We love St Andrews in PCB. We go there at least once a year. Went to gulf shores last year. Was not impressed. Campground is nowhere near beach. Had to leave park, Park across street from beach and tote every thing across a busy intersection. Don't rule out port St Joe. Beautiful beach and campground.

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Can't give you a stayed there opinion but am looking at Big Lagoon State Park in Perdido Key, just across the bridge from Orange Beach and just outside from Pensacola. As I said, haven't stayed there but have relatives in Pensacola that say its pretty nice and am planning a trip down maybe in early May to Gulf camp and they can visit. Take a peak.
We can discuss this week end at the Rally.

Miles, last year for my first time EVER (and I'm a native Alabamian), we drove down to Gulf Shores, The first week in June.  We took the popup to the State Park and really enjoyed it. It was not overly crowded either. We did have to drive to the beach (not very far), but we drove over to the pier, at the beach, found a big parking lot to park in.  Larry headed over to the pier to fish for a bit, while Destiny and I headed down to the beach and set up and we spent our days there. It was perfect for us. Out of the week we went to the beach 3x.  We liked the park also. While there are not many trees, the park has had a complete rebuild (since the hurricane took everything out a few years ago). All the sites are full hook ups. The shower houses were clean, the pool area is new, large and clean. There is a gift shop, a small nature museum, tennis courts, basket ball court, playground, bike trails and an activity building, which while we were there had a VBS which Destiny attended.  I've never been to any other beach campground but we liked it there and the sites appeared (to me) to be a good size and you weren't sitting in your neighbors shadow.  We really liked it there and do plan on going a back again this summer.

http://www.campgulf.com/  this is the only one I know of but hold on to your wallet!

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Big Lagoon is quite nice.  Nice play areas.  However, you either walk a long way or drive to the beach.  Like others have said, the beach is on the waterway.  We've also stayed at St Andrews.  That is a wonderful park.  Again, quite a way from the beach.  Two cons to this park though.  Traffic can be horrendous!  The other is there are lots of deer.  Nice to watch, but carry ticks.  We saw lots of ticks, so be sure to spray!

The soonest we could get reservations to Henderson Beach SP was Labor day! 

From what we've seen, the State Parks in this area are well kept.  You should enjoy whichever one you choose (or can get into).

Bummer.

How about Myrtle Beach -Huntington Beach State Park -http://joelmyers.net/2004/Chap.....004%29.htm

Wish me luck in Oregon this summer.  I don't want to do reservations for that far away - stuff happens.