Camping and RV Parks near Cedar Key

The lay of the land

Cedar Key is smaller than its own story. The census counts 756 people, with a median age of 68.4 years. Of the 819 housing units in town, 450 sit vacant, and 269 are held for seasonal or recreational use. That arithmetic tells you what the place is now: a thin, quiet year-round core surrounded by empty rooms waiting for visitors. The campgrounds are the honest version of that same arrangement.

You are not coming here for the sprawl. You are coming here because the Gulf side of Levy County still feels like the edge of something. The roads narrow. The horizon flattens. The air carries salt and the smell of mud flats.

The three on Shiloh Road

Two of the town’s main RV parks sit within a few hundred yards of each other on Shiloh Road, just off the causeway. Cedar Key RV Resort is the largest of the two, rated 4.4 from 367 reviews—the most-reviewed campground in town by a wide margin. It sits at 11980 SW Shiloh Rd, close enough to the water that the breeze does most of the work in the hot months. Across the road, Cedar Blessings RV Park carries a 4.2 rating from 180 reviews at 11951 SW Shiloh Rd. Both are straightforward, functional bases for a town where the main events are tidal, not manufactured.

Do not expect resort theatrics. These are places to park, plug in, and walk or bike into town. What they share is proximity: the historic district, the docks, and the seafood festival in October are all a short ride away.

The outlier on the highway

Sunset Point at Cedar Key is the odd one out. Located at 11850 FL-24, it sits on the main highway rather than the quiet side road, and its 4.3 rating comes from just 9 reviews. This is the choice for the traveler who wants to be first out in the morning and last back at night. It does not pretend to be a destination in itself, but it puts you on the direct line between Cedar Key and the rest of the county.

The one that is not an RV park

If you want the version of this place that matches its history, skip the hookups. Shell Mound Campground, at 17650 SW 78 Pl, is the outlier in character, not just location. Rated 4.3 from 306 reviews, it is a primitive, tent-and-small-trailer campground run by the Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge. It sits on a shell mound built by people who lived here long before the sawmills. The name is literal: the ground is made of what they ate and left behind.

There are no full hookups here. There is no pool. What you get is the quietest stretch of coast in the area, and the chance to wake up to a view that has not meaningfully changed in centuries.

The history you are sleeping on

The cedar that gave this town its name was the reason anyone settled here at all. Atsena Otie Key—"cedar island" in the Creek language—was the nucleus of the first organised settlement, when Augustus Steele bought the military structures on the island in 1843 for $227, along with title to its 167 acres. That was the beginning.

The industry followed. The Eberhard Faber mill set up in 1865 to cut red cedar slats for pencils. By 1886, the 17 sawmills at Cedar Key were producing nearly half a million board feet a week. This was the wood the world wrote with. The Eagle Pencil Company ran its own site on Way Key at 3rd and G Streets, cutting slats and making pencil boxes. Then the 1896 hurricane and fire hit both mills so badly that they closed soon after.

The storm surge locals still call the tidal wave. On Atsena Otie Key, more than thirty-five houses on the high ground survived it. The town did not.

The festival that proves the point

Every October, the Cedar Key Seafood Festival, run by the Lions Club, brings more than 100 arts and crafts exhibits, live music, and a Saturday parade at 11am. It is also the rare chance to reach Seahorse Key, the historic island three miles out that is otherwise closed to the public. The campgrounds fill up for it. Book early, or you will be sleeping in Gainesville and driving in.

The honest pitch

Camping here is not about the amenities. The median home value in town is $331,100; the median gross rent is $918. The unemployment rate is 4.2 percent, and 49.7 percent of residents hold a bachelor's degree or higher. This is a town of people who chose it, not people who ended up here by accident. The campgrounds reflect that: unpretentious, functional, and close to the water.

Pick Cedar Key RV Resort if you want the numbers and the company. Pick Cedar Blessings RV Park if you want the quieter neighbor. Pick Sunset Point if you are just passing through on FL-24. Pick Shell Mound if you want to understand why the town exists in the first place.

The sawmills are gone. The pencils are made elsewhere. But the ground under your tent is the same ground that built an industry out of a tree and a storm out of a season. That is worth the drive.