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National Park Service · Gulf Islands National Seashore · FL

Fort Pickens Group Campground

5Heads uppark alerts, one naming this campground
Caution
Rip Current Status Review rip current status prior to visiting the park.
Park Closure
Hurricane Isaias Closures Florida All of the areas are closed until further notice. Fort Pickens Area and Fort Pickens Campground Okaloosa Area Santa Rosa Area (Opal Beach) Naval Live Oaks Area
Information
Accessing Fort Barrancas Fort Barrancas is open 9 am–4 pm Wednesday through Sunday. To access Fort Barrancas, visitors will need to enter the Naval Air station Pensacola through the west gate.
Caution
Road workers on Park Road in Davis Bayou Phase II of the Davis Bayou Bicycle and Pedestrian Path is in process. Visitors may encounter minor traffic delays and flaggers on Eagle Point and Park Road.
Park Closure
Battery 234 Loop Road Closure The Battery 234 Loop Road and Battery Cooper within the GUIS, Fort Pickens Management Area will be closed to all for vehicle, bicyclists, and foot (pedestrian) traffic until further notice for safety purposes until the park can correct the…
Alerts: National Park Service alerts API · Oct 17, 2026
First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: the sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

Get directions
Right now
Hurricane Isaias Closures FloridaPark Closure naming this campground · nobody has said
Photos · NPS Photo / Kiss, National Park Service
10 ftElevation
3,000 ftWater · an unnamed streamOcean · 1,304 ft · to the Gulf of Mexico
1.6 miSE of Pensacola Station, FL
17%Tree cover
Bortle 5Night sky · 52nd darkest of 60 in FL

The place

the agency’s own description

In the agency’s own words

Group site is available with a permit for a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 40 occupants. Campground limited to soft-side on-the-ground tents only. Group area does not allow generators, trailers, pickup campers, RVs or any type of camping equipment. Persons camping in the group area are limited to the facilities (showers and restrooms) in the group area only. Entrance fee still applies.

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

Nothing to book, just show up

One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.

recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.

BookingNo reservationsNothing to book, and no release date to wait forthe agency’s record
Runs itNational Park Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 3

What you actually pay

The sign priceNational Park Service
The National Park Service publishes no per-night rate for this campground that we can read, so there’s no sign price to print. That’s a gap in the record, not a free campground.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
What a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s no total to show.
How we know this receipt · 4
Booking fee, change fee, cancellation fee, no-show: Rules and Reservation Policies, Recreation.gov, the published fee schedule, curated by hand into lib/reservation-fee-schedule.json (9 rows, each carrying its own verbatim sentence). The publisher states these policies were last updated September 2019. · Sep 9, 2026
The two totals: Derived by CAMPANAC by adding the agency’s own published nightly rate to recreation.gov’s own published reservation fee. Both components are cited above; the addition is ours and is shown only where every component is known. · Sep 9, 2026
Who keeps the booking fee: Recreation.gov facility policy text, Dead Swede Campground (facility 234221) · Not on the national policy page. This is agency policy text recreation.gov publishes on individual campground pages; this site holds it verbatim on 45 active campgrounds (campground_rules.cancellation_description, scripts/load-facility-rules.mjs). · Sep 9, 2026
The contract: Reservation Gods: Who Stole Our Campsites and Sold Them Back to Us, More Than Just Parks, April 2025 · Apr 1, 2025
Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

rules read Sep 7, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate
Coordinate30.32282, -87.27811
The agency’s pageOfficial page ↗

Where it is

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

This Afternoon72°Sunny
Tonight59°Clear
Sunday71°Sunny
Sunday Night57°Clear

NWS forecast for Pensacola Station, FL

Source: National Weather Service, MOB forecast office · Oct 17, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 60°F, day 79°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical January night 42°F. Bring the bag rated for it.

100°30°

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 Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.

Measured at: PENSACOLA FOREST SHERMAN NAS, FL (USW00003855), 3 miles away and at about the same elevation
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly normals · Sep 8, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

what threatens it · who answers for it

What threatens this place

Watch

You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.

Source: MTJP Threatened Lands map · Sep 28, 2026

Who answers for this land

Jimmy Patronis, official portrait

Fort Pickens Group Campground is in Florida’s 1st congressional district. Its representative, Jimmy Patronis (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: National Park Service publishes no season and no closure for this campground, and it takes no bookings we can read. That’s a gap in the record and not a locked gate.
The alert naming this campground: National Park Service alerts API · Oct 17, 2026
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate: 2.1 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 60 rated federal campgrounds in Florida · Sep 8, 2026
Sky-glow model: Duriscoe, Anderson, Luginbuhl and Baugh (2018), a simplified model of all-sky artificial sky glow derived from VIIRS Day/Night band data, the National Park Service sky-glow model
Cell signal: the Park Service’s own campground description, read as text by CAMPANAC. None of this is a measurement. It’s what the land manager published about the place, and phones, carriers and weather all disagree with each other; treat it as a warning, not a promise.
Nearest town: U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024 places, measured by CAMPANAC to the town boundary; population is the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimate · Sep 9, 2026