San Clemente State Beach - Camping Report

Background - Spur the moment

My girlfriend and I decided to go camping the day off. We usually go desert camping so we don't usually reserve anything. We didn't want to drive far so we decided on San Clemente or San Onofre. When I tried to book a camp site online I found out that you must book 2 days in advance. Bummer. Then I thought I'll call the rangers and ask them if they had any first come first serve sites. Unfortunately they never answered and my truck was already packed. The camp site was about an hour away. So we thought it wouldn't be so bad of an idea to just drive there.

Arrival

We arrived at 9:00pm Sunday 01-17-2016. We pulled up to an empty ranger station with a sign reading self check in with an arrow pointing to a machine. The machine was a parking ticket dispenser. Basically you pick your type of stay (Day Use, Tent, RV, or Over Size) and pay the amount of days you want. I paid for 1 night of "tent" camping for $35.00 dollars. Next to the machine was a list of reserved sites for the night. About 10 sights were open according to the paper. I drove past dozens of empty camp sites till we found the "unreserved" camp site #159. I didn't want to keep driving around with my loud truck so set up camp.

(Below: Picture of next morning)



About Site #159

The site was clean and well kept. It didn't have much for shade other than the patio over the picnic table. We were lucky as it was night time or gloomy during our stay. The table was a good size and it was clean. The site also had a fire ring 10-12 feet from the table so bring your own chairs so you can sit by the fire. A BBQ grill was attached to the fire ring as well as one stand alone grill off to the side. The site was about 50 feet or less from the bathroom and showers.

Amenities

Patrols came by very often but never approached our site. The bathrooms and showers were very clean and well kept. I was expecting the bathrooms to stink but they smelled of cleaner. I even saw them doing their cleaning the next morning and was quite impressed with their scrub down. The walk down the the beach was steep but it was paved to fit a car. The walk to the beach took about 10 mins or so. The beach was clean and the view was amazing. Simply a great way to wake up in the morning.



Sorry for the lack of pictures. I had left my DSLR Canon at home and my phone was dying. For a quick camping fix this place is great. I wish I knew how to surf maybe it would be even better. Yelp reviews didn't help me at all with planning a last minute trip. I thought I would share my experience for anyone that needs their camping fix.

-SafetyDang