Camping Florida: Tent Sites, County Parks and RV-Only Resorts

October 14, 2026 · 7 min read · My FL Guide

Camping is the most mistranslated word in Florida travel. It can mean a primitive site you carry your gear into, a county spot with water and electric, or a gated resort with paved pads where the thing you park is the accommodation. Those are three different trips with three different price tags, so this list is sorted by what you actually sleep in.

Put a tent down here

This is the tent-friendly end of our camping listings.

• Burns Lake Campground, Big Cypress National Preserve (18495 Burns Rd, Ochopee). A small, remote National Park Service campground in the preserve, popular with kayakers, canoeists and birders. Reserve on Recreation.gov.
• Midway Campground, Tamiami Trail, Big Cypress National Preserve (52870 Tamiami Trl E, Ochopee). 26 shady sites for tents and RVs, with restrooms and a dump station; listed on Recreation.gov as Midway Campground (FL) when we checked on 8 October 2026.
• Monument Lake Campground, Big Cypress National Preserve (50215 Tamiami Trl E, Ochopee). 32 tent and RV sites with no hookups, on the Turner River, with fishing and canoeing off a scenic loop just off the Tamiami Trail.
• Fort Pickens Campground, Gulf Islands National Seashore (Fort Pickens Rd, Pensacola Beach). sites under live oaks, a short walk from the beach and the historic fort. Enter through the park gate on Fort Pickens Rd and check in at the ranger station; reserve on Recreation.gov.
• Elliott Key Campground, Biscayne National Park. Boat-in tent camping on the park's largest key: sites with picnic tables, grills and cold showers, reached by private boat or park canoe and kayak.
• Ichetucknee Springs Campground, Fort White (245 SW Breckenridge Ln). A private campground beside Ichetucknee Springs State Park with tent and full-hookup RV sites, and a swimming area of its own.
• Camp Mack, Lake Wales (14900 Camp Mack Rd). An old-Florida resort on the Kissimmee chain with tent and full-hookup RV camping, cabins, and a marina with boat rentals.
• Riverfront RV and Campground, Tallahassee (4748 Crooked Rd). Tent sites, full hookups and cabins on the Ochlockonee River, with a boat ramp and bank fishing steps from your site.
• Gulf Coast Camping Resort, Bonita Springs (24020 Production Cir). A family-owned park with tent camping alongside full-hookup RV sites, a lake for fishing and a pool.

The RV end of the list, which is not a tent site

Several rows in our camping set are RV parks and resorts. Our own records carry them as RV camping and hold no tent-site information for them, so treat these as RV-only unless the park itself tells you otherwise.

• Gulf Waters RV Resort, Fort Myers Beach (11201 Summerlin Square Dr). An RV resort on Summerlin Square Drive serving the Fort Myers Beach area - a short drive from the island's Gulf beaches rather than on the sand. We do not claim its site types or amenities on this card, so confirm them with the resort before you book.
• Harbor Belle RV Resort, Punta Gorda (3701 Baynard Dr). Full-hookup waterfront sites on Charlotte Harbor with dockage, a pool and on-site dining. Its own site describes it as a resort for active adults.
• Laguna Caribe RV and Motorcoach Resort, east Fort Myers (5551 Luckett Rd). Large full-hookup sites for RVs and motorcoaches in a nature-preserve setting.
• Cypress Trail RV Resort, Fort Myers (5400 Tice St). A family-owned park with full hookups, a pool and shuffleboard, close to downtown and to I-75.
• Chokoloskee RV Park, Chokoloskee (1150 Hamilton Ln). Full and partial hookup sites a short hop from the boat ramps, the Smallwood Store and Everglades National Park's Gulf Coast.
• Ocean Grove RV Resort, St Augustine Beach (4225 A1A S). Paved full-hookup sites, a pool and a boardwalk out to the sand; the sites near the dunes are the ones to ask about early.
• St. Augustine RV Resort, St. Augustine (426 Resort Wy). A full-hookup resort west of the historic district with a pool and a clubhouse, handy to I-95.
• North Beach Camp Resort, St. Augustine (4125 Coastal Hwy). Full-hookup RV sites and cabins on the north end of St. Augustine, with a pool and a short drive to Vilano Beach.
• Camping on the Gulf, Miramar Beach (10005 Emerald Coast Pkwy W). A beachfront RV resort on Scenic Gulf Drive with paved oceanfront sites and direct Gulf access.
• Aztec RV Resort, Margate (Aztec Blvd 1). A full-hookup resort in northwest Broward with a heated pool and a clubhouse; our listing carries it as 55-plus oriented.

The sites run by a public agency

Three names above sit on public land, and that changes how you book them.

• Big Cypress National Preserve, National Park Service. Burns Lake, Midway and Monument Lake are all listed on Recreation.gov, and two of the three carry no hookups at all.
• Gulf Islands National Seashore, National Park Service. Fort Pickens is the one with beach on the doorstep.
• Navarre Beach Campground, Navarre Beach. Santa Rosa County's beachside campground, sites with water and electric and some with sewer, steps from the Gulf. Book through the county's own reservation page.

What we will not invent

Where we hold a rate, it is on that campground's own card rather than in this piece - Fort Pickens, for instance, carries both electric and non-electric sites. Where we hold no rate, we say so rather than invent one. Campground pricing moves with site type, hookups and length of stay, and a figure copied off a blog, including this one, is worse than no figure at all. The real numbers live on the operator's booking page or the county's reservation page, and they are worth reading before you build a trip around them.

Everything else is a call-first detail: check the park's own page before you drive, particularly after a storm, when a Gulf-front campground can take a loop out of service without much warning.

How to choose between them

• Tent, no hookups, quiet: Burns Lake, Monument Lake or Elliott Key. Fort Pickens has non-electric sites alongside its electric and water ones.
• Tent with a real address to drive to and a shower block nearby: Ichetucknee Springs Campground, Camp Mack, Riverfront RV and Campground, Gulf Coast Camping Resort.
• RV parks and resorts: Gulf Waters, Harbor Belle, Laguna Caribe, Cypress Trail, Chokoloskee, Ocean Grove, St. Augustine RV Resort, North Beach Camp Resort, Camping on the Gulf, Aztec.
• Travelling with someone who wants a bed: Camp Mack, Riverfront RV and Campground and North Beach Camp Resort all list cabins in our data.

Whichever end of the list you pick, the sequence is the same. Decide what you are sleeping in, book the site, then plan the day around the closest water: a spring in North Florida, the Gulf in the Panhandle, or the mangroves at the edge of the Everglades.