Long Point: Which Campground Should You Book?

If your main goal is just landing a site when the five-month reservation window opens, book Cottonwood — it's the biggest campground at Long Point Provincial Park, with roughly 85 sites, so there's more inventory in the pool than at any of the other three. If you'd rather trade some selection for a smaller, likely quieter loop, Turtle Dunes (about 31 sites) and Monarch (about 47) are the two smallest. Beyond size, our data doesn't confirm which loop sits closest to the beach or which sites have electrical hookups, so check the official interactive site map before you commit to a site number.

Here's the fuller picture.

What Long Point is

Long Point Provincial Park sits at 350 Erie Blvd in Port Rowan, Ontario, on the sand spit that runs out into Lake Erie south of Simcoe and Tillsonburg. The peninsula is known among Ontario campers for its warm, shallow Lake Erie swimming beach and among birders for sitting on a major migratory flyway. If birding highlights or beach conditions are part of your plan, check the current details on the official park page, since those change season to season and aren't something we track.

The four campgrounds by size

Site counts shift as the park adjusts loops from year to year, so treat these as approximate and confirm current numbers on the Ontario Parks page before you plan around them.

Cottonwood

At roughly 85 sites, Cottonwood is the biggest of Long Point's four campgrounds, giving you the most sites in the reservation pool. It's a reasonable first pick if your priority is simply getting into the park on your dates rather than a specific loop.

Firefly

Firefly runs second at around 61 sites. With Cottonwood, these two campgrounds together hold nearly two-thirds of the park's drive-in inventory, so between them your odds of finding an opening are better than at either of the other two.

Monarch

Monarch sits smaller, at roughly 47 sites. Fewer sites generally means fewer neighbours, so it's worth trying if you'd rather have a quieter loop than the widest selection of open dates.

Turtle Dunes

Turtle Dunes is the smallest campground at Long Point, at roughly 31 sites. If quiet matters more to you than selection, start your search here — though with the fewest sites, it's also the one most likely to sell out first once demand for the park picks up.

What we can't confirm yet

We'd rather tell you plainly what we don't know than guess. Which loops have electrical hookups, which sites are a short walk from the beach versus a longer one, and what the roughly 32-site gap between the park's total of about 256 and its four drive-in campgrounds actually consists of (group camping and other site types are the likely answer, but we don't have that broken out) are all things our page doesn't confirm yet. Before you lock in a site number, pull up the current interactive site map on the Ontario Parks page for Long Point — it shows the live layout, services, and site photos for each loop. Our guide on how to read a campsite before you book also walks through what to look for on the satellite view once you've narrowed down a loop.

Booking Long Point

Ontario Parks reservations open five months ahead of your arrival date, at 7 a.m. Eastern, on reservations.ontarioparks.ca. Long Point's Lake Erie beach and its reputation among birders put it within reach of the Golden Horseshoe and southwestern Ontario, so summer weekends can fill up fast across all four campgrounds. Our 2027 reservation dates guide has the day-by-day schedule, and our 7 a.m. booking playbook covers what to have ready before the window opens — your first-choice campground plus a couple of backup site numbers.

If your dates are already booked out by the time you check, it isn't necessarily final. Our guide to landing a cancelled site covers setting a Notify Me alert and timing your checks around the cancellation deadline, which works just as well here as at any other park.

Quick picks

• Best odds of getting a site: Cottonwood, then Firefly.
• Smallest, likely quietest: Turtle Dunes, then Monarch.
• Need electrical or beach-distance specifics confirmed: check the Ontario Parks site map before booking.

PitchPeek is a small, growing app for browsing sites at campgrounds like Cottonwood and Firefly, saving the ones you're considering, and rating your own site after your trip.

Free · plan the trip with your crew · rate the site when you get home

Questions

How many campgrounds does Long Point Provincial Park have?

Four: Cottonwood, Firefly, Monarch and Turtle Dunes.

Which Long Point campground is the biggest?

Cottonwood, with roughly 85 sites, well ahead of Firefly at roughly 61.

Which Long Point campground is the smallest and likely the quietest?

Turtle Dunes, at roughly 31 sites, followed by Monarch at roughly 47.

Long Point lists about 256 total sites but the four campgrounds only add up to around 224 — what's the rest?

That gap likely covers group camping, seasonal, or other site types not broken out separately in our data. Check the Ontario Parks page for Long Point to see current site categories.