The Corpus Christi overnight is wet sand at Padre Island National Seashore, two ruts cut between the dunes and the Gulf. Those ruts just keep going. Gulls hang over the wrack, and the island has no buildings.
Malaquite Campground is the first developed night, a walk from the surf by the visitor center, closest to the park entrance, with no hookups and no way to reserve a site. Past it, North Beach and South Beach are primitive camping on the sand, still without water or electric, a strip above the tide you take first-come. A beach week is more of that same barrier-island sand heading south, and when the tanks need it you come back to the dump station and freshwater fill at the Malaquite entrance.
Four-wheel drive is required past the first miles, so a two-wheel-drive campervan stays on the packed sand near the entrance. With four-wheel drive you keep going as the island opens up, still between the dune line and the Gulf, and you camp on that sand and use the same two ruts again the next morning.
If Malaquite is full, Mustang Island State Park and Goose Island State Park are the overflow nights. Those campgrounds take reservations, which is how you hold a developed site when the seashore has no space left.
In summer the seashore releases sea turtle hatchlings on Malaquite Beach in front of the visitor center. The mornings are public and they depend on the weather. Sleep at Malaquite and you can walk to the release beach.
Camping at the seashore runs year-round. Hurricane season can close primitive beach camping on short notice when the Gulf floods the island, so check the park's conditions and tide page before you drive out.
Farther down the Texas coast, South Padre Island is its own Gulf beach trip.
Mustang Island State Park
Mustang Island State Park is the next island north, open beach in front and low scrub in the dunes behind. You spend the day on that flat beach, then sleep either a third of a mile back in the water-and-electric loop or on the sand in a drive-up primitive site. Port Aransas is the beach town on the ferry between Mustang Island and North Padre.
If you need more sleeping space than a campervan bunk, look at RV rentals in Corpus Christi. The park fills, so lock the site first and treat the van as the second booking. Texas State Parks reservations open five months in advance, and summer hatchling mornings fill these hookup loops on the same weekends.
Goose Island State Park and the Big Tree
Goose Island State Park is live-oak shade, with water-and-electric sites under the canopy and a bayfront loop looking at the water. Walk-in tent sites have no electric, so a campervan uses the improved loops. The bay is right there, and the canopy is the reason people drive up from the open Gulf beaches.
Near Rockport, the Big Tree leans over coastal grass, a live oak bent by the wind with branches stretched out sideways. It stands alone by the bay, and Rockport is the town people name with Goose Island.
Some sites have intermittent closures for construction as of September 2026. A longer inland night is San Antonio for Hill Country river camping.