Group Landing
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 30 of the next 30 nights; a database flag says not open read 16:48 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 7 notices
In the agency’s own words
Group Landing is a secluded area that offers a flexible space accommodating many outdoor activities, from a weekend family camping trip to a midweek company picnic. Keep reading
Recreation
Swimming, canoeing, kayaking, fishing and more are easily accommodated. A private sand beach gives a great venue for relaxing by the water or swimming in its cool waters. It's easy to shore launch a small boat, canoe, or kayak, and a boat ramp at Olustee Beach nearby can handle larger craft.
Facilities
The site includes four electric hookups, an accessible bathhouse with hot showers and flush toilets, a large picnic shelter, and potable water. Bear-proof garbage cans, picnic tables, a large grill, and a fire pit are also provided.
Natural Features
Situated on the shore of Ocean Pond, you can relax and admire the tranquil beauty from your own private beach. Your campsites are surrounded by tall pines and cypress draped in Spanish moss. Wildlife sightings abound.
Nearby Attractions
Olustee Beach, with a large day use area, swimming beach, and boat ramp, is right next door. Ocean Pond is a large freshwater lake excellent for fishing and boating. Twenty-two miles of the Florida National Scenic Trail wind through the Osceola National Forest. Make sure to visit the Olustee Battlefield, site of the largest Civil War battle in Florida.
What the agency tells you
Check-in time is 2:00 p.m. the day of arrival and check out is at noon.
Contact the Osceola Ranger Station to obtain the gate code prior to your stay. Please call 386.752.2577 between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m., Monday to Friday.
Climate is sub-tropical. Please be prepared to encounter seasonal thunderstorms, high temperatures, and biting/stinging insects. Contact the Osceola Ranger Station at 386.752.2577 for more information on local conditions.
Everything else this campground posts · 4
Bears call the Osceola National Forest home. Please be Bear Aware and keep a clean camp.
The maximum number of campers is 50 overnight guests and 75 for day use.
Four sites with water and electric hookup are available, subject to additional charge.
The Golden Age/Senior Pass and Access Pass are not honored at this camping area.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 group
- Hookups
- 1 electric, 1 water
- Longest rig
- 40 ft
- Accessible sites
- 1
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- “…bathhouse with hot showers and flush toilets, a large picnic shelter, and potable water.…”
- Showers
- Yes, the record doesn’t say what kind
- “Facilities The site includes four electric hookups, an accessible bathhouse with hot showers and flush toilets, a large picnic shelter, and potable water.”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…toilets, a large picnic shelter, and potable water. Bear-proof garbage cans, picnic tables, a large…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Beach, Coast
- Fishing
- Swimming
- Night sky · 27th darkest of 60 in FL
- Bortle 4
Full this Saturdayread 16:48 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
1 campground has sites open within 30 miles, read 15:40 UTC. See them
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday, and on four midweek nights after it as well. read 16:48 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
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 · 12
What you actually pay
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
Open within 30 miles this weekend · 1
Sites the agency is offering this Friday and Saturday that nobody has taken, nearest first. read 15:40 UTC
- Ocean Pond CampgroundOsceola National Forest · 2.0 mi · 56 of 128 site-nights open
recreation.gov availability, read 16:48 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites · the site map
All 1 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. 1 of the 1 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| The Landing | 01 | group standard area electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | yes | 1,501 ft | $100 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Ocean Pond CampgroundOsceola National Forest · 2.0 miCobb Hunt CampOsceola National Forest · 2.5 miOcean Pond CampgroundOsceola National Forest · 2.6 miBig Camp Hunt CampOsceola National Forest · 12 miEast Tower Hunt CampOsceola National Forest · 13 mi
Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge Overnight Camping PermitOkefenokee National Wildlife Refuge · 41 miFrom the intersection of Hwy 441 and Hwy 90 in Lake City, FL, drive east on Hwy 90 for 12.6 miles. Turn left at the flashing light onto Pine Street. Cross over the railroad tracks. After about half a mile, you will see a sign directing you to turn left and proceed to The Landing. Turn onto your first road on the left, and you will soon see the gate for the facility.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Watertown, FL
Typical weather
Typical October night 59°F, day 79°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 41°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
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.
The land, and who answers for it
who answers for it · a letter you can send
Who answers for this land
Group Landing is in Florida’s 3rd congressional district. Its representative, Kat Cammack (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneyKat CammackU.S. Representative · Florida’s 3rd district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationAshley MoodyU.S. Senator · Florida
- Your senator, on the same appropriationRick ScottU.S. Senator · Florida
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Group Landing, Osceola National Forest, Florida
Dear Kat Cammack, I’m a constituent in Florida’s 3rd district. I tried to camp at Group Landing, Osceola National Forest, Florida, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Group Landing are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Group Landing keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Group Landing. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Group Landing (Osceola National Forest, Florida) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Group Landing, Osceola National Forest, Florida
Dear Ashley Moody, I’m a constituent in Florida. I tried to camp at Group Landing, Osceola National Forest, Florida, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Group Landing are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Group Landing keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Group Landing. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Group Landing (Osceola National Forest, Florida) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Group Landing, Osceola National Forest, Florida
Dear Rick Scott, I’m a constituent in Florida. I tried to camp at Group Landing, Osceola National Forest, Florida, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Group Landing are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Group Landing keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Group Landing. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Group Landing (Osceola National Forest, Florida) via campanac.com