salisbury beach state reservation

My daughter and I wanted to break up our drive from Boston to Bangor, and Salisbury Beach State Reserve was just the place. Shorebirds and Warblers were migrating, and a Leach's Storm Petrel flew by, along the breaking waves when we were on the beach. Nice!

You can camp here, be on the wide open beach facing the Atlantic Ocean or enjoy the Merrimack River beach where your dog is welcomed too. The view of Plum Island just adds to the magic.

My girlfriend and I normally camp with our travel trailer on wooded sites without hookups. But we wanted to go to the Hampton Beach seafood festival and Hampton Beach campground was booked, so we decided to try Salisbury. We had site E44 with water and 20amp electrical service.Pros:1) Quiet (no wild kids running around...although I think this may have been because we were camping the second weekend in September and families with children are usually finished with camping once the kids go back to school).2) Friendly other campers3) Small shrub trees to so you didn't feel like you were camping in a field4) Proximity to Merrimack River...loved the sound of the river moving at night5) Level sites...easy backup6) Beautiful open sky with limited light polution...great for star gazingCons:1) Maintenance issues of both water and electrical hookups. Our water hookup leaked all over the place (thankfully we could still use it...we just felt bad about the water being wasted with all the spraying/leaking). Our neighbor's electrical didn't work at all. Front office had been told, and they said they would come out and fix/deal with it and then never did.2) Walking to the beach with beach stuff for day would be foolish. It is much too far to drag everything over there. If you have anything heavier than a towel and hand held cooler, you would most definitely want to take your car over to the beach parking lot, even if you were in row A of the campground. If you have small children in tow, you absolutely, positively want to drive over and park closer...which could prove difficult if it's a busy beach day.3) You can NOT see the ocean or beach from the campground. You have to leave the campground, walk by the beach parking lot, then navigate a wooden walkway to get to beach.4) Loved the sound and sight of the Merrimack...but we were lucky enough to have a site close enough. Any sites further back wouldn't have been able to hear it. To see it you had to get fairly close to a stone wall to look over at it.5) Dumping station hoses all run over and ruined. Also, when there are lines to dump at 11am on a Sunday, there is no place to wait and you end up parking/holding on the roadway to wait to be able to turn into the dump line. While waiting our turn on the roadway, our camper got bumped/scratched by a careless driver towing a large boat...and he didn't even stop. We thankfully got his license number and had to call the state police and file a report.6) Very small firepit7) Large steel ring to pull up a cement cover to an access hole right in the middle of many of the camping areas. We had to be VERY cautious when getting out of the camper not to trip on it. Quite dangerous at night in limited visibility.8) LONG LONG LONG check in lines at times!!! We thankfully hit it right, but saw a huge line a number of other times when we were coming and going.

Beautiful overnight camping accommodations, off season is the best. Walking the sand dunes is my favorite.

Stripers available for your fishing pleasure...clean easy access and environmentally safe rest rooms.

This is a great location for a daily visit. In the spring and fall the Merrimac River is full on harbor seals who are fun to watch. There is a nice play area for children and beach is spectacular!!!

Good, clean beach with plenty of parking. Note: weekend traffic is heavy and there is only one route back to the highway.

Never would have thought I'd be camping in what I consider my own backyard but as luck would have it our Girl Scout troop planned a camping trip at Salisbury Beach State Reservation! We were given a great opportunity to sleep over two nights just for cleaning part of the beach.... More on that later. I've never camped at a camp ground so I had no idea what to expect. We had many birds flying above and around our camp site - especially one cardinal that loved looking at himself in our car mirrors! I was pleasantly surprised at how friendly other campers were. I actually enjoyed looking at different types of tents and listening to a nearby camp site where they were playing a guitar and a banjo. I did not know when I arrived that there was even a store in the middle of the camp (thank God for it too! We needed a snack fix!) I had not planned on taking a shower but was pleased at the level of cleanliness - okay not a five star hotel but it really was actually clean - not luxury level but just what we needed and the water was warm! Now onto the cleaning portion of our camping trip. We cleaned on the Merrimac River side and well things do get dropped in the water. Things we found - straws, cigarette butts, shoes, bits of plastic, fishing line, bottles and parts of bottles and the worst we found was one needle (thankfully I found it instead of one of our girls and thankfully I had gloves one). When packing up from our site - in true Girl Scout form we cleaned up our site and I am sure we left it better than when we arrived. Our site was one of the sites reserved for such groups - the only downside is we did not have electricity hook up or water but we worked with what we had.

We always have a great time at this beach, never had to deal with too many people. Parking was $9, but there are bathrooms and outdoor showers. There is a pier to the beach, which makes lugging all the stuff easier. The water is very cold, but the kids love playing in the waves. There were lifeguards on duty, which was good because one of our little ones got knocked down by a wave, and they got to her first.

Good beach for a day trip.Clean beach and restrooms with plenty of parking.The water can get rough so you need to be careful. Lifeguards are on duty.It's about 75 miles from Worcester, and, depending upon traffic, can be reached in about an hour and fifteen minutes.There is a parking fee, but, Massachusetts residents 62 years old can apply for a free parking pass that is good at all Massachusetts state parks for life.

The "Res" as it is locally called is a great value for beach goers with pets...As NH residents we pay $45.00 for a season pass to the "Res" where we can walk or sit on the beach with our 2 Labs. Granted we go usually midweek it is seldom crowded and we find it a perfect place to sit in the sunshine with our 4 legged friends...

I go every August with all my family, we book three to four camping sites and always have a good time. You do have to book six months in advance if you are staying a long time, well up to 14 days if you want the camping site you want that is.

A season pass for parking here costs almost the same as a daily pass at Cranes Beach. Beach is raked clean every day. The beach is enormous. Bathrooms are clean. There aren't a lot of concessions so bring your own food and drink. Keep an eye on the tide chart: water is deep at high tide. There is a strong current so swimmers need to be careful. You must arrive early or you will never get a parking spot. Then either leave by 200 or resign yourself to sitting in traffic for miles. Beach traffic ends around 700 pm and this place is breathtaking at sunset. Enjoy!

Maybe I am just really lucky wherever I eat and stay, but I have to give another positive review. As usual, I can't believe all the negative reviews about camping at the reservation. Our family stayed the last week of July this year and had a fantastic time. We are from out of state, stayed 8 nights and paid just over $200. How can you beat that for a family vacation!?! People complain about the landscaping, dogs barking, and children running wild. Law enforcement passes through this large state park all the time watching for illegal activity and alcohol. That is difficult enough, never mind watching for everything else. Weren't we all kids once and ran around where we shouldn't have? I saw kids that were too young to be riding bikes without supervision, but how is that the fault of the park? The walk to the beach is not as long as some people comment about. It is a nice walk that takes about 10 minutes. If you don't want to walk, you have the opportunity to drive your vehicle and not have to pay for parking. The bathroom cleanliness is a hit or miss. We visited in May for the first time and again in July for a week for our second visit. When it rains, the bathrooms are a mess and when it doesn't, it's a completely different story. It is awesome that we can walk our dog on the river. People did put their fishing poles in the water and didn't watch them, but we just walked around them. We visited the beach five days because it was so close, clean, and the weather was gorgeous. I am appalled at the complaints. We can afford to go somewhere more expensive, but some people can't. It would be a shame if this place didn't exist, and it has to be looked at that way. Our children, family and friends were able to visit and stay with us because the prices are so reasonable!!

Love this place, good value, can be a bit of a hike to beach.Very popular with the locals can get crowded. Nice safe place to enjoy the beach.