Overview
- Reservations, which opened Tuesday, Aug. 18, are available at recreation.gov for stays beginning Aug. 27 at a nightly rate of $15 per site.
- The Prisoners Harbor Campground has six sites that sleep up to four people and is the first new campground added to Santa Cruz Island in decades.
- The site sits about a quarter-mile from the Prisoners Harbor pier in oak woodland below Eagle Ridge and links Scorpion Campground with the remote Del Norte site to enable new multi-day hikes and kayak trips.
- More than two dozen volunteers, led by the Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council, supplied hundreds of hours to build the campground after work began in 2022 and resumed this year, with funding and in-kind support from nonprofits and corporate partners.
- Island Packers will continue to serve Prisoners Harbor with roughly 90-minute boat runs from Ventura and reported round-trip fares near $96 for campers, and nearby Santa Rosa Island remains closed to camping after a 2026 wildfire which could affect island demand.