National Park Service · Assateague Island National Seashore · MD

Oceanside Drive-in Campground

1Heads uppark alert
Information
OSV Status 10/13/26 MD OSV open to the State Line. VA South OSV is open. Beware of overwash conditions at high tides. The VA North OSV fishing mile is closed.
Alerts: National Park Service alerts API · Oct 16, 2026
ReservableBooking 6 months out; today unlocks April 15. Season not published.
Book on recreation.govWe make nothing when you book
Right now
OpenThe agency lists it open
A night
$40From, per site
Sites
16All of them booked ahead
Season
Year-roundOpen year-round
1,262 ftWater · an unnamed pondOcean · 712 ft
7.7 miSW of West Ocean City, MD
0%Tree cover
Bortle 4Night sky · 13th darkest of 62 in MD
Open year-roundToday

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Tents, trailers and recreational vehicles (no hookups). Sites have a picnic table and a fire ring. Sites are $40 per night. Reservations are required from March 15 through November 15. Loop 1 sites are closed from November 16 through March 14. Loop 2 sites are First Come/First Serve from November 16 through March 14.

Source: National Park Service API · Aug 24, 2026

Facilities

Toilets
Vault Toilets - year round
Drinking water
Yes
Dump station
Yes
Source: National Park Service and agency records

No reading yet, book on recreation.gov

Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.

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.

Booking window6 months outBooking opens 6 months ahead; today unlocks arrivals through April 15, 2027. The agency publishes no reservable season in the record we hold, so the window may close earlier than that.recreation.gov
A night$40plus $8 to reserve, once per bookingthe agency’s fee record
A weekend$88DerivedFriday and Saturday, everything includedours, from the lines above
If plans change$10 to cancel$10 to change a reservationrecreation.gov’s schedule
Runs itNational Park ServiceBooked through recreation.govthe agency’s record
Book on recreation.gov

We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.

Every line of the receipt · 13

What you actually pay

The sign priceNational Park Service
A night, from$40
Camping fee$40
IA Senior Pass or IA Access Pass camping fee$20
Vehicle Entrance Fee$25
The booking feerecreation.gov
Reservation fee, booked online$8
One fee per reservation, however many nights you book, and it’s non-refundable. $9 if you book by phone, $3 in person.
Pass discounts only apply to the recreation (or use) fee for the facility. Other charges such as electricity or water hookups, reservation or other fees are not eligible for a discount.
What a stay costs
One night, fromDerived$48
A weekend, Friday and Saturday, fromDerived$88

Derived by CAMPANAC: the lowest per-night amount the agency’s fee record states ($40), 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.

If your plans changerecreation.gov
Change fee, moving to dates outside your booking$10
Cancellation fee$10
Cancelling the day before, or the day of$10 + your first night
No-show$20 + your first night

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
Source: National Park Service API · Aug 24, 2026

record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this

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Getting there

the map and the coordinate · the phone number

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Today74°Patchy Fog then Mostly Sunny19% rain
Tonight54°Rain Showers Likely61% rain
Saturday57°Rain Showers Likely69% rain
Saturday Night48°Partly Cloudy

NWS forecast for Newark, MD

Typical weather

Typical October night 49°F, day 68°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical January night 28°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.

90°32°20°

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: OCEAN CITY MUNI AP, MD (USW00093786), 8 miles away and at about the same elevation

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.

Source: MTJP Threatened Lands map · Oct 3, 2026

Who answers for this land

Andy Harris, official portrait

Oceanside Drive-in Campground is in Maryland’s 1st congressional district. Its representative, Andy Harris (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.

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from