Camping on Beaches in California

I used to camp on the beach with my friends growing up. It's not legal, but if you do it right, you can get away with it. We used to get caught all the time. The best luck of not getting caught was when we camped under cliffs and were not visible from the road. There are some really nice pay campsites up and down the coast, but they book up really fast.

So, your best bet is to stay hidden. I wouldn't use a tent. Just sleep under the stars and enjoy yourself. Or if you have a van, you can just sleep in it in the parking lot. I do that everywhere.

Happy camping

I have found California to be extremely protective of its beaches, more and more every year. Anyone who has recent experience would be far more helpful than in decades past. My sense of California is that it is one of the most heavily regulated and policed states in all the 50 states.

My personal opinion is that this is not a workable solution, as it will be more work than it is worth.

This is not a plan in "southern" Califoria. How far north is "up the coast?"

If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there. - Lewis Carroll

they will not allow you to camp on the beach. i've done it, and i've also been kicked off. or the tactic they like to use most is to just ticket or tow your car away, without actually going through the effort of climbing down on the beach to find you. you'll have the best chances if you can park your car somewhere away from the road where it wont' be obvious that someone is down on the beach. then, like someone above said, sleep close to the cliffs. the cops are lazy, they don't go patrol the beaches (at least not outside of town, in town they will more likely see you). your car is the biggest giveaway.

#2, i would probably have to agree that we are more regulated than the other 50 states, we also have more people than the other 50 states. i think the issue of restricting access to camping on beaches is more to do with the fact that they don't want a bunch of people permanently living out there (which i'm sure some of us might be tempted to make some semi-pernanent encampments). we also have more homeless people than many of the other states (san francisco has the highest number of homeless per capita in the country). allowing free unrestricted camping on the beach could make them unsavory places to be. while i myself curse them for being such a pain in the ass and ruining some good weekend fun, i can somewhat see the point.

Yaralin:

I agree with you, of course, that the population in California fars exceeds its capacities to comfortably contain its residents. People have been moving out of California in great numbers for years, because they know what it is like there. Those who don't know how it really is keep moving in and keep the prices of everything at their usual high.

However, none of this matters to the OP, who simply wanted to know if it was a good idea. I don't think it is workable or worthwhile to regularly sleep on the beaches of California.

Camping on beaches is restricted. You could end up with hefty fines (including for littering, and using the beach as your toilet). Better to cough up the bucks to camp at state parks, or visit the beach during the day and loook for isolated areas, even county parks, inland for your sleeping.

You might get away with it along Pt. Reyes National Seashore. That's the only place I've seen any beach campers in CA.

The Lost Coast is a coastal wilderness area a few hours north of San Fran where if you are willing to hike you can camp on or near beaches. For a fee you can camp at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park in Big Sur - which is a small state park right near the beach in a redwood grove. There's another nearby state park with a very, very similar name also in a redwood grove but that is not near the beach, in fact I might have them mixed up. Anyway, they're both nice but not free. Back in my broke college student days I did a camping trip in N. California - and discovered free, legal camping to be almost non-existant anywhere near the coast. We never even tried camping on a beach, that seemed like a guaranteed bust. Even slightly inland, it was really hard to find good camping that seemed reasonably private (i.e. less likely to be busted). We ended up camping in drainage ditches, along logging roads, and all kinds of crap-tastic places. How on earth I came to decide that it wasn't worth it to get a campground I still can't figure out.