Fire Island Parks and Outdoors Travel Guide

Watch Hill, located across the Great South Bay from Patchogue, offers 26 sand sites in a campground with running water, grills, showers, and bathrooms. Activities include ocean swimming (seasonal lifeguards), backcountry hiking, and bird watching. It's accessible only by private boat, ferry, and foot.
Large, organized groups of up to 40 should reserve at the group site at Watch Hill. The campground is within a short walk of a visitor center and marina; it is located next to the Otis Pike Fire Island High Dune Wilderness.
The Otis Pike Fire Island High Dune Wilderness offers backcountry wilderness camping on a first-come, first-served basis. Late fall and early spring are best to avoid ticks, mosquitoes, and the heat. Group size and locations are limited. You must backpack in to each of the designated areas.
Smith Point County Park is the only campground where you may drive in with a camper or trailer. Located on the eastern end of Fire Island National Seashore, it's accessible via the William Floyd Parkway. From the parking lot, you can hike into the Otis Pike Fire Island High Dune Wilderness.

Fire Island Travel Guide

A half-mile wide, 32 miles long, and car- and attitude-free, Fire Island is about as emotionally far from New York City as you can get within a couple of hours. A patchwork of national seashore and private property, the island has few formal addresses; folks ride beat-up bicycles barefoot and know places only by name. Regulars talk of "the mainland" like it was a distant continent rather than right across the bay. And the word "ostentatious" hasn't even been coined yet—informality rules the day. With punishing winters, Fire Island is strictly a summertime getaway. When Memorial Day hits, the small hamlets fill with warm-weather revelers, while other parts of the island see only congregations of deer. And after September's over, most everything shuts down. Read More

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Fire Island Parks and Outdoors Travel Guide