Caladesi Island State Park ???'s

[ph1shmonger]

Planning on taking the family camping by boat around the Tampa Bay area and wanted to know if anyone had camped at Caladesi?

The few questions I have are if tents are allowed, or is it all camping on the boat? Is it truly a dog friendly park as it says on the site? Bugs in the spring (I could probably guess on this)?

 

[tomandwendy]

Re: Caladesi Island State Park ???'s

I can't tell you exactly the rules there, but yes there is a dog friendly park that you can goto......however I do not believe you can camp there except in the campgrounds which I am not positive has a boat access....I do know there are lots of islands in that area right beside it that you can boat and camp on with usually no others even on the island....I do not live there but my mother lives on the gulf and can see caladesi and the other islands to the south of the honeymoon island bridge. I see campers on those islands, but usually just one family there.

 

[TilliamWe]

Re: Caladesi Island State Park ???'s

When I was there in January, I didn't see any tent designated areas. I didn't see signs that said no tents either.
Call them, their number should be 727-469-5918 or here is their website:
http://www.floridastateparks.org/CaladesiIsland/ But it sounds like you have already been to the site. I noticed it wasn't spelled out either.
We stayed on our boat, so a tent wasn't an issue for us. And since it wasn't warm, there was only 4 other boats in the whole harbor. Talk about nice!

They were very quick to warn us about rattlesnakes, though. Now it was 50 degrees and we saw none, but apparently in the warmer months there are plenty.