Camping at Topsail Hill Preserve State Park, Santa Rosa, Florida
Our second stop on our November 2025 trip is to the beautiful Topsail Hill Preserve State Park located in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. We travelled about 140 miles to reach this park - but keep in mind that you're now in Central time zone so you don't arrive to early for check in . The path we choose is through rural country in Florida - we travelled primarily west bound on Highway 20.
I’ve joined several Facebook groups and everyone says what a beautiful park Topsail is – so it was in the right location to visit my friend – let’s give it a try and see what everyone is talking about.
The park has 1,640-acre located in Santa Rosa Beach of which some of this park is along the Gulf and has a beautiful beach available for human use (no dogs allowed). Having said “no dogs” that limited our visiting the beach – but I did take a peak (photos below).
Park Details
Topsail Hill Preserve State Park
Address: 7525 W. County Highway 30A, Santa Rosa Beach, Florida 32459 (Walton County)
Park 850-267-8330
Park 8am until sunset, 365 days a year
Park Office 8am until sunset
Cell phone service (Verizon) was good at this park
They have 156 RV sites within the park. They also have tent sites, bungalows and cabins. This is a very popular park and if you want one of the ‘premium’ sites I suspect that you have to book way in advance – since we booked 2 months in advance, our choices were not as broad, but also we didn’t know how the park was laid out. After walking a portion of the park, I found that the areas along Palm Circle, Wild Oak Lane, Pine Tree Lane have larger sites and more shade and privacy. This is primarily campsites in the 101-168 area (look on the map at the end of the blog).
Campsite Details
30 amp and 50amp electric
Picnic table
Gravel with wood borders
Our campsite, #10, was small and easily fit in between two larger campsites. There was some shade available, but we did not have any tree canopy above. Our particular campsite had very little privacy – sometimes that works to your advantage (or times not). On one side we never actually saw the people staying there – the other side we talked some with each of the neighbors as they changed while we were there. Great people – we learned a lot from the couple that had travelled down from Alaska.
Water/Electric/Sewer
Back in sites
Check in is 3pm
Checkout is 1pm
Quiet hours 10pm - 7am
A couple of notes about this campground that are pertinent.
- There are NO fire rings at the campsites. You are welcome to bring your own above ground fire pit but there is not one provided.
- The campground is not dark – there are lights throughout the campground
- The campground was quiet considering the number of campsites and people at the park
- They do have laundry facilities in a building clearly marked “Laundry”
- The park is on Central time zone – and as such the sun set at 4:46pm (what? You’re kidding – but no, it was dark by 5pm)
Rue is hanging out - guess she was on 'watch dog' duty at the time I took this photograph.
Early morning walk
Well, I know that the quiet times are until 7am, but try and convince your dogs when the sun has been up for a good while now. So, a short discussion with the dogs – No barking! You must be quiet (and wow, they listened). Our first early morning walk allowed us to get some idea of what all is within this park – um – resort? This isn’t like the other places that we have stayed which are a lot more rustic. This place has lots of amenities.
They have:
- Pool
- Shuffleboard
- Horseshoes
- Fishing lakes
- Biking/Hiking Trails (mostly in the back area going towards the beach); 15 miles of trails
- Trams to take you to various parts of the park (particularly the beach)
- Camp store
- Café serving breakfast and lunch
- Air traffic – there is a military base not far from here and there is a fair amount of air traffic from the base
- Beach (3.2 miles of beach front)
Shuffleboard courts
Pool
Fishing lake (I didn't see any alligators - but I wouldn't be surprised if there were small ones in this lake)
Cafe (on left - breakfast starting at 6:30 and lunch) - campstore on right
Horseshoe pits
This is a nice memorial as you enter the campground area of the park.
This particular park has gone through some changes over the years. First, known as Emerald Coast RV Resort. It was renamed to the Gregory E Moore RV Resort on August 14, 1998. Gregory was a dedicated Florida Park Service employee. Interesting enough, this young man died at the age of 20 but there is very little information available through Google search or Ancestry.
However, the ‘history’ provides some insight into why there are so many different amenities at this park that few others offer.
The beach and dunes
If you ride the tram, the last stop, tram stop #3 will drop you off at the parking lot for the beach. Many people ride their bicycles to this area – there are a lot of bike racks available. Still others (like us) walk to the beach since the dogs aren’t allowed on the tram. It’s a nice walk from our campsite to get down to the beach area – so plan on taking some water and perhaps a snack to eat if you get hungry along the way.
I didn’t see any cars travelling down to the beach except for park vehicles and the tram. I’m not sure whether or not cars are actually allowed to drive there since it appears no one did.
The road down towards the trails and beach area.
When we were almost at the beach area, I saw this sign.
In reading through some of the information on this park, I realized that if we had more time we could have seen a few other things – but with 2 nights and the first night it was almost dark by the time we got there, we didn’t have a lot of time to explore.
There is a nice trail that is right behind our campsite that we walked for short doggie walks. After we came back from our beach walk, I found out where this particular trail goes - and we could have bypassed some of the road walking for this nature path.
Dog Friendly restaurant nearby
If you’re looking for a nice dog friendly restaurant that is close by to Topsail Hill Preserve, check out Grimaldi’s located at 780 Grand Blvd #100, Miramar Beach, FL 32550. They have plenty of outside seating and the staff is very friendly. We enjoyed drinks, pizza and salad while the pups took a snooze at our feet. (850) 837-3095
Second walk, foggy morning
The second morning we awoke to find that it was a very foggy morning which meant it was also warmer.
Eastern bluebird hanging out...
Sunset through the pine trees
Kiddos hanging out at the campsite.
MAP
Sorry, the map is somewhat used in this case! Our first morning walk the dogs and I kinda got a little misplaced as this is a very large campground. No worries, Abby says I can get us back - just might not be the shortest route. And it wasn't (we were almost at our campsite before Abby took over with her hound nose and took us the long way back).
To view all the photographs from this stop on our trip, click here.