Oceano Campground - Pismo State Beach — Attraction in Grover Beach

Very close to the beach, family and pet friendly. If you are tent camping I would invest in waterproof fly or a tarp because marine moisture will make everything wet. Bug spray recommended for this campground also. (It's probably better suited for RV's but you can do both). Books early and books fast, and like all California campgrounds, is not free or cheap(by camping standards). They have an online booking system now so know before you go. They allowed fires for 2017, contained in the rings, though people had some beach fires going. This is not a campground on the sand, a small dune separates it, but that dune offers a bit of small protection and barrier to the beach, and you can leave your car parked there without having to pay extra for the beach lot. There is a small convenience store a block away, and you can buy wood on-site. I am not a local to SLO county but oceano/pismo/grover beach all seemed to be Pismo Beach, but are named so you can locate where you are(like Pismo Beach "downtown" is at the North end, Grover beach is central and I believe Oceano is the southern end of Pismo Beach). Been to many California beaches, softest sand I've ever felt. This is also the only beach I have ever seen that you can drive your vehicle or OHV right on the beach(they have restrictions on when/where, the best people to ask are lifeguards), and they rent out buggy's every day. Make sure your vehicle is tall enough though, because the sand is so fine, smaller cars will get stuck and lifeguards are prohibited from towing...

Booked 2 nights, Friday and Saturday. Left on Saturday. We had site 43 in the tent camping area. Site was nice, corner at the entrance abutting the natural area but the campground is a free for all. Arrived around 3pm, went directly to the site, no one at the kiosk. Two minutes later a EV ranger vehicle pulled up to give us our reservation tag, great - easy. First major annoyance, there was a huge 20-25 group of campers in 2 middle sites of the campground (like site 60/61) playing music from a massive 2x4’ speaker so the entire campground can hear - like I’m in a club. Then start a karaoke bs nightmare, singing was gawd awful. This 4:30pm. I kindly ask the ranger what are rules/regulations, he provides and says call the “rangers” if there is an issue - you are a ranger but you mean the the ones with law enforcement rights aka police type? Got it. I don’t call bc about 10mins later we see a police type ranger drive through and not address the obnoxious behavior. What? Turns out their “yard” is at the back of our campground. Lots of rangers who did absolutely ZERO. Neighbors left before us Saturday, they bailed our before we got up at 8am (yes, we had a van and could shut off the BS) but they were in a tent and has to endure the loud party. We ventured down to El Capitan SP where the rangers, hosts and campers had a lot more respect for the rules and camping experience. Never would book at this location again. Rangers need...

Nice grounds. Pretty clean although no paper towel or soap dispensers in the bathroom. Unfortunately the staff is VERY serious about their vehicle restrictions. 3 vehicles per site (towing a camper = 2 vehicles) and they MUST be in the correctly numbered spot or you could risk being ticketed at MIDNIGHT while you sleep - they also have to be COMPLETELY within the cement parking area for the site. This is after they refused to let people in to drop off gear if there were already 3 vehicles in the site. We had a large group and were spread over 3 sites a fair distance apart, which caused us to have to go to the gate to swap tags around once everyone chose which site they were staying in. One vehicle in our party was given a $70+ ticket for having her vehicle off the cement while they were in the process of unloading firewood. Parks Service patrols CONSTANTLY. Apparently there has been a problem with vagrants in the past & that really wasn't an issue, but our group will find a more welcoming place to stay in the future. In the camping area there are 2 restroom buildings with 4 token operated warm water showers. Most sites had Table, Fire pit, and a Pantry with slide bolt to keep out racoons. We did have a racoon try to get into our food that was left out. Would have been a fine place, except for overzealous staff and an expensive ticket given in lieu of a request to move, since they were in the back of the vehicle...