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National Park Service · Cape Lookout National Seashore · NC

South Core Banks -- Beach camping

1Heads uppark alert
Park Closure
Passenger Ferry Dock Closed; Visitors Deboard via Beach Landing The ferry dock servicing the Cape Lookout Lighthouse area is closed for repairs. Visitors will deboard the ferry in front of the lighthouse. To reach the boardwalk, visitors will need to walk 5–10 minutes on soft sand. Depending on the…
Alerts: National Park Service alerts API · Oct 16, 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
Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
Photos · NPS photo/Jan Tugwell
69 ftWater · an unnamed pondOcean · 361 ft · to the Atlantic Ocean
7.9 miNE of Harkers Island, NC
n/aTree cover · water-masked cell
Bortle 3Night sky · 7th darkest of 84 in NC

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Dispersed camping along the ocean beach of this 20 mile long barrier island -- this is backcountry-style camping -- all camping is done directly on the ocean beach, there are no camp sites. This area is reached only by ferry. Both tent camping and vehicle camping is allowed. Vehicles -- 4x4 highly recommended -- must be able to drive on the soft sand of the beach and the sand trail behind the dunes known as the "back road". There are no hard surfaces on the island. Practice Leave No Trace principles.

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

Facilities

Toilets
None. Pack out what you bring in
Drinking water
None, bring your own
Source: National Park Service and agency records

Around the campground

On the water
Beach, Coast
Source: Stated in the agency description · Aug 23, 2026
Official page →

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 · the phone number
Coordinate34.76056, -76.41222
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

Today80°Sunny
Tonight65°Partly Cloudy then Slight Chance Light Rain18% rain
Saturday69°Rain Likely63% rain
Saturday Night58°Chance Rain50% rain

NWS forecast for Davis, NC

Source: National Weather Service, MHX forecast office · Oct 16, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 57°F, day 75°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical January night 38°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: BEAUFORT MICHAEL J SMITH FLD, NC (USW00093765), 14 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

who answers for it

Who answers for this land

Greg Murphy, official portrait

South Core Banks -- Beach camping is in North Carolina’s 3rd congressional district. Its representative, Greg Murphy (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: D-. 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 number below is the only way to be sure.
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: 0.19 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 84 rated federal campgrounds in North Carolina · 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 place of any size: Davis, NC, 3.3 mi ESE (a census designated place). Straight line.
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