10 Best Dog Friendly Campsites in South Australia

Discover the best dog friendly camping South Australia has to offer with this wag-inducing list of the best getaway spots for you and your favourite backseat drooler.

We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the Countries on which these adventures take place who have occupied and cared for these lands, waters, and their inhabitants for thousands of years. We pay our respects to them and recognise that sovereignty was never ceded.

Dog Friendly Camping South Australia

If you’re a dog owner, locating spesh dog friendly camping is a necessity. Compared to other states, it can be kind of hard to find good ones in the vast state that is South Australia. So whether you’re keen for a surf, a bushy weekend away close to town, or a longer road trip out west or up north, we’ve found the best dog friendly camping South Australia has to offer for you AND your doggo.

Reasons your best furry friend will love a camping trip with you include, but aren’t limited to: endless new places to sniff and snooze, the buzzing, humming, singing, and silence of the wild, and sharing every second with their best human friend.

Here are some of our favourite dog friendly campgrounds for you to share:

1. Gleesons Landing

Location: Yorke Peninsula
Time: 3 hours from Adelaide
Cost: $20 a night

Gleesons Landing is where you’ll find us most weekends! It’s a council-run bush camp, with a long drop or two, and some bins to drop your trash into. It’s a first-in-best-dressed kinda campground – but we’ve never seen it full!

Gleesons offers an array of different campsites, some overlooking the Spencer Gulf, others more tucked away and sheltered. Grey nomads, surfers, and local farmers are some of the regulars you’ll find camping here.

The ‘Walk The Yorke’ track meanders through here offering a decent walking trail for you and your buddy. Doggos can be off-lead but must be under effective control.

Like most parts of South Australia, fires are permitted but always outside of the fire season. Reception is limited at this Yorke Peninsula site so make sure you jump online to pay for your site before arrival. There’s a dirt road in but your 2WD will handle it just fine.

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2. Wirra Campground

Location: Parra Wirra Conservation Park
Time from Adelaide: 50 minutes
Cost: $25 a night

Wirra Campground is one of the closest camping spots to Adelaide that you can bring your dog to! On a lead, of course! Showcasing many local trails and a good set of bathrooms, this campground is well maintained – and it’s rare for a conservation park to allow dogs, so soak it up!

We really enjoy the Lake Discovery Walk and it has great spots for a picnic. For being so close to the hustle of Adelaide, this campground is surprisingly bushy and quiet – there are many birds amongst the scrub and the occasional emu to spot.

Campgrounds like this one through parks in South Australia often book out a week or so in advance – so you better get in quick to book one of the best dog friendly campsites in the state for yourself (especially during school holidays).

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3. Chookarloo Campground

Location: Kuitpo Forest
Time from Adelaide: 50 minutes
Cost: $19.60 a night, per vehicle

Chookarloo Campground in Kuitpo Forest offers never-ending trails and forest; you’ll see hikers on the Heysen, bikers on the Mawson, horse riders on the Kidman, general campers settling in for a weekend with a fire, and day trippers setting out for a trail run or a bush walk. It may sound busy, but Kuitpo Forest is large enough to satisfy all without feeling like you’re on top of each other.

Dogs must be on leads and can enjoy an array of trails around the forest. A nice meander is the Onkeeta trail – showcasing both native and pine forests – giving your doggo all the diverse smells.

This campground is well established and boasts new toilet facilities and picnic areas. Campsites book out during school holidays so be sure to plan ahead and reserve your site online.

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@jackjbrookes

4. Castles Landing

Location: Murray River, Paisley
Time from Adelaide: 2 hours
Cost: Approximately $10 cash on arrival – Call (08) 8540 5015 to book!

Castles Landing is a little-known hidden gem taking you outside of the hustle and bustle of many other Murray riverside campgrounds. This place is one of those last remaining old-school campgrounds that’s literally someone’s paddock that happens to back onto the river; I’m not talking glamping set up, I’m talking bare minimum (think, like zero facilities).

It’s also old school in the way you can’t book online and need to call to ensure the owners are home to provide you with a key for the gate. Oh, and it’s cash only.

It’s time to get rugged and rough here: take out what you bring in, saddle up for bush squats instead of toilets, nap under the river gums, paddleboard to your heart’s content, and relish doing nothing.

Our furry friends soaked up the sun and enjoyed balancing on the paddleboard!

Read more: The Best Gear Picks For Adventure Dogs In 2023

Rocky Paddock

Location: Mount Crawford Forest
Time from Adelaide: 1 hour
Cost: $19.60 a night per vehicle

Rocky Paddock is one of the most beautiful campgrounds located close to Adelaide. It offers forest, trails, lots of wildlife, hills, and boulders – it kind of smells like Canada with the pine and the rock.

In the winter, Rocky Paddock offers the classic magical mist of the Adelaide Hills, and you’ll find people mushroom foraging and meandering around the many trails. In the warmer months, basking on boulders, hiking, trail running or biking around at an easy pace are common activities.

You can walk in any direction from your campsite and you’ll find wide open paddocks, native gums – or pines – offering plenty of diverse things for your doggo mates to sniff, so long as you keep them on a lead!

Read more: 10 Dog Friendly Walks in Adelaide in 2023

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Photo by Mish and Kirk

6. Melrose Showgrounds

Location: Melrose, southern Flinders
Time from Adelaide: 3 hours
Cost: approx $12 cash a night 

The Melrose Showgrounds campground is surprisingly large with plenty of little nooks and no designated spots for unpowered sites, meaning you can find your own space and set up where you like!

There are toilets and showers, and firewood is easily sourced in town – so you can really get yourself sorted and settle in for a slow weekend with your doggo. Laze away the hours watching the kangaroos munch on the grass, the birds flock in, and mountain bikers pedal past.

Melrose is the ideal spot for hikers and bikers. As well as getting some quality nature time, it’s quiet and quaint and offers peaceful times for you and your doggo to mooch around in nature, right at the foot of Mount Remarkable.

No bookings are required but check the Facebook page for updates!

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7. Daly Head Campground

Location: Daly Head, Yorke Peninsula
Time from Adelaide: 3 hours
Cost: $20 a night

Around the bend from Gleesons Landing, we have the Daly Head Campground. Popular with surfers, this place also offers stunning sunsets, beaches, and many sandy dunes for you and your doggo to explore.

As far as facilities go, there’s a water tank (which I would 100% not rely on and is meant to be reserved for walkers) and a long drop toilet. Plus, there are plenty of grassy, rocky, and sandy patches for the ultimate buffet of natural back-scratching surfaces, and tent placement comfort.

You can watch pods of dolphins playing in the gulf, and if you’re lucky you might spot a seal! This is one of the rare spots you can have your doggo off lead for them to roam free (under your watchful eye of course).

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@jameselvy

8. Rapid Bay Camping Grounds

Location: Rapid Bay, Fleurieu Peninsula
Time from Adelaide: 1.5 – 2 hours
Cost: $12.50 per person a night

An influencer’s dream, Rapid Bay Camping Grounds offers your beach-loving pooch all of the swims in the epitome of an Instagram-worthy beach. On a flatter, calmer day, get the paddleboard out for a little cruise! Or traverse the rocky flanks of the bay to explore tiny hidden coves, just remember to keep your furry friend on a leash at the campground.

Ensure your doggo is on a lead and under control in the campground area, and enjoy the soothing sounds of the ocean. During busy periods this campground can overflow, so check the Facebook page and call in advance to avoid disappointment.

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9. Bendleby Ranges

Location: Orrorroo, Flinders Ranges
Time from Adelaide: 3.5-4 hours
Cost: $50 for an unpowered site

Sitting at the southern end of the great Flinders Ranges, camping at Bendleby Ranges offers a beautiful blend of both working farmland and eco-tourism. The family-run outback station is known for stargazing and 4WDing, with a diverse selection of campsites for you and your doggo – you don’t need a 4WD to get in, we promise.

Read more: Red Dirt and a 2WD? It’s Possible on the Explorers Way in South Australia

After years of hiking on this property, I can confirm that spring is definitely the best time to visit. You’ll be able to meander through wildflowers, spot baby emus, and – if you’re lucky – pick some fresh fruit from the native Quandong trees.

Boasting dry river beds with sun-drenched boulders and gums that offer canopies of shade, Bendleby Ranges are pretty romantic, assuming you love the outback aesthetic as much as we do! Camp here for your taste of doggo-friendly Flinders fun.

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10. Point Gibbon Campground

Location: Point Gibbon, Eyre Peninsula
Time from Adelaide: 5.5 – 6 hours
Cost: $10 a night

Heading on a road trip with your furry best mate? The west coast of South Australia offers a range of dreamboat dog friendly camping to choose from. You’ll head north before you head south and end up towards the west coast of SA but on the east coast of the Eyre Peninsula. Who doesn’t like a compass – am I right?

Just over 2 hours south of Port Augusta, and 1.5 hours north of Port Lincoln, Point Gibbon Campground offers a great quiet retreat for the weekend, or a stopover on a longer trip out west of Adelaide. Doggos won’t be able to contain themselves along this epic dog friendly coastline – there’s heaps to do.

Point Gibbon Campground offers new designated campsites and toilets but always book ahead, bring your own water, and don’t forget the dog toys!

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Photo from the South Australian Tourism Commission