Henderson Beach State Park — Attraction in Destin

Amazing place. Loved it. Camping was great with camp site so cute that I felt we were on a film set. And of course the beach was fabulous. Easy camping - gravel sites have sturdy large picnic tables and bbq pits. Easily wide enough for slide outs and we had no problems parking RV and tow. We were in 3 different sites and the walk to the bathhouse was never longer than a minute on a level, smooth asphalt road. The dump station was easy to use, very clean and pull through from both directions. Rangers were very nice and offered the beach wheelchair when I asked about handicapped access to the beach. Camp hosts were helpful, but not quite as friendly. One of them expressed her irritation when I stopped to talk to her 15 minutes before we were due to leave our site. Even when I said we were ready to go she continued to reiterate we had to be out in 15 minutes. Stridently. And then followed us to hide behind bushes next door to wait for us to leave…. Tips: campgrounds and baths easily accessed with short walks and with wheelchairs. The regular showers did not have grab bars and were narrow. Family showers have room for a wheelchair and have grab bars. We had a few short waits to access these rooms. (Benches are provided outside along with laundry facilities) There are no shower chairs under the water - a bench is provided away from the water in all showers - so one must stand or bring your own chair to shower. (The beach wheelchair may fit - we didn’t think to try it!) The beach wheelchair is very cool and the rangers thoughtfully brought it to our site. We used it once and returned it. For us it was easier to drive to the furthest parking lot, park in handicap parking and take the very short walk to the beach rather than maneuver the beach wheelchair through the long camping walkway to the beach. The Ranger did warn us it wasn’t easy to use the beach chair on harder services, but we couldn’t figure out any other way to use the beach chair as it’s too bulky to be able to put it in the back of the car and take it to the beach. So the first day we took the wheelchair from our campsite through the camping walkway over the dunes to the beach. It was an adventure. I would not recommend doing this unless the person pushing the wheelchair is fit. The dunes are high and the walk is at times a little steep - both up and down. The beach wheelchair steers like a cinder block and while it provided hilarity, we decided not to try it again. In addition, the beach chair worked really well on the more packed sand, but once the sand became looser, it was a struggle. There are fabric walkways into the sand to allow access to the beach, but they stop on very soft deep sand and the wheelchair was not happy about this. All in all it was a wonderful trip, but involves some effort to access the beach if someone in your party has mobility issues. We managed it by taking it slow, and using handicapped parking, handicapped walkways and handicapped beach access to limit the amount of walking. We also made certain to have everything we might need with us when we left the car for the beach. The sand is wonderfully white and soft but very difficult to walk in if you have mobility problems. We were glad we did it and we will do it again. Just takes a...

We camped here for a week. It is a fantastic campground. There were only 2 things I would've changed.

1st - the boardwalk for campers to walk to the beach was closed. We had to drive down to the area where the public accessed the beach and it was NOT ideal. If we wanted to be in an area that wasn't as populated, we had to walk a LONG ways. I understand that the boardwalk needed repairs, but it was an inconvenience for sure. Since you HAVE to book this place 11 months in advance, I couldn't just change my reservation.

2nd - the bath house was closed daily between 9-10 AM for cleaning. I totally get needing to clean the restrooms, but the timing was less than ideal. We had three tween girls with us and they typically woke up right around the 9:00 hour.... and would have to wait an hour to go to the bathroom. So, this wouldn't affect those campers that had bathrooms in their camper/RV, but those of us without bathrooms or tent campers would be out of luck for an hour.

Now that we have the negative out of the way...

The sites are all super private. The foliage provided excellent seclusion. There were times I would forget that we were camping around other people.

There were very few sites that I felt were small. We stayed in site 50 on loop D. I only saw maybe 2 sites that I wouldn't stay in due to the size. Our site held 2 vehicles, an 18 ft travel trailer, a canopy over the picnic table, and 7 chairs set up spaciously around the camp fire. Most sites are that big.

Almost every site I saw had a place to hang clothes to dry. It was a nice feature.

There's nature galore! From squirrels to geckos.... we saw it all. Lots of birds, tiny mammals, reptiles, and amphibians. The kiddos will enjoy trying to catch the frogs and lizards.

When you camp at the state park, you get exclusive access to the beach in the early morning and at night! You'll feel like you've got a private beach, just about!

Since the public has to pay to get in, the beach also isn't overly crowded during the day. It's still crowded. Just not packed to the point where you have to walk a mile to put up your umbrella. Or at least it was that way when we went.

The campground has wifi. I've seen some reviews saying they don't get the wifi, but I got it out in loop D. I was able to work a little, when necessary.

All in all, I'd camp here again, but only once the boardwalk...

CHANGED OUR WEDDING SITE THE DAY BEFORE THE WEDDING WHICH WAS A NIGHTMARE!

The only reason this got 2 stars is because it’s probably the best place to get married in Destin primarily because alcohol is not allowed on the beach and it is soo beautiful.

Keep in mind if you get married on this beach, you cannot use rose petals for the flower girl and they won’t tell you this until you’ve already booked. In fact, the only thing that the flower girl can throw are these small starfish that Henderson state beach park sells and you can’t buy anything you have to buy it from them and it’s $30 for a bag of them. What a buzz kill.

The event manager Angela is absolutely impossible to get a hold of - I spent two weeks calling and leaving voicemails for her and she was replying by email which I I still don’t understand why because I was asking for her to call me. Our wedding company told us that we needed to buy a back up pavilion for our event just in case of rain and Angela recommended that we not pay and that we would “figure it out” in the chance of rain. I did not feel comfortable with that because we were paying six months in advance, and I knew that I wanted the center boardwalk for our event. even though we paid in advance the day before the wedding, she didn’t talk to us she called us and left us a voicemail saying that she decided to switch our wedding to a smaller portion of the beach that’s further away from the bathrooms because she wanted to put a “someone else” at the main boardwalk ((I have to assume it was a birthday party because there were no other weddings that day from my understanding)) which really pissed me off. I wound up calling my wedding company, Gulf Beach Weddings, and luckily they were able to take care of it but that put me under so much stress on one of the most stressful days before the wedding. I cannot stress this enough they need to have a better process or a better manager. Regardless, We had a beautiful wedding there - just because it’s there. No thanks to the staff or the process at all. Keep in mind we paid $975 for the beach wedding and $150 for for the pavilion in January and then we got...