Family campgrounds in Santa Cruz: which one fits your trip

Start with how much driving you are willing to do, because most of the family campgrounds that come up in Santa Cruz searches are not in Santa Cruz. The Santa Cruz / Monterey Bay KOA is down San Andreas Road in Watsonville. Santa Cruz Redwoods RV Resort, Cotillion Gardens and Smithwoods are in Felton, up Highway 9 in the San Lorenzo Valley. Santa Cruz Ranch is in Scotts Valley. Those campgrounds have the amenities. From the Felton parks a beach day means Graham Hill Road or Highway 9 into town, from Scotts Valley it means Highway 17, and from the KOA it means Highway 1. It usually also means a paid lot and carrying the cooler and the boogie boards from the car to the sand and back.

If you tow to Felton, read the route note first. Santa Cruz Redwoods RV Resort says on its own site that Highway 9 north from Santa Cruz is not a recommended route for RVs and trailers, and it directs rigs to Mount Hermon Road from Highway 17 or Graham Hill Road from Santa Cruz instead. Our approach is flat, off Highway 1, and does not involve towing up Highway 9. Arriving from the north or east still means Highway 17 or Highway 1 whichever park you book.

Then check your rig against the posted limits, because the coastal state beaches post short caps. New Brighton State Beach in Capitola posts a 36-foot maximum for trailers and a 36-foot maximum for campers and motorhomes, and that is the park ceiling rather than a promise about any given site, since many individual sites are posted shorter. Sunset State Beach in Watsonville posts 31 feet for both. Henry Cowell's Graham Hill campground, the state campground in the redwoods, posts 31 feet for trailers and 35 feet for motorhomes. Manresa Uplands is "tents only, no RVs" in State Parks' own words. If you tow more than 36 feet, the state beaches are off your list. Our RV-only rundown of the same limits is in the guide to RV overnight parking in Santa Cruz.

Hookups are the second thing to check. No open state campground in Santa Cruz County lists a full-hookup site. New Brighton has 11 RV hookup sites out of more than 100. State Parks does not list sewer at any of them and directs RVs to the campground dump station, which collects a fee through an automated system. Sunset and Graham Hill list no hookups at all, which puts you on tanks, battery and propane for the whole stay. With kids, showers and a week of dishes fill the tanks fast.

Last, the booking systems are not the same. State campgrounds book through ReserveCalifornia on a rolling six-month window, with new arrival dates releasing at 8 a.m. Pacific six months to the day ahead. For a Fourth of July arrival that means January 4 at 8 a.m. Pacific, so be logged in with a payment method saved before the window opens. For arrival dates from July 1, 2026, State Parks charges an $8.25 fee to cancel or to modify, allows a maximum of two modifications made at least 48 hours before arrival, treats you as a no-show with all fees forfeited if you have not arrived or called by noon the day after your start date, and caps most parks at 30 nights per customer per calendar year. Private parks book direct. The harbor's RV spaces book through Campspot up to 180 days out, with a seven-night maximum and self-contained RVs only.

If you want cabins, book the Santa Cruz / Monterey Bay KOA in Watsonville, (831) 722-0551. It runs year-round with tent sites, full-hookup RV sites and a range of cabins, including camping cabins, deluxe cabins with a full kitchen and private bathroom, Airstreams, glamping cabins and yurts. On the property there is a pool and hot tub, a playground, a pet park, a camp store, laundry and a dump station. Call to confirm which cabin types are open for your dates and what each one includes. Cotillion Gardens RV Park in Felton has five cabins, two of them facing the river, alongside 80 RV sites, four tent sites, and a heated pool and spa open May through October. Beach RV Pleasure Point has no cabins and no rentals of any kind. Every cabin near Santa Cruz is inland, in Felton or Watsonville, so a beach day from one is a drive. The trade-off is in the table above.

If you want a pool, that means a private park. The KOA has a pool and a hot tub. Santa Cruz Ranch RV Resort in Scotts Valley has a heated pool and a hot tub. Cotillion Gardens has a heated pool open May through October only. No state campground in the county has a pool, and neither do we.

There is also a public pool a few minutes from the park. Simpkins Family Swim Center on 17th Avenue is run by County Parks and is open year-round. It has a 50-meter lap pool kept at 78 degrees, a warm-water pool kept at 88 degrees with a zero-depth entry and a ramp, a water slide and a spray-zone play area. The county lists recreation swim as a summer program, so check the county page for the current schedule and admission before you drive over.

If you want to pitch a tent, the state beaches and the redwoods campground take tents. New Brighton has more than 100 developed sites on a wooded bluff above Monterey Bay, with restrooms and showers and beach access from the park. Sunset has family campsites behind the dunes with no hookups listed, plus restrooms and showers. Manresa Uplands is walk-in tent camping on the bluff, over 60 sites, open mid-May through October. Beach access there is by stairway, and park-partner sources put it at roughly 175 steps down and the same back up, carrying gear. State Parks does not publish a step count. Henry Cowell's Graham Hill campground is 20 minutes inland at state-park rates, with 107 sites in the redwoods and no hookups listed. It had a repair closure in 2025, so confirm the current season before you plan around it.

You cannot tent camp at Beach RV Pleasure Point. You also cannot camp on the sand at the county beachfronts, which are open sunrise to sunset. The full coastal rundown, including rig limits and what closed at Seacliff, is in our Santa Cruz beach camping guide. The state beach campgrounds are on the bluff or behind the dunes, not on the sand.

Beach RV Pleasure Point is sixteen full-hookup sites on Portola Drive, the only RV park in Pleasure Point. Water, power and sewer at every site, rigs up to 43 feet, owner-operated, pet-friendly with a policy. The beach is a nine-minute walk. The surf at The Hook and The Point is a twelve-minute walk. Capitola is a five-minute drive or roughly a ten-minute bike ride. You park the RV once and leave it parked.

What we do not have: we are RV only, with no tent sites, no cabins and no rentals. No pool, no clubhouse and no playground. Sixteen sites on a compact lot, so sites sit close together. Rigs over 43 feet do not fit. There is no gate, and the park is on Portola Drive, so if you want a gated property with a play area inside it, book elsewhere.

We are also not on the sand. The nine-minute walk is a neighborhood walk and it takes longer with a stroller and a cooler. For the rest of what is and is not at the park, including restrooms, laundry and whether you can have a fire, see our sixteen sites and the park policies, or call us and ask. If you want a pool, book the KOA. If you want to walk to the beach, book here.

For playgrounds, the closest ones are public parks. Jade Street Park in Capitola has a playground, restrooms, tennis and basketball courts and playing fields. Jose Avenue County Park in Live Oak has a playground, a skate park, a basketball court, lawn and permanent restrooms.

What we do have for kids is smaller and homemade. On summer evenings we put a screen up outside and play a family movie after dark, with the fire pit going and chairs out. And the park tradition is paint-a-rock: kids paint a rock and leave it in the gardens, so every kid who stays adds one and the collection keeps growing. It is not a water slide. Families book us again anyway, and the park runs full through the season.

The Boardwalk is a 15-minute drive. There is no admission charge to walk in, and you pay per ride or buy an all-day wristband. It is open year-round on seasonal hours, and hours and prices change, so check beachboardwalk.com before you go. Redwoods are 20 minutes inland, and the Redwood Grove Loop at Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park is a 0.8-mile flat loop through a 40-acre old-growth grove. Pick up the self-guided brochure at the Visitor Center, or download the audio tour, before you start the loop, because it is not at the trailhead. Roaring Camp Railroads is next door with a steam train through the redwoods and a seasonal train down to the Boardwalk, about an hour each way. Check the return schedule before you ride that one down, because at least one departure runs one way only.

For a gray day, the Seymour Marine Discovery Center on the West Side has an aquarium, touch pools and one of the world's largest whale skeletons, and the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History is at 1305 East Cliff Drive with a touch pool and a fossil dig. Both change hours seasonally. Off-season, Natural Bridges State Beach holds the only State Monarch Preserve in California. Monarchs arrive in mid-October, late October and November are usually the best weeks to see them, and they are gone by mid-February. Natural Bridges is day use only, with no camping. The rest of the itinerary is in our guides to things to do in Santa Cruz, the best beaches in Santa Cruz and the best hikes in Santa Cruz.

City lifeguard coverage is narrow. The City of Santa Cruz posts its lifeguards over one stretch of coast, Cowell Beach to the San Lorenzo River, which covers Cowell and Main Beach. Summer coverage is Memorial Day through Labor Day, daily 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., with weekends from Easter to Memorial Day and from Labor Day through October, and hours vary with the weather. East of the river there is no City lifeguard service, and that includes the East Side beaches within walking distance of us. State Parks lifeguards do work this district and run Junior Lifeguards at Twin Lakes, Rio del Mar and Manresa in summer, but do not assume a staffed tower at a neighborhood cove. If you want your kids swimming with a guard watching, that is Cowell or Main Beach, a 15-minute drive. Confirm current coverage with the City before you count on it.

The ocean is cold in every month here. Santa Cruz sits in the 50s year-round and peaks around 59 degrees in September, because cold water wells up along this coast even in July. Plan on wading and digging rather than swimming. A rash guard or a kids' wetsuit lets them stay in the water longer. Month-by-month numbers are in our best time to visit Santa Cruz guide.

The creek mouths and lagoons are where the county posts water-quality advisories. Santa Cruz County Environmental Health permanently posts ten creeks and lagoons for impaired water quality, and the list includes the Soquel Creek mouth at Capitola Beach, Corcoran Lagoon, Moran Lagoon, the San Lorenzo River mouth, the Neary Lagoon outfall at Cowell Beach and Porter Gulch Creek at New Brighton Beach. The county's advice is to avoid swimming, wading and other direct-contact water sports where there is an advisory or a closure. Check the county's beach and water-body advisory page before you let kids into a creek mouth or a lagoon anywhere on this coast, including the ones next to us. Visit Santa Cruz County's own kid-friendly beach list puts Capitola and Cowell first for calm water, and both sit next to a posted creek mouth, so read the two together.

One note about the beach closest to us. Corcoran Lagoon Beach is county-run, open sunrise to sunset, with a seasonal portapotty and parking limited to the East Cliff Drive shoulder. The county listing shows no lifeguard, and the lagoon itself is one of the permanently posted ones above.

Budget for parking. State Parks charges $10 per vehicle for day use at Natural Bridges, New Brighton, Manresa, Sunset, Seacliff and Henry Cowell, and $9 if you are 62 or over, per the fee schedule dated June 2025 and still posted in July 2026. Prices change without notice and peak-period rates can differ, so treat $10 as the working number rather than a fixed one. Twin Lakes parking is county-managed metered and permit parking along East Cliff Drive, and Seabright is reached from City of Santa Cruz residential streets with no state lot and no state fee. Walking to the beach from the park means no day-use fee at all.

For strollers, the Henry Cowell grove loop is the flat walk inland and the East Cliff Drive path is the flattest one at the coast. It does not reach Capitola. For beach wheelchairs, the City keeps one at Tower 1 on Cowell Beach in summer, first come first served, and State Parks has reservable beach wheelchairs at several beaches in this district with advance notice. Hours and reservation lead times change, so call the program before you count on a chair. Fires and barbecues have their own rules by beach, and those are in our best beaches in Santa Cruz guide.

• The coastal state beaches cap rig length at 36 feet (New Brighton) and 31 feet (Sunset), and many individual sites are posted shorter. Check the specific site, not just the park.
• No open state campground in the county lists a full-hookup site. If you need sewer at the site, that means a private park.
• ReserveCalifornia releases new arrival dates six months to the day out at 8 a.m. Pacific. For arrivals from July 1, 2026, cancellations and modifications cost $8.25, you get two modifications with 48 hours notice, and most parks cap you at 30 nights per calendar year.
• Seacliff's campground and all of Big Basin's campgrounds are closed. Directories still list both as open.
• The water is cold year-round. Pack a rash guard or a kids' wetsuit and treat swimming as a bonus rather than the plan.
• City lifeguards cover Cowell and Main Beach only. East of the San Lorenzo River there is no City lifeguard service.
• The county permanently posts ten creek mouths and lagoons for water quality, including Soquel Creek at Capitola and Corcoran Lagoon. Check the advisory page before kids go in.
• Mornings are often gray in summer and often clear by midday, so the redwoods work in the morning and the beach after lunch.
• Day-use parking at the state beaches runs about $10 per vehicle, and walking to the beach from the park costs nothing.
• Our approach is flat, off Highway 1, with no towing up Highway 9, though arriving from the north or east still means Highway 17 or Highway 1. Directions and arrival notes are on getting here.
• We are RV only, up to 43 feet, full hookups at every site, pet-friendly with a policy, and there is no gate. Dog logistics are in our dog-friendly Santa Cruz guide. See our sixteen sites and the park policies, or call us and describe your rig and your kids' ages.