Trip · 3-day camping trip
For · Friends and new campers
Vibe · Relaxing and chill
Reservations · Yes, book a site at North Beach Campground
Drive · 3.5 hours from LA
Ideal dates · May to September
Pets · Welcome at camp, the beach and trails, but not in Pismo Dune Preserve and Oso Flaco Lake
Pismo State Beach (PSB) neighbors Oceano Dunes State Vehicle Recreation Area (SVRA), the only drivable beach in the country, but that's ending by 2024. The sand dunes will stay though, which is one of Pismo's many natural gems. Another is that from November to February, one of the largest Western Monarch Butterfly populations flock to Pismo SB's Monarch Butterfly Grove. This park is butterfly and Bewilder approved.
Main image credit: N/A
Each campsite comes with a:
Pismo State Beach has two campgrounds: North Beach and Oceano. They both have showers (token-operated), restrooms, drinking water, and firewood available on site, but North Beach is closer to the beach whereas Oceano is about a quarter-mile walk to the ocean. At North Beach., you're only a mile away from downtown Pismo, and if you visit between November to February you'll likely see Western Monarch Butterflies migrating to Pismo SB's Monarch Butterfly Grove.
Check-in: After 2 PM · Check-out: Before noon
Nightly Rate: $25
Pismo SB became a state park in 1934, and its sand dunes attracted mystics, artists, and philosophers called The Dunites. For real.
For more than 10,000 years, the Northern Chumash people lived along the coast and Pismo's sand dunes
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The name Pismo comes from the Chumash language word for tar, or pismu, which was gathered from tar springs near Pismo Beach
