New Brighton State Beach

Cons:
-Site 52 is on a path that is not shown on the map. We would never in a million years chosen this site when we had the option of others, if we knew there was a path on it.
-you have to pay each time you dump $10- we can see this for folks not staying here. Why is this not included in the stay fee for those that are?
-loud at night on weekends way after quiet hours
-people have had coolers and generators stolen so lock your vehicles
Pros:
-location
-ocean path in the campsite

(Feb 27-March 2, 2022)
This is a very nice state campground. We had a very large site with beautiful trees, grass (could use a cut but it was late winter), and ocean views. Easy walk down to ocean. Clean restroom and shower facilities. Quiet at night. Lots of families with kids bike riding around and people walking their dogs - like camping is supposed to be. Part of the campground was not yet open, probably because it was winter. Nice ocean breezes in the afternoon and the sound of crashing waves to put you to sleep at night.

The campground is really close to Capitola and Santa Cruz, Sunset Beach, Aptos and Soquel. It is a great gateway to the seaside towns with restaurants, wine tasting, and pubs a short, easy bike away. Also, about 30 minute drive to Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park.

I hesitate to give 5 stars since there is some neglected maintenance, like most CA state park campgrounds. Even reluctant to give 4 stars because I want to keep this more of a secret!

The park needs some grounds maintenance and one of the central beach paths is gated. Exceptionally roomy sites to spread out. Premium seem overpriced and need maintenance. You’re basically paying for ocean view. Location, location, location.
Clean bathrooms, showers (bring quarters) and mellow campground. Good mix of families, seniors and other campers. Dog friendly. Lots of pups.

Our first site 84, we could see the ocean from our picnic bench.

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.