campgrounds with hiking near bodies of water?

[Gabriel Moran]

hi guys, new here. looking to get into the outdoors more with camping/hiking however i am looking for any areas that i can reserve a campsite within the next few weeks/months that is near any decent sized body of water like the ocean or lakes or whatever. i have been google searching and i am overwhelmed by the amount of information to go through. i will have a decent sized camping/hiking group of around 4-10 people over 1 or 2 days (weekend camping/hiking), the group will be a mixed bag of hiking xp/levels from beginner to expert.

i guess this would be too much to ask but is there anything relatively close to long beach ca?

thanks in advance!

[Gabriel Moran]

dang….thought i found a gold mine as far as info. doesnt look like anyone reads/posts on these forums.

[Jeff Hester]

Sorry about that, Gabriel. I missed your first post.

There’s a lot of camping near the ocean in SoCal, though not in Long Beach.
Here are a few examples:

• Crystal Cove State Park – This is in Orange County between Newport Beach and Laguna Beach. They have car camping as well as “wilderness” campsites that you need to backpack to — though you only have to hike a few miles. All of the camping is on the east side of PCH, but the park itself crosses both sides of the highway and includes the beach.
• San Clemente State Beach – This is in south Orange County and has car camping on the bluff directly above the beach.

If you’re willing to drive, there are spots up in Venture and even further up the coast (think Big Sur). I’ve got some books on those areas — let me know and I can look up some examples.

[Author]

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