Fort Pickens Campground - Pensacola, Florida (April 2021)

We always knew there was a chance our reservations at Fort Pickens Campground could be altered by the weather. The road leading into the campground areas is on a thin stretch of land between the Gulf and the Bay. You can easily see both bodies of water as you drive into the park. 

But we expected weather issues during hurricane season, not early Spring. More about the weather later. 

It had been years since we camped at Fort Pickens. It is hard to get reservations there. Very hard. 

After multiple attempts to find an opening, we were able to snag four days in what we consider to be one of our least favorite loops. Well, we rationalized, this will get us back to Fort Pickens. 

On the way there, our chorus of GPS units was routing different from our normal path to Pensacola. When our Ford Navigation system, Garmin GPS, Apple and Google Maps all agree to take us out of the way, you know something is up. We found that the bridge we normally take to cross over the bay to Pensacola Beach was damaged by Hurricane Sally and was closed. 

About a decade earlier, we crossed the toll bridge our GPS systems were taking us to. We learned then that it was very expensive, especially if you were pulling a camper with two axles. We were glad to see as we approached the toll booth that the state suspended the tolls while the other bridge was being repaired. 

We crossed the bridges and soon saw the white sands and surf of the Gulf. Needless to say, we were excited about returning to the coast. That was when we saw “THE” sign at the start of the entrance road to Fort Pickens. The sign that announced the park was closed because of flooding in the campground and the access roads were under water. 

There is a problem at Fort Pickens

We didn’t see the sign until we were past any point we could turn around. Besides, there were several RVs in front of us driving into the park. Maybe the park was closed to day visitors and open to campers, we hoped. The Ranger’s Station was ahead and we could find out about our site there. 

By the time we arrived at the Ranger Station, we watched all of the RVs ahead of us make a U-turn and exit the park. Our turn with the Ranger wasn’t different from the others. 

An exasperated ranger told us that the park closed three days earlier and that Recreation.gov, the website used to book reservations in federal and national campgrounds, was supposed to send us an email advising us that our reservation was cancelled and our fees were refunded. They didn’t and the long line of RVs heading into the park suggested we were not the only ones Recreation.gov forgot to notify. 

There was a parking lot just outside the park’s access road. We noticed it was full of RVs that appeared to be boon-docking there until the park reopened. We pulled off the road at another parking area and started calling state parks and private campgrounds trying to find somewhere to stay for the night. It was apparent that the 200 RVs that should have been in the Fort Pickens Campground were dispersed among every other desirable campground in that area. 

Rosie parked outside of Fort Pickens

Rosie parked on the side of the road

A find on the beach after a quick walk to the shore

It quickly became apparent that full campgrounds tend to ignore their phones on Sunday afternoons and that we needed to widen our search for a place to park Rosie, our Airstream trailer, for the night. 

What did we do?

Stay tuned to see if we were stuck with a lemon for the night or if we were able to turn our situation into lemonade.