Camping Marina di Venezia

Campeggio Marina di Venezia campground in Punta Sabbioni, Venice, Italy

Venice actually does have campgrounds—and would you believe this one is right on the beach?

Camping Marina di Venezia, Punta Sabbioni, Venezia

This is the biggest and one of the best of the dozens of campgrounds lining the Punta Sabbioni promontory separating the Venetian lagoon from the Adriatic Sea. (Shuttle buses take you the short distance to a vaporetto stop for rides into Venice itself.)

This place is one of the largest campgrounds in all of Europe, and that’s no joke. It's literally like a mid-sized town, only made up entirely of campsites.

Just to give you an inkling, it stretches over 173 acres and can comfortably fit more than 12,000 campers (that's not a typo: more than twelve thousand campers).

It features 30 shops and 7 bars & restaurants (not counting beach bars)—most of them along a central boulevard lined by low-rise shopping centers.

It has an impressively-sized water park with six swimming pools, and a fabulous beach: families cavorting, yellow sand, 200 yards deep, and stretching for miles (of which 1.2 km belong exclusively to the campground).

The campground offers both tent and campervan sites (from €21 to €47 for two) and bungalows (€32 to €67 for two people; up to €180 for those sleeping up to six or seven people.)

There is a two-night minimum stay (a 7-night minimum from July 7 to Aug 21).

It’s open mid–April to the end of September.

» More cheap lodgings in Venice, Italy at Venere.com...

Details, tips, & links

Details

Camping Cavallino Marina di Venezia
Via Montello 6, Loc. Punta Sabbioni, Cavallino-Treporti, Venezia (just north of the Venice Lido island)
Vaporetto: Punta Sabbioni
tel. +39-041-530-2511
www.marinadivenezia.it
€

Lodging links

Lodging tips

If you're looking for a hotel near a particular sight, just go to that sight's page and, in the sidebar on the right, you'll see a list of all the nearby hotels (with "Reid Recommends" choices preceded by a little RR icon: ).
The Venice hotel tax: As of 2011, Venice began charging a Visitor Tax. This is the city's doing, and it is not a scam (just annoying). All charges are per person, per night, for all guests over the age of 10, and the tax is charged for stays of up to 10 days. (There are discounts: Dec-Jan, 30%; Kids aged 10-16, 50%; Stays on the Lido or other outer islands, 20%; Stays in Mestre or elsewhere on the mainland, 20%.)

The cost breakdown is insanely complicated (varies with official clasification and rating cateogry), but general as of 2014:
- Hotels: €1 pppn (per person per night) per star rating. (So a couple [2 people] staying three nights [2 x 3 = 6] in a four-star hotel [6 x €4 = €24] would pay an extra €24.
- B&Bs: €3 pppn flat
- Apartments, residences, rental rooms: €1.50–€2.50 pppn
- Hostels/religious housing and agriturismi: €2 pppn
- Camping: €0.10–€0.40 pppn
Some hotels have folded the fee into their quoted rates; most properties tack it on as an extra when you check out. Just be prepared.
Book ahead in summer and during Carnevale: Venice is way more popular than the number of beds it has, so while in the dead of winter you can often show up and find a good place to crash easily, the best rooms (and the best-value hotels) are booked well in advance for the summer months and the two weeks prior to Ash Wednesday (when Venice breaks out the fancy dress and masks for its famed Carnevale celebrations).

Same goes (though less so, and more at the chic and high end hotels) during the Venice Biennale art festival and the Venice Film Festival.
Pay extra for A/C in summer: No matter what kind of lodging you pick, if it's summer (a) try to get a room with air-conditioning and (b) even if you can't (or you can but have a hankering for some fresh air) resist the urge to open the windows to your room.

Venice is, I believe, the primary breeding ground for the mosquito population of Southern Europe, and precious few Italian hoteliers have discovered that newfangled invention called window screens. Keep the windows shut, or prepare to be bitten.

(Also, carry some bug spray for those romantic canalside dinners outside. Trust me.)
Avoid Mestre: Any hotels with an address in "Venezia-Mestre" is actually in the dull, modern, industrial suburb at the mainland end of the bridge over to the real, ancient Venice you came all this way to see. Do not stay in Mestre! You'll spend more time and money commuting each day in an out of Venice proper than you will save.