'better than a site in another park' sites. Our site backed up to the bathroom, had a view of an inlet out the back, and the playground off to the side. The bathroom offers 3 showers with awesome pressure and amazingly hot water and several toilets. Outside of each restroom a washer and dryer are available for use - $1.75 per wash, $1.75 per dry.

Fort De Soto offers 10% of their sites in a pseudo 'walk-in' fashion. While you no longer have to wait in line in front of the camp office to try and reserve a walk-in camp site (yes, this used to a thing on Friday mornings), you will need to wait until a Friday morning at 7am (East Coast Time) to snag a walk-in site. 10% of campsites in the park become available every Friday morning at 7 a.m. and can be secured online beginning at 7 a.m. Any remaining sites can be secured in person at the Camp Office after 9 a.m. These hold back sites can be reserved up to 7 days. Also, you can reserve a site for any date within the coming 7 days from a Friday - it doesn't have to be consecutive from that Friday date. And, these hold back sites are sometimes the best sites in the park! We heard rumor that within the next few months, Fort De Soto may be changing their walk-in policies again (to none?) so do check before banking on scoring a walk-in spot.

As a big rig, driving through the camping loop was a bit 'hairy'. We brushed several palm leaves. Backing into our site took some doing - but with some patience and two tries, we were able to get in. We acted as 'eyes and direction' for another solo bigger rigger later in the week - our advice is that if you're solo or uncomfortable with tight back in situations - hunt down someone who has a big rig and ask for their assistance.

Our opinion points to the 'best of the best' sites being in the 'no pets' loop in Area 3.

The running/exploring here is awesome. A paved trail running the length of the Isle and several sandy road trails near the beach. Or just running on the beach. Which is covered with starfish, conch shells, and other ocean gems.

The major drawback of Fort De Soto is that every time you leave... you have to pay at least one (likely two) tolls to get back in.

Fort de Soto is one of the best campgrounds we've stayed in. The sites are large and filled with trees and palms. We were lucky enough to get a water view site for easy fishing, watching the birds, and beautiful sunsets. The trees were perfect for a hammock and a fire in the evening was really nice. We loved the bike path to the beach and fort. Our dog, Etta, loved the huge dog park for little dogs and the very nice dog beach. The drive into St. Petersburg is easy. We also booked a pontoon tour of shell key where we saw dolphins and found several sand dollars. This is a great area and I highly recommend Fort de Soto. It fills up early. We booked the day reservations opened.

We had a great two nights (an October Sunday and Monday night) in site 13 (tent/small camper area) immediately on the water. Close to clean restroom/showers, friendly check in and camp store staff. The overall park is huge and we were glad to have our bikes. Quite a variety of things to do: fishing, kayaking, biking, swimming, self guided fort tour, ferry launch to Egmont Key. The campground was exceptionally quiet and mostly empty. We had beautiful breezes off the water and while we had a little rain, the course sand/pebble footing of the campsites drained well.

The fee sounds high but it gets you parking pass for all the beaches and access to the fishing peer which you don’t have to have a license because they purchased a peer license. So in reality it is a good deal the park is quiet the staff were friendly water side spots are very nice. Had a visit from the neighborhood trash panda but that was enjoyable!

Were blessed to get in here by booking on a Friday morning when they put up the 10% that is held back for Fridays - sites situated around outer edge of a peninsula with some pull-thrus in the middle - lots of palm trees and foliage for privacy and give it a tropical jungle-like feeling - very nicely maintained with easily accessible bathhouses with washer and dryers at each bathhouse - water and electric - would be a 10 on a scale of 1-10 if they had sewer too; however the dump was easily accessible also - we kayaked right off the back of our site and saw several others daily doing the same thing - North Beach was beautiful and visiting the pier and old fort and museum were interesting - nice seafood restaurant Billy's Stone Crab within a mile was very good -

I was so happy to find a last minute site here, all the state parks on the west coast were booked. Our site was in the tent/pop-up/van section. Online it says only room for sixteen feet, not true, I think many of these spots could actually fit the length of an RV, just not the height it width. Our site, 29, was in the middle, but an easy walk to the outside to watch the sunset. No fire rings, but there was a grill for charcoal.

Overall, site and location of campground was five stars, but the shower was so crappy I can't even believe it, especially for the price we paid. The water was a trickle. Couldn't even wash my hair. Really disappointing, especially since we were in the tent area, where obviously people don't have their own shower with them. No doors for the showers, just curtains and you have to hang your towel and clothes outside in the open area.

Not a place I would stay for more than a day.

We loved this park of which the campground is a good base.

Camp Sites: The outside sites were spacious with lots of trees and foliage between creating a private environment. The sites within a circle were a combo but we saw only 3 that were too open. We had site 80 which I would not recommend for class B or C camper vans due to a palm tree in the driveway opening. I would recommend the beach sites for sunsets but the wind on these is very cold in Jan. Site 80 was on the other side and wind was not an issue.

Bath Houses: very clean, well lit and the hottest water I have ever experienced around mid afternoon. My only negative was there was really no place to change clothes privately in our particular bath house. They were not all like this. The washer and dryers worked well.

Loved that pets were in an area that we were not.

The biking is wonderful with 6-8 miles of very well maintained paved paths that include 2 beaches and a historic fort. We were here in Jan so we missed the crowds.