Bear Island Campground
2Heads uppark alerts
- Right now
- OpenThe agency lists it open
- A night
- $10From, per site
- Sites
- 40All of them booked ahead
- Season
- Year-roundOpen year-round
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 11 notices
In the agency’s own words
Bear Island Campground is a primitive campground located in Big Cypress National Preserve. Access to the campground is at the end of a 20-mile secondary gravel road. Located nearby are Gator Head and Pink Jeep campgrounds. Cell phone service is limited and it is highly encouraged that reservations be made in advance. Bear Island campground has 40 campsites. Campsites 1-12 are open year round. Campsites 13-40 are open August 15- April 15. The campground offers tent and RV camping. Amenities include vault toilets, fire rings, shared food storage, and picnic tables. Visitors may enjoy nearby activities such as off-road vehicle trail access, hiking, and hunting. Keep reading
Recreation
Bear Island Campground is the perfect location to enjoy much of what Big Cypress National Preserve has to offer. Visitors can enjoy nearby hiking, hunting, fishing, and off-road vehicle (ORV) trails with a permitted off-road vehicle. For information on ORV use please call 239-631-9988.Hunting and fishing regulations can be found at myfwc.com.
Facilities
Bear Island Campground is a primitive campground only accessible down a 20-mile secondary gravel road. Campsites have gravel or grass pads. It offers vault toilets, picnic tables, shared food storage, and fire rings. There is no water available.
Natural Features
The freshwaters of the Big Cypress Swamp, essential to the health of the neighboring Everglades, support the rich marine estuaries along Florida’s southwest coast. Protecting over 720,000 acres of this vast swamp, Big Cypress National Preserve contains a mixture of tropical and temperate plant communities that are home to a diversity of wildlife, including the elusive Florida Panther.
Nearby Attractions
The Bear Island Unit offers 20 plus miles of backcountry trails. Everglades City is located 30 miles south and provides dining, sight-seeing, and historical sites. Everglades National Park can also be accessed via Everglades City. Nathaniel P. Reed Visitor Center is also located 30 miles to the south. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (239) 631-9988.
What the agency tells you
Access to this campground is down a 20-mile secondary gravel road.
An off-road vehicle (ORV) permit is required for ORV use. For information on ORV use, please contact the off-road vehicle office at 239-631-9988 or visit our website at https://www.nps.gov/bicy/planyourvisit/orv-use.htm.
Prevent injury to your pets by keeping them on a leash or otherwise restrained at all times. Pets are not allowed in public buildings, on trails, in the backcountry, or on the water. Pets may not be left unattended. Pet owners are required to immediately remove and properly dispose of fecal matter deposited by their pets.
Everything else this campground posts · 8
Cash payments are not accepted at this campground. Payments must be made online. There is limited to no cell phone coverage at the campground, advance reservations are highly recommended.
No fresh water is available.
Do not feed the wildlife, including birds. This is unhealthy for wild animals and invites human/animal confrontations. Food should be properly stored.
Property left unattended longer than 24 hours will be impounded, and the campsite forfeited, regardless of whether or not it is reservable or non-reservable.
Be considerate of your fellow campers by observing quiet hours from 10:00 pm to 6:00 am. All generators must be off at 10:00 pm
Protect YOUR national preserve. Do not destroy, injure, deface, dig, collect or otherwise disturb any national preserve resources, including plants and animals (dead or alive), fossils, rocks, or artifacts. It is a violation of national preserve rules and regulations to possess natural/cultural resources. Metal detectors are not allowed in any unit of the National Park System. Please report any illegal activities to a park ranger.
Don’t Move Firewood: Help protect our forests! Prevent the spread of tree-killing pests by obtaining firewood at or near your destination and burning it onsite. Moving firewood is illegal in some states. Visit dontmovefirewood.org to learn more.
Any violations of park rules or regulations will cause a revocation of your camping permit and no refund will be given.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 40
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- VAULT TOILETS on 40 of 40 campsite records
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…shared food storage, and fire rings. There is no water available. Natural Features The freshwaters of the…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Coast
- Cell signal · Cell signal · Park Service says
- Spotty
73 of 80 site-nights open this Friday and Saturdayread 15:47 UTC
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
OpenBooked
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 13
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $10 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 5
recreation.gov availability, read 15:47 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
40 sites
All 40 sites
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 40 of the 40 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| 1 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 10 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 11 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 12 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 13 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 14 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 15 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 16 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 17 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 18 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 19 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 2 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 20 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 21 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 22 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 23 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 24 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 25 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 26 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 27 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 28 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 29 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 3 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 30 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 31 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 32 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 33 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 34 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 35 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 36 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 37 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 38 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 39 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 4 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 40 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 5 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 6 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 7 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 8 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| 9 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
25 of 40 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Pink Jeep CampgroundBig Cypress National Preserve · 0.0 mi
Monument Lake Campground7.5 mi
Midway Campground (FL)Big Cypress National Preserve · 10 mi
Burns Lake CampgroundBig Cypress National Preserve · 11 mi
Burns LakeBig Cypress National Preserve · 11 mi
Mitchell Landing CampgroundBig Cypress National Preserve · 18 miFrom Naples follow US HWY 41 east to Turner River Road. Follow Turner River Road approximately 20 miles and turn right into Bear Island Campground.
From Miami follow US HWY 41 west to Turner River Road. Follow Turner River Road approximately 20 miles and turn right into Bear Island Campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Plantation Island, FL
Typical weather
Typical October night 71°F, day 89°F.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Augusts are colder than the August line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Bear Island Campground is in Florida’s 26th congressional district. Its representative, Mario Diaz-Balart (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →
How we know
every fact on this page, and where it came from
“…nearby are Gator Head and Pink Jeep campgrounds. Cell phone service is limited and it is highly encouraged that reservations be made in…”