This was a great little camp area. Perfect for a stopping place in between our tourist activities. We only slept here. I didn't find it difficult to book the site either, but I booked well in advance of our trip. Recreation.gov will tell you when you can book a site. There are picnic tables, bear boxes, and barbecues at each of the three sites. One port-a-potty is down by the three sites and there is an actual pit toilet up in the day use area. No running water. Amazing views. However, the campground description of the area (both on Recreation.gov and the NPS website) omits some key pieces of information that would've been nice knowing ahead of time.
1. The road to the campground has a gate that closes at sunset. Problematic if you arrive after sunset and don't realize this gate exists. There is another round-about way to get to the campground, but if it's your first time or are unfamiliar with the area it may difficult to figure out.
2. Camping permits are available at the visitors center (website mentions this). However, the visitors center is only open from 9:30am-4:00pm Wednesday-Monday. Also, not a problem, except when they don't leave the permits in the after-hours dropbox.
3. It's a SHORT, downhill hike from the parking spots to the actual campsites. Not a deal breaker by any means, but something worth noting.
4. Recreation.gov mentions a lot of attractions in the Marin Headlands area. Some of these attractions have VERY SPECIFIC hours and closures. If you want to do any of these, look into hours before booking a site. These weren't the main goal of our trip, but we thought we would just hit some of them since we were in the area. We found a couple of them closed the entire time we were staying (like Point Bonita Lighthouse and Nike Missile Facility).
5. There's a specific tent pad where you are to set up your tent. Size isn't mentioned on Recreation.gov, but when we set up our tent, it appeared to be 8'x8' (our 6'x8' tent barely fit). So, if you have a large tent, it probably won't fit.
All-in-all it was a great place for us to sleep for two nights. read more