Our family has been camping at the National Seashore for the past 6 years and always love it! You don't have to drive down the beach to camp - there is a campground near the Visitor Center with bathrooms and showers. The campground is right in the dunes with just a short hike (about 50 yards) over the dunes to the best beach in Texas - clear, warm, blue water. Very, very nice! It's one of my favorite spots on earth! A lot of people do camp right down on the sandy beach but then your tent will be full of sand (impossible to stop it) and there are crabs all over the beach that come out at night - little white ones called ghost crabs - and I don't like the idea of crabs walking all around my tent, or even under it maybe. It kinda freaks me out, so we all prefer the campground - which is really nice. Each site has a picnic table with a cover for shade. On some of the sites it's difficult to find room to pitch a tent, it seems they have designed the sites more for RVs than tents, but you can do it. Try to get one of the sites on the very end - they are larger, more grassy, and there is running water right there too. You won't be disappointed in the National Seashore - it's amazing! Check out the visitor center while you're there too.