Ortona South
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 30 of the next 30 nights read 15:04 UTC
- A night
- $30From, per site
- Sites
- 51All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 11 notices
In the agency’s own words
Ortona South is a perfect campground for a quiet, sunny escape to South Florida. The campground is set along the Caloosahatchie River. Keep reading
Recreation
Activities here are focused on simple, relaxing pleasures like fishing and strolling the grounds. If you walk across the dam in between 7AM and 4 PM, the road on the north side of the river provides a great place for walking and bicycling. Catfish, Largemouth Bass, Bluegill, and Tilapia are the most commonly caught fish at the large wooden pier at the campground. Snook are commonly caught at the small north end pier which is also accessible by walking across the dam from 7AM to 4PM. Several large bird species frequent the area if you are a Bird Watcher.
Facilities
All campsites have concrete pads, electric, 30 amp and 50 amp, water hookups, a fire ring and grill, and a covererd picnic table. Other amenities include a sanitary dump station, restrooms with showers, dumpsters, Wifi (near west end restroom only), and a picnic pavilion for campers only. Day use visitors are allowed on site for fishing. The Ortona North Day Use Area has a boat launch and is a 25 minute drive by way of the Town of LaBelle. LaBelle is the nearest town and has stores, restaurants, etc. Laundry Facilities are not currently available on site.
Natural Features
The campground's terrain is flat and lined with tropical greenery , including the Sabal Palm, the state tree of Florida. The Caloosahatchee River to your north and picturesque pastures to your south. The South Florida Water Management District is constructing a Water Quality Treatment and Testing Facility, adjacent to the South East end of the campground. Construction at that site may affect the serenity of your experience.
Nearby Attractions
Head west to LaBelle, Florida, where an annual Swamp Cabbage Festival is held the last weekend of each February. Or travel east to hike or bike along the Herbert Hoover Dike, part of Lake Okeechobee, and part of the 1,400-mile long Florida National Scenic Trail.
What the agency tells you
Ortona South Campground and St. Lucie South Campground are part of the same water resource project. Both campgrounds fall under the same 14 day maximum in any 30-consecutive day period regulation. Campers cannot stay at Ortona South for 14 days and then camp St. Lucie South for 14 days without camping elsewhere for 16 days. Campers also cannot use different names to get around this regulation.
The campground entrance gate is opened at 7:30 a.m. and closed at sunset.
Campground quiet hours are from 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.
Everything else this campground posts · 8
Check-out time is 11:00 a.m.
Check-in time is 12:00 p.m.
RV site 41 and RV site 42 are pull-through sites that share the same camp pad driveway and are recommended for two RVs travelling together. Site 41 may require you to back-in to the site.
Assistive mobility devices, such as a powered wheel chair, electric scooter, or golf cart, are permitted for use by individuals with mobility impairments for necessary transportation within the campgrounds. Individual must provide one of the following: a valid, State-issued disability parking placard or card, State-issued proof of disability, or similar document.
Arriving campers that require the use of the trailer dump station prior to occupying their campsite will be charged the $20.00 use fee as the waste being dumped was not generated on site.
Campers are limited to one RV/trailer sewage dump per week of stay, maximum two in a 14-day period. Portable holding tanks may dumped as often as necessarry during each stay.
Campsites have maximum occupancy of 8 people per site.
Don't Move Firewood: Protect your forests from tree-killing pests by buying your firewood locally and burning it on-site. Visit Dontmovefirewood.org for further information.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 51
- Hookups
- 51 electric, 51 water
- Longest rig
- 45 ft
- Paved pads
- 50 of 51
- Accessible sites
- 3
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Yes, the record doesn't say what kind
- “Other amenities include a sanitary dump station, restrooms with showers, dumpsters, Wifi (near west end restroom only), and a picnic pavilion for campers only.”
- Showers
- Yes, the record doesn’t say what kind
- “Other amenities include a sanitary dump station, restrooms with showers, dumpsters, Wifi (near west end restroom only), and a picnic pavilion for campers only.”
- Dump station
- Yes
- recreation.gov lists “Dump Station”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River
- Biking
- Birding
- Fishing
- Night sky · 29th darkest of 60 in FL
- Bortle 4
33 of 49 sites open on Sat, Oct 17read 15:04 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, $30 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 15:04 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
52 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 48 mapped sitesAll 52 records
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 51 of the 52 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| OSOU | 01 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | $30 | |||
| OSOU | 02 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 60 ft | 210 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 03 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 47 ft | 209 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 04 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 41 ft | 209 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 05 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 41 ft | 205 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 06 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 51 ft | 214 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 07 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 51 ft | 232 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 08 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 51 ft | 259 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 09 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 47 ft | 295 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 10 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 47 ft | 327 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 11 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 52 ft | 373 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 12 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | yes | 52 ft | 418 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 |
| OSOU | 13 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 52 ft | 518 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 14 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 52 ft | 567 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 15 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 51 ft | 620 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 16 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 48 ft | 670 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 17 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 48 ft | 715 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 18 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 51 ft | 765 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 19 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 51 ft | 821 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 20 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 51 ft | 871 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 21 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 81 ft | 840 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 22 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 81 ft | 765 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 23 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 75 ft | 680 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 24 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 75 ft | 607 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 25 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | yes | 85 ft | 525 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 |
| OSOU | 26 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 91 ft | 430 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 27 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 75 ft | 344 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 28 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 75 ft | 275 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 29 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 77 ft | 207 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 30 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 80 ft | 150 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 31 | standard electric | 35 ft | 50 amp | 87 ft | 158 ftCaloosahatchee Canal | $30 | |
| OSOU | 32 | standard electric | 30 ft | 50 amp | 81 ft | 80 ft | $30 | |
| OSOU | 33 | standard electric | 41 ft | 50 amp | 81 ft | 51 ft | $30 | |
| OSOU | 34 | standard electric | 41 ft | 50 amp | 72 ft | 53 ft | $30 | |
| OSOU | 35 | standard electric | 45 ft | 50 amp | 68 ft | 69 ft | $30 | |
| OSOU | 36 | standard electric | 41 ft | 50 amp | 61 ft | 84 ft | $30 | |
| OSOU | 37 | standard electric | 30 ft | 50 amp | 61 ft | 104 ft | $30 | |
| OSOU | 38 | standard electric | 30 ft | 50 amp | 68 ft | 114 ft | $30 | |
| OSOU | 39 | standard electric | 30 ft | 50 amp | 69 ft | 87 ft | $30 | |
| OSOU | 40 | standard electric | 35 ft | 50 amp | 70 ft | 77 ft | $30 | |
| OSOU | 41 (shared site) | standard electric | 31 ft | 50/20/30/50 amp | 54 ft | 94 ft | $30 | |
| OSOU | 42 (shared site) | standard electric | 42 ft | 50 amp | 54 ft | 102 ft | $30 | |
| OSOU | 43 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 81 ft | 221 ft | $30 | |
| OSOU | 44 | standard electric | 43 ft | 50 amp | 81 ft | 204 ft | $30 | |
| OSOU | 45 | standard electric | 30 ft | 50 amp | $30 | |||
| OSOU | 46 | standard electric | 36 ft | 50 amp | $30 | |||
| OSOU | 47 | standard electric | 30 ft | 50 amp | yes | 72 ft | 228 ft | $30 |
| OSOU | 48 | standard electric | 35 ft | 50 amp | 72 ft | 209 ft | $30 | |
| OSOU | 49 | standard electric | 35 ft | 50 amp | 75 ft | 199 ft | $30 | |
| OSOU | 50 | standard electric | 36 ft | 50 amp | 68 ft | 179 ft | $30 | |
| OSOU | 51 | standard electric | 35 ft | 50 amp | 68 ft | 173 ft | $30 | |
| OSOU | S01 | day use | 50 amp | yes | $35 |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It files it as day use. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t counted as a site.
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
25 of 52 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
W.p. Franklin N24 mi
W.p. Franklin South Recreation Area24 mi
Gator Head CampgroundBig Cypress National Preserve · 39 mi
Pink JeepBig Cypress National Preserve · 39 mi
Pink Jeep CampgroundBig Cypress National Preserve · 58 mi
Bear Island CampgroundBig Cypress National Preserve · 58 miFrom LaBelle, Florida, travel SR 80 8 mi east to Dalton Lane. Turn north on Dalton Lane and follow the road into the campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Port LaBelle, FL
Typical weather
Typical October night 66°F, day 86°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
who answers for it
Who answers for this land
Ortona South is in Florida’s 18th congressional district. Its representative, Scott Franklin (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →