North of Highland Camping Area, Cape Cod

For more than five decades, North of Highland Camping Area’s 237 pine-shaded campsites have offered one of the few ways a family could stay at the Cape Cod National Seashore at reasonable cost. A few years back, Steve Currier, the camp’s owner, began to contemplate retirement, raising the possibility that the land might be sold for development. Fortunately, almost no one—including the owner and the National Park Service—wanted to see that happen.

In 2005, the Association to Preserve Cape Cod and other groups led a grassroots effort to protect the campground land with a conservation easement, while The Trust for Public Land negotiated with the Currier family for time to assemble funding. In one of his last legislative efforts, the late U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy secured funding from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund. The survival of the North of Highland Camping Area ensures that future generations of visitors to Cape Cod National Seashore will be able to pitch a tent only a short walk from the beach.