Indianola Beach Park Dispersed Camping

We arrived on a Saturday and find a spot just next to the water. Been a weekend there were several day users and lot of people that come to fish from shore.
No services here but certain sites have covered picnic areas with tables and bbq grills. We stayed in the open just next to a tiny beach. Traffic Emma’s moderate as the sites are close to the paved road. In the evening it was quite. Like many places by the water mosquitoes are here .

My husband, pup, and I stayed for 3 days (December 24th - 27th, 2022) in our Mercedes Sprinter-based Class B RV/campervan. We had originally intended to spend a week camping on the beach at Padre Island National Seashore, but the beaches were closed to only 4WD vehicles due to a recent storm, so in scouting alternate locations before we arrived, this location jumped out since it was parking very near the beach/water but not on the sand to avoid any potential issues with getting stuck. We loved having such easy access with level parking, as well as the convenience of a shaded picnic ramada and trash service. While there was not much if any trash around, the beach itself was not the nicest as it was fairly narrow and very shelled - as other reviewers have stated you definitely want to wear shoes to protect your feet. This was a perfectly peaceful place for us to enjoy Christmas and wait out the arctic blast hitting most of the rest of the country. There were beautiful sunrises and sunsets and it was neat watching the barges and other boats that occasionally passed by. We were really glad we found this gem as we had it completely to ourselves throughout our entire stay. While there were no other campers, there were a few day-use visitors and some did let their dogs off-leash, so, as always, we were very careful that our pup couldn't get loose. The only real negative is that my husband reported that the bathroom was literally the worst he had ever seen. He stated the men's room had no doors and that ever single toilet was beyond overflowed with feces. He said it looked like a murder scene and was definitely worse that what he imagined a prison bathroom would be like. We have an onboard bathroom, so not the end of the world, but if the bathrooms had been use-able we might have stayed longer but 3 days is about our limit with our small black tank. No one bothered us until right before 5pm on the 3rd night when someone from the city came to give us a permit. Based on the dates on the permit, they clearly knew we had been there over the holiday weekend and when I mentioned that to my husband he said that he had seen that they monitor the area with cameras so I suppose that's a good thing for safety. On our way out of the area, we scoped some of the other free camping areas. While some of them were definitely closer to the water and some even had big bathhouses, they were much more crowded, so for our purposes, we were glad we picked this location for the quiet and privacy it offered.

This is just a parking strip along the beach. There are covered picnic tables and garbage cans although the signs say pack in, pack out. Dry camping, no restrooms, water (that we saw) or any other services. 14 day limit according to the sign, no permit required.

It was lovely quiet, we were there midweek and were the only ones there. The road is not heavily travelled. Great cell reception, even pulled in local TV channels. Marina is 4 miles in one direction, gas and a convenience store is 2.5 in the other direction.

Worst thing about this place was the incessant wind inherent to the Gulf. We would have stayed two nights but the wind made it hard to fish.