If you're staying at Campland on the Bay and thinking about a golf cart, there's one distinction worth understanding before you book anything — and it isn't price.
It's whether the cart is street-legal or park-only. They are two different vehicles under California law, and they can do very different things.
Park-only carts stay in the park
A standard golf cart is exactly that: a cart for use inside a private property. It isn't registered, isn't insured for road use, and legally cannot leave the campground. Inside Campland that's perfectly fine — you can get to the pool, the bay, the restrooms and your site without walking the whole property.
But the campground gate is the end of its range. You can't take it to breakfast on Garnet, to the Mission Beach boardwalk, or over to La Jolla.
Street-legal carts are LSVs, and they can leave
A street-legal cart is a Low-Speed Vehicle (LSV) under California law. It has a VIN, a license plate, registration, insurance, headlights, turn signals, mirrors, seat belts and a windshield.
That classification is what matters, because an LSV can legally be driven on public roads with a posted speed limit of 35 mph or less — which describes most of the road network across Pacific Beach, Mission Beach and Mission Bay.
In practice, from a campsite at Campland, that means you can drive to:
- Mission Bay Park and the paths right around the campground
- Pacific Beach — Garnet Avenue, Crystal Pier, the boardwalk
- Mission Beach — Belmont Park and the boardwalk
- La Jolla — a longer run, but well within range
You need a valid driver's license to operate one, and it follows the same road rules as a car. We wrote up the specifics in street-legal golf cart rules in San Diego.
So which one do you actually want?
It depends honestly on how you're using the trip:
A park-only cart makes sense if you're staying put. Big site, small kids, lots of trips back and forth to the pool and the bay, and you brought a car for everything else.
A street-legal cart makes sense if the point is to not use the car. If you'd rather not move the vehicle you parked, hunt for parking in Pacific Beach on a Saturday, or coordinate two trips to dinner — a street-legal cart replaces those trips entirely. Six seats means one vehicle instead of two.
Parking is the underrated part. Beach-area parking in summer is genuinely difficult, and a cart is far easier to place than a car or a truck.
What it costs
Campland rents carts by the hour. Here are their published rates, taken from their own booking system on 28 July 2026 — their prices include fees:
| 4-person cart | 6-person cart | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 hour | $63.60 | $74.20 |
| 2 hours | $116.60 | $137.80 |
| 3 hours | $169.60 | $201.40 |
| 4 hours | $222.60 | $265.00 |
| 5 hours | $275.60 | $328.60 |
| 6 hours | $328.60 | $392.20 |
Six hours is the longest block they offer.
We rent by the day, not the hour. Our 6-seat street-legal cart is from $160 for the first day — a full 24 hours — plus tax, with a refundable $200 deposit.
Put those side by side and the shape of it is clear: their three-hour block already costs more than our entire day. Their maximum six-hour rental costs well over double a full day with us, and you'd have the cart for a quarter as long.
That isn't a dig at Campland — an hourly on-site rental is a genuinely different product, and if you want a cart for exactly two hours on a Saturday afternoon without booking ahead, theirs is right there and ours involves a delivery.
But if you want the cart for the day, hourly pricing is an expensive way to buy it.
A fair comparison, stated plainly: our price is before tax, theirs includes fees. Their carts are on-site, so there's nothing to arrange; we deliver to your campsite free, which takes a booking. And their rates were captured on a single day — check Campland's own booking page for what they're charging when you read this.
What we rent
We rent brand-new 6-seat street-legal carts — Apple CarPlay, a real sound system, USB charging, seat belts, plate and registration.
- from $160 the first day, $140 each additional day
- Refundable $200 deposit
- Free delivery to Campland — we bring it to your site, you don't collect it
- Or self-checkout: find the cart on a live map and unlock it with a code. No counter, no queue, no waiting on someone to hand you a key.
- Optional insurance through a licensed carrier
Booking takes about two minutes online.
Before you book anything
Whichever way you go, check Campland's own rules first — they govern how any cart is used inside the campground regardless of who you rent from, including who may drive it and where it may go after dark. We've summarised them in Campland on the Bay golf cart rules, and the authoritative version is on Campland's website.
See Campland golf cart rentals →
We rent street-legal carts, so this comparison is not neutral — we've tried to describe the trade-off honestly rather than pretend park-only carts have no use. For current rates and terms on any rental offered by the campground itself, check directly with Campland.
