South Beach State Park — Attraction in Newport

5 stars for the camping grounds and ease of access. 2 stars for the park rangers that are completely rude and unpleasant when they speak to you.

My group has been coming to South Beach for 10 years. And it's always a great time. There is a access to the beach but be prepared for a walk to and from. If you have bikes and can transport them with you, you're going to love life. If not, and if you hate a lot of walking... Well you're going to be in for some steps.

South Beach can get cold at night, even during the middle of summer time so bring appropriate cold weather gear.

Now... My last recent trip to South Beach was insanely packed. The weekend we arrived we found the grounds completely full. Now that's not unusual but this time it was essentially over sold. We had never seen it like that before. What we eventually found out was there was a church retreat beinh held that weekend and easily more than half of the grounds was taken up by them. Now that's fine but the big issue turned out to be space and parking. Every site seemed to have 3-4 cars. Overflow parking was literally overflowed. There was no place to park our group cars (which by way were within the allowable amount per site unlike others). Eventually we stopped at the entrance booth to find an overwhelmed employee who was dealing with a line of upset visitors who all had the same problem...parking. The employee started telling people to park where they could but to be respectful and this was a result of the massive parking problem. So we did. We followed the employees directions. Late that evening a very rude ranger showed up to our site looking for those that had parked according to the discretions his own coworkers provided. He did not care to be understanding. He did not care that we were told one thing, only for him to tell us otherwise. Instead he essentially scalded not only our group but others too for doing the same thing and continued to talk down to everyone as he made his way to other sites to do the same thing.

So... South Beach is a fantastic site that is becoming a lot more popular. With that said, State Parks really needs to get a better handle on controlling the amount of people that can easily overwhelm the property. And finally, put a leash on your...

Busy place in the summer but overall it’s a great family spot.

We camped in A loop and since there is only one way in and out there was a lot of foot and car traffic.

The spaces are spacious for the most part. They have disc golf and many other activities as well as rentals to enjoy them if you forgot to bring a disc or even horse shoes.

Bathrooms are clean and plenty of fields for kids to run and trees for them to climb.

In the A loop there is a path to the beach that’s very easy to access. There is also a bike path and it’s all very clean and easy to access. The beach is compact for the most part and there were several people riding it with their bikes. The beach is a long walk ending in a jetty to the bay if you want to watch boats go through now and then.

The only reason it’s not 5 stars is simply because the beach is a tad boring (in the fact that there isn’t anything but sand) but for most people that’s perfect but for us we like rocks and ride pools to explore. But if you have kids it’s absolutely perfect, they could run for miles.

The other reason for only 4 stars is because it’s crowded with people and screaming kids having a good time. If you aren’t drinking or have a ton of screaming kids yourself it can be a bit much. Not as relaxing as some of the smaller camp grounds near by.

They cater to families and fun and we are old farts that want to explore and sleep and play cards and relax and all the screaming at 8 am sometimes can be a bit much.

Tip: the back of the park can be a little less traffic and up against the outside of the loops they are more private. The app for state parks shows you pictures of the spaces and that...

We stayed at the night here recently and loved it! The campsites were clean and well maintained. The bathrooms very clean and lightly heated which was nice as it was very cold out while we were there so not having to use a cold bathroom in the middle of the night was wonderful. It has many nice walking trails to the beach right from the camp sites. The visitor area was also maintained regularly as well as the visitor bathroom. This was one of the most well maintained parks I have been to. A quick walk over the dunes at low tide and we were able to secure ourselves a few razor clams each off the sand bar. The clamming here is not the best, we suggest going a little farther North for a slightly better chance of obtaining razors.

Firewood can be purchased at visitors center along with a few other items until 8pm. If you find you need something late at night the near by South Beach Fish Market has a convenience store attached that is open 24/7, the fish market closes around 8 I believe. The Park is located very close to the bay which is nice if you are there to harvest seafood.

The only things that were a down fall would be that the sites could use a little more shrubbery to make one feel more separate from their neighbors at some of the sites. We also had a neighbor that smoked which was not appriciated by us and a few other neighbors. I don't know if smoking is allowed at the sites but if it is it should not be and designated smoking areas should be set up. If it isn't allowed that is one thing they could uphold better. We were there to enjoy the fresh air not stale cigarette smoke. Over all wonderful stay and we will...