New Brighton State Beach

Flush toilet / water available / bathroom sink / shower available / table / fire pit / easy access / middle shade.

Location is super nice: just above the sea! You can have a walk on the beach direclty from the campground, enjoy nice sunset. The sites lack a little privacy. If you want a site close to the sea, with a view - frontline sites - it will be more expansive. Sanitaries are clean, but old. Hot showers run on quarters. There are lots of woods on the beach, if you want to make a fire with, choose really-really dry ones, otherwhise it will be more smoke than fire ;).
We stayed there mid-May, it was really wet.

We wanted to stay 3 nights but got only space for 2.You have to go through a complicate procedure a combination of showing up in the morning to get on the waiting list and beeing there personally at 10 to 2. How strange! The spot is nice with clean showers (run on quarters) and restrooms. The highlight of course is the beach access down a short hiking path. Stuff is not very helpful.

As others have stated, this place feels like the last time a landscaper came by was a few years ago. The growth can heavily influence the view from some of the premium sites like ours. 76 had a better view than ours or was at least less affected by the growth. Ironically, the day we were leaving the camp host was weed-eating his own site... The staff were friendly to us but we showed up on time. We did notice a few RVs waiting in the beach parking lot for check-in. The sites were paved but some were quite a bit unlevel -- ours was fine. The restrooms were clean and had flush toilets and showers. Multiple dump stations onsite made departure easier. We didn't have any problems with noise other than the occasional generator during normal times. We did have a few people walk through our site to see our view. Being on a bluff has a good view of the ocean and the Monterey peninsula. Is it worth 50$? With no hookups, I was a bit disappointed and given the vacancy while we were there, mid-April, others apparently feel the same way. I prefer Francis Beach way further north in Half Moon Bay for the same price way more than NBSB. Don't think I'll be back for the the premium lots but I could stay here as a pass-through stop as a lot of other people appeared to do.

Don't know how we got a reservation for this spot but we stayed in site 078 on 1/6-11/2019,
beautiful view but with some down falls, since your camp is on the bluff with a great view other campers have no respect for you campsite as the walk through trying to get to see the ocean. Its not the new campers its old geezers that don't respect camping edict. The park it self was okay at best, the state of California does a terrible job maintaining anything and the State park system is a prime example of that. Our site was decent but is old and dirty too, if this were a privately owned site I give it 1 star. They have some stupid rules too, one is, check in is at 2pm so don't show up at 1:58 pm expecting to get in because they wont let you. I go back but its not like a must $50 + $8 reservation fee for no hook-ups is pretty high, the beach access is terrible as well. The park has huge potential but its State of California owned so don't expect it to ever get better

I had high hopes for this place due to its close prioximty to town, but that faded quickly before we were able to get a site. The young girl and guy at the kiosk told me that they indeed had sites available, but they were unable to allow me into the park to pick the site of my choice. They advised that I could take the “5-minute” walk into the park through the woods, but before I could do that, I had to transcribe the list of available sites onto a map that they reluctantly decided to give to me. After a 10-minute walk through the woods, over railroad tracks, and up 2 reasonably steep hills, I found the beginning of the campground. I spent another 10 minutes walking the paved roads looking at the sites, and the another 10 minutes back to the kiosk only to learn that they “had just given away” the site that I had picked. For what it’s worth, the other sites that were available were all shared parking sites and were essentially on top of one another, so I did not find an acceptable 2nd choice. When the young girl asked me if I’d like to pick another site, I politely said that I wasn’t interested. And before I turned and walked away, I recommended to her that they needed to improve their process of allowing people into the park to view available sites. Shockingly, she agreed. Don’t stay here. The sites are not all that great and the people that work here are not very helpful. For what it’s worth, we backtracked south and stayed at Sunset Beach State Park. Much nicer sites and much better check-in process.

We had stayed in quite a few different CA state parks and this one was ok. The sites are a little bit tight and glasses are overgrown. They had us to be put on waiting list and check in again at 2pm to get out spot even though there are open spots already. Even you have reservation and you also have to wait to check in until 2pm .

The access to the beach is a little bit far away from the camp ground by feet.

I had this on my list of places I must camp since this campground is rated a 10 in Tom Stienstra RV Camping books. Well, I wouldn't call this campground a 10. But I will say, if one is looking for a place to stay close to Santa Cruz then this is a great location. I prefer camping away from towns and cities. Check-in was simple and easy, and staff was very friendly and helpful. There is freeway noise for sites away from the ocean bluff. All sites looked spacious. Site 98 was mostly private due to high growth shrubs on the perimeter of the site. Beach is ok, seen nicer beaches. There are numerous wonderful places to go hiking in the Aptos hills, Byrne Milliron Forest and Forest of Nisene Marks State Park, for those that are looking for more than city life and beach.

This was a great state park in the heart of the Central Coast. We visitied Pebble Beach, Monterey, Santa Cruz, and enjoyed the state park, too. Everything was within an hour and the fellow campers were great. The cliffs and big trees were amazing. It was the perfect setting for a campground. We didn’t use the bathrooms so I can’t comment but the bathhouse looked newer. All in all, an excellent campground and location.

Stayed here for two weeks, 1st week in site #94 (3.5/5), then 2nd week in premium site #76 (5/5). 1st site was nothing special but spacious and quiet during the week as the non-premium sites are not often full during the winter months, and it backs onto the electric hookup sites so there's no generators abound (other than my own). 2nd site was incredible - arguably the best in the campground as it is closest to the bluffs and has the most open view. You'll need to book this the second it's available, 6 months in advance.

New Brighton is fantastically located, with easy access to redwood and coastal trails, great restaurants nearby, Whole Foods, Trader Joes, and only a short jaunt into Silicon Valley. We also took a day trip out to Pinnacles N.P. - highly recommend!

Verizon coverage is decent, though at times slow. No dropped connections like with many other coastal campgrounds though, so Verizon seems to be working more reliably here. Very usable for teleconferencing with a booster.

Birds aplenty here! There are also several stray cats, and while most of them run away at the first sign of a human, one of them was very friendly and we had considered adopting it. Unfortunately the cat seemed to much prefer the outdoors to the indoors and it didn't want to stay.