Sandy Beach Camp
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $22–$28Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 5856 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 15 notices
In the agency’s own words
The Sandy Beach Cammpground is located on the northern shores of Coralville Lake. The Coralville Lake Project is a multiple use project providing primary benefits in flood control and low flow augmentation, and secondary benefits in recreations, fish and wildlife management, and forest management. Coralville Lake provides many recreational opportinities, including boating,, camping, hiking, mountain biking, lake and river fishing, swimming, water activities, picnicking, and hunting. Keep reading
Recreation
Visitors enjoy Coralville Lake for camping, boating, fishing, swimming and water activities. Anglers will find large and small mouth bass, crappie, walleye, and catfish.
Facilities
The Sandy Beach Campground offers 58 campsites to include full hook-up campsites, standard electric campsites, and non-electric walk- to tent campsites. Amenities include modern restroom and shower facilities, playground, dump station, drinking water, and entrance station. The Sandy Beach Day Use Area offers picnic sites, a large group picnic shelter, boat ramp, fish cleaning station, vault restroom, and lake access.
Natural Features
Coralville Lake is located in the Iowa River Valley, just north of Iowa City. The Sandy Beach Campground lies among a heavily wooded forest of mixed hardwood species on the northern reaches of Coralville Lake. Wildlife is abundant throughout the project. Whitetail deer, turkeys, pheasants, waterfowl, song birds and other species roam the lands around the lake.
Nearby Attractions
The Devonian Fossil Gorge is just below the dam, offering a unique opportunity to explore a 375-million-year old sea floor and discover fossil remains of sea life that once inhabited this tropical marine environment. Twenty Discovery Points can be found throughout the site. The Lake MacBride Golf Course is nearby, offering nine holes among rolling hills. Several additional golf courses are scattered around the lake. Iowa City/Coralville offers the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, University of Iowa campus, hospital and clinics, numerous restaurants and shops as well as Coral Ridge Mall. Cedar Rapids has wonderful cultural, historic and ethnic attractions such as The National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library and is the home of the Kernels Professional Baseball Club. West Branch boasts the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site and Presidential Library/Museum. At Amana Colonies visit seven quaint villages with outstanding restaurants, wineries, historic sites and specialty shops. Kalona is known as the Quilt Capital of Iowa and is home to an Old Order Amish and Mennonite Community.
What the agency tells you
Three camping units are permitted per site: One RV and two tent, or three tents per site.
Up to 6 occupants are permitted per site.
Quiet Hours are from 10:00 P.M. - 6:00 A.M.
Everything else this campground posts · 12
Visitors shall register for their campsite at the Sandy Beach Campground Entrance Station from 2:00 P.M. - 8:00 P.M.
Check-Out Time is 12:00 P.M.
Check-In Time is 2:00 P.M.
Do not attach anything to trees.
Pets must be penned, on a leash under 6 feet in length, or otherwise physically restrained.
No parking on grass, roads, shoulders or empty campsites. No UTVs or golf carts within the campground.
All of the following items are prohibited: loaded firearms, explosives, ammunition, bow or other projectile-firing device, and fireworks.
All of the following items are prohibited: bouncy houses, swimming pools, and chinese lanterns.
No-Shows: If a customer does not arrive and register for their campsite by check-out time the day after original arrival date, the customer will be assessed a $20.00 service fee and forfeit the first night use fee.
Cancellation: If a customer cancels a reservation they will be charged a $10.00 service fee. If a customer cancels a reservation the day before or on the day of arrival they will be charged a $10.00 service fee and will also forfeit the first night's use fee (not to exceed the total paid for the original reservation).
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.
All boats shall be removed from the lake/river each day. Boats are not permitted to be moored on the shoreline overnight.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 58 · 8 walk-in
- Hookups
- 48 electric, 2 water, 2 sewer
- Longest rig
- 66 ft
- Paved pads
- 2 of 58
- Accessible sites
- 1
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…boat ramp, fish cleaning station, vault restroom, and lake access. Natural Features Coralville Lake…”
- Showers
- Yes, the record doesn’t say what kind
- “Amenities include modern restroom and shower facilities, playground, dump station, drinking water, and entrance station.”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…facilities, playground, dump station, drinking water, and entrance station. The Sandy Beach Day Use Area…”
- Dump station
- Yes
- recreation.gov lists “Dump Station”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Playground
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Beach
- Boating
- Fishing
- Night sky · 17th darkest of 32 in IA
- Bortle 5
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 56 of the 58 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
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.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
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 rates for this season, $22–$28 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
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
58 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 56 mapped sitesAll 58 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 58 of the 58 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 56 of the 58 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| SANDY BEACH | 001 | standard electric | 50 ft | 20/30 amp | 51 ft | 773 ft | 148 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 002 | standard electric | 44 ft | 20/30 amp | 55 ft | 761 ft | 128 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 003 | standard electric | 52 ft | 20/30 amp | 48 ft | 725 ft | 195 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 004 | standard electric | 57 ft | 20/30 amp | 55 ft | 706 ft | 183 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 005 | standard electric | 52 ft | 20/30 amp | 48 ft | 683 ft | 242 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 006 | standard electric | 42 ft | 20/30 amp | 64 ft | 645 ft | 247 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 007 | standard electric | 58 ft | 20/30 amp | 59 ft | 563 ft | 327 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 008 | standard electric | 47 ft | 20/30 amp | 59 ft | 504 ft | 386 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 009 | standard electric | 20 ft | 20/30 amp | 52 ft | 358 ft | 529 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 010 | standard electric | 57 ft | 20/30 amp | 49 ft | 349 ft | 539 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 011 | standard electric | 57 ft | 20/30 amp | 49 ft | 378 ft | 521 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 012 | standard electric | 42 ft | 20/30 amp | 55 ft | 482 ft | 405 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 013 | standard electric | 55 ft | 20/30 amp | 84 ft | 520 ft | 388 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 014 | standard electric | 44 ft | 20/30 amp | 55 ft | 537 ft | 350 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 015 | standard electric | 44 ft | 20/30 amp | 62 ft | 599 ft | 288 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 016 | standard electric | 40 ft | 20/30 amp | 59 ft | 669 ft | 217 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 017 | standard electric | 62 ft | 20/30 amp | 49 ft | 731 ft | 206 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 018 | standard electric | 60 ft | 20/30 amp | 49 ft | 780 ft | 173 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 019 | standard electric | 52 ft | 20/30 amp | 54 ft | 822 ft | 122 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 020 | type not stated | 50 ft | 20/30 amp | yes | 899 ft | 17 ft | ||
| SANDY BEACH | 021 | type not stated | 48 ft | 20/30 amp | 793 ft | 483 ft | |||
| SANDY BEACH | 022 | standard electric | 52 ft | 20/30 amp | 46 ft | 618 ft | 562 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 023 | standard electric | 55 ft | 20/30 amp | 44 ft | 606 ft | 547 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 024 | standard electric | 60 ft | 20/30 amp | 38 ft | 579 ft | 555 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 025 | standard electric | 62 ft | 20/30 amp | 38 ft | 545 ft | 581 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 026 | standard electric | 48 ft | 20/30 amp | 46 ft | 499 ft | 624 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 027 | standard electric | 57 ft | 20/30 amp | 51 ft | 443 ft | 744 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 028 | standard electric | 50 ft | 20/30 amp | 77 ft | 534 ft | 648 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 029 | standard electric | 54 ft | 30/20 amp | 58 ft | 493 ft | 724 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 030 | standard electric | 54 ft | 20/30 amp | 67 ft | 592 ft | 640 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 031 | standard electric | 50 ft | 20/30 amp | 66 ft | 553 ft | 707 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 032 | standard electric | 52 ft | 20/30 amp | 72 ft | 611 ft | 707 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 033 | standard electric | 56 ft | 20/30 amp | 38 ft | 338 ft | 812 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 034 | standard electric | 52 ft | 20/30 amp | 38 ft | 308 ft | 849 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 035 | standard electric | 53 ft | 20/30 amp | 51 ft | 413 ft | 793 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 036 | standard electric | 46 ft | 20/30 amp | 63 ft | 461 ft | 795 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 037 | standard electric | 55 ft | 20/30 amp | 37 ft | 375 ft | 882 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 038 | standard electric | 65 ft | 20/30 amp | 37 ft | 373 ft | 904 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 039 | standard electric | 66 ft | 20/30 amp | 49 ft | 406 ft | 907 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 040 | standard electric | 52 ft | 20/30 amp | 49 ft | 453 ft | 884 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 041 | standard electric | 47 ft | 20/30 amp | 63 ft | 515 ft | 776 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 042 | standard electric | 40 ft | 20/30 amp | 44 ft | 587 ft | 782 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 043 | standard electric | 48 ft | 20/30 amp | 44 ft | 628 ft | 769 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 044 | standard electric | 46 ft | 20/30 amp | 59 ft | 681 ft | 719 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 045 | standard electric | 55 ft | 20/30 amp | 63 ft | 747 ft | 660 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 046 | standard electric | 52 ft | 20/30 amp | 63 ft | 786 ft | 598 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 047 | standard electric | 58 ft | 20/30 amp | 74 ft | 832 ft | 524 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 048 | standard electric | 50 ft | 20/30 amp | 50 ft | 889 ft | 459 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 049 | standard electric | 52 ft | 20/30 amp | 50 ft | 934 ft | 424 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 050 | standard electric | 58 ft | 20/30 amp | 60 ft | 984 ft | 381 ft | $22–$28 | |
| SANDY BEACH | 051 | walk to | 47 ft | 1,024 ft | 339 ft | $14 | |||
| SANDY BEACH | 052 | walk to | 47 ft | 1,000 ft | 353 ft | $14 | |||
| SANDY BEACH | 053 | walk to | 51 ft | 999 ft | 352 ft | $14 | |||
| SANDY BEACH | 054 | walk to | 88 ft | 930 ft | 280 ft | $14 | |||
| SANDY BEACH | 055 | walk to | 69 ft | 870 ft | 205 ft | $14 | |||
| SANDY BEACH | 056 | walk to | 69 ft | 888 ft | 139 ft | $14 | |||
| SANDY BEACH | 057 | walk to | 41 ft | 509 ft | 945 ft | $14 | |||
| SANDY BEACH | 058 | walk to | 41 ft | 522 ft | 970 ft | $14 |
25 of 58 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Sugar Bottom Campground4.4 mi
Linder Point Campground6.7 mi
West Overlook Campground6.8 mi
Cottonwood Campground (IA)7.0 mi
Tailwater West Campground7.1 mi
Tailwater East Campground7.1 miFrom Interstate 380 (Shueyville, Iowa) take Exit 10 towards Shueyville. Travel east on 120th St. NW for 1.2 miles. At the stop sign, turn right onto NE Curtis Bridge Rd. Travel south on NE Curtis Bridge Rd for 1.1 miles. Turn left onto Sandy Beach Rd. NE and travel east for 1.9 miles. The entrance to Sandy Beach Campground will be located on the right side of the road.
From Highway 1 (Solon, Iowa) turn onto Hwy 382 NE/E Main St at the stop light. Travel on Hwy 382 NE for 2.6 miles. At the traffic circle, turn left onto Ely Rd. NE. Travel on Ely Rd. NE for 1 mile. Turn left onto 140th St. NE and travel west for 2.0 miles. 140th St. NE will become Sandy Beach Rd. NE. Continue traveling on Sandy Beach Rd. NE for 1.7 miles. The entrance to the Sandy Beach Campground will be located on the left side of the road.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Shueyville, IA
Typical weather
Typical October night 40°F, day 62°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 11°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
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
Who answers for this land
Sandy Beach Camp is in Iowa’s 1st congressional district. Its representative, Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →