Spring break is still over a month away, but planning a trip will be a nice distraction from the schoolwork that I should actually be doing.
On the way back to Iowa from camping in Colorado in August, my friend and I spent a night at Lacke McConaughey, camping right on the white sand beach and watching the Perseid meteor shower.
Now that we’re both cold and stir crazy, she and I would like to travel somewhere together over spring break (March 14- 23), and since my dad lives a couple of miles away from Dallas, I thought we could visit him for a day or two, and then proceed onto the Gulf of Mexico for camping, hiking, swimming, etc. Hopefully it will be warm enough for at least two of those activities.
From this site, I think Mustang Island, Goose Island, and Galveston Island look nice; but like I said, I have never been there.
Has anyone here been to any of the Texas State Parks close to the Gulf? Are there any spots of particular interest? We are not looking for the sort of “MTV spring break” with lots of frat boys and sorority girls getting drunk and clubbing; are any of the places listed known to be infested with them over spring break? Are there other places that I haven’t even considered? We both like random touristy crap like you see on Roadside America.
There is plenty of time left, so hopefully I can collect a few good ideas. Neither of us feels the need to adhere to any strict schedule, but if there is something of particular note that we should check out while in the area, it would be nice to know.
My Wife and I camped on Mustang Island in the mid 90’s. One night.
Well, let me dig this up from my memory. We went to an area that was not a designated/controled area first. But you could camp there. It was a garbage dump. There was not a square foot of sand without trash on it.
Seriously. I would not walk on that beach with out boots on.
Colorado is an extreamly clean state when it comes to trash and littering. We where completely gobsmacked.
We ended up at a more controled and cleaned area, and spent the night there. It was better, but be careful. The water is full of stingrays. Or at least was 10 years or so ago. The next 3 days we spent at a resort.
Well, it’s a looong drive from Dallas, but when my wife and I were dating we camped out on Boca Chica beach. It’s about as far south as you can get on the Gulf and still be in Texas. It was quiet, secluded and clean. We saw no other spring breakers, but during the daylight hours there were a few older folks surf-fishing and so forth. Mind you, this was almost 25 years ago, so things may well have changed drastically in the meanwhile. And it is VERY remote.
More recently, we have visited the Port Aransas area (near Mustang Island) and it’s very nice and has a lot more amenities. I can’t tell you much about the state park except that from the Google maps, it doesn’t appear to have a lot of campsites, so it would be wise to reserve one early.
The Texas State Park on Galveston Island is a pretty nice place. I’ve camped there 4-5 times. The beach is okay (at least better than the ones in Fort Worth). The campsites area is just over a dune from the beach and it is a well-kept, grassy area. The showers and bathrooms were showing their age the last time I was there (two years ago), but they were still usable.
The beach is very good for swimming, as the water is shallow over a hundred yards out. The surf is pretty gentle. The beach sand is brown and sticky.
The campsites have water and electricty. Each has a picnic table with a cover on it. The sites are well-suited for tents. There’s an RV dump station near the front entrance. They have campfire rings, but ground fires are prohibited at the sites next to the dune.
It was $15.00 - $20.00 per night for a campsite plus an admittance fee per car, as I recall.
They take reservations (online now, I believe), which I recommend if you’re going around Spring break time. The last couple of times I was there, it was early April and it was terribly windy and a little chilly.
The park is about 9-10 miles down island from Galveston, which gets you away from the city crowd, but still close enough to visit some of the good restaurants in town.
enipla, it’s really too bad that the beach was so filthy. I have noticed that the people of Colorado seem to be pretty conscious about keeping their state clean, I wonder if attitudes are just different in Texas.
I guess we’re not really married to the idea of camping on the beach, and would consider camping somewhere nearby and take a day trip to the ocean. We have also looked at Chickasaw National Park in Oklahoma. We really would like to camp, though. If it’s still a bit chilly I’m sure we can… ahem, manage to stay warm.
Bobisco, it’s possible, but we stayed on Theis Bay, which wasn’t very close to the dam. However, we roamed all around looking for park passes and water pumps. Then we got stuck in the sand and had to have some locals come and drag my car out with their truck.
When I was a kid we used to camp at North Padre Island. It was completely primitive, save for pit toilets, so you had to bring everything in. It’s windy, and sandy, which can get to be a bit of a bummer in the crotch area after a couple days. But we figured out soon enough that nobody sees you behind the first set of dunes, so we’d swim then dry off naked. The sand comes off easy when you are dry. Bring way more water than you think you would need, then add 5 more gallons. You will find the detritus of cargo ships lost loads all over the beach. One time, it was fluorescent bulbs. We played star wars. And there are a lot of little jellyfish, but we never got stung.
Mustang island is a rather nice place to camp nowadays and is a lot cleaner than it used to be. The area around Bob Hall pier is my favorite beach hangout. The water is nice, if a bit cold, not many jellyfish this time of year and Port Aransas has plenty of touristy stuff if you’re into that. Unfortunately the beaches from Port A down to South Padre are fairly crawling with college kids during spring break, so if you really really can’t stand drunken frat boys then I’d advise you to avoid it like the plague.
Goose Island is nice and quiet, although aside from RV parking I’m not aware of many campsites. And I would strongly advise you not to go swimming in the bay. Very dirty water. Which is really a shame, because Rockport-Fulton is a wonderful place.
I’ve never been to Galveston except for the once, and that was a school trip to the Space Center, so I’m afraid I’ve got nothing for you on that score.
If you want an out of the way camping spot, you might consider Matagorda Island. It’s a wildlife refuge, but there are designated camping areas which are quite lovely. It’s all primitive and a bit out of the way though, so if you want to do tourist stuff you’ll have to do a bit of driving.
If you have an RV and don’t want to drive much North Beach is a good place. Excuse me, Corpus Christi beach. They re-named it not too long ago, but it’ll always be North Beach to the locals.
If you’re not dead set on camping right on the Gulf you might also consider pitching your tent on Lake Mathis or Lake Corpus Christi. They’re out of the way, there are some small towns nearby to visit, and Corpus Chrisi proper is not more than a half an hour’s drive away.
I hope that all helps. If you have any questions, please ask. I’ll do my best to answer.
Matagorda Island sounds pretty interesting. Thanks for the suggestion, Barking Dog. I was looking up information on the internet, and it said you need to charter a boat out there. Now, this may sound like a dumb question, but is it possible to canoe or row out there? I figure if there are deer on the island it can’t be too far offshore.
And when I say that we like touristy stuff, I mean cheesy distractions like The Hobo Museum or other small, out of the way museums or attractions; rather than shopping destinations or water parks or things like that. So the remoteness of the area isn’t a problem.
Those lakes also seem worth investigating. We don’t have an RV, so we’d have to go to one of the tent friendlier ones.
