It’s estimated that there are around 3,500 skateparks in the US alone.
A few of them might charge an entry fee, but the majority of skateparks are free, and almost all of them are open to the public.
This isn’t always the case though, and there are actually a lot of really nice skateparks out there that only a small group of people ever get to skate.
Today we’re going to be looking at some of the best skateparks out there that you can’t go to.
Woodward
Just about every kid out there who grew up skating wanted to go to Camp Woodward at some point.
Camp Woodward is basically a skateboarding paradise and has literally every kind of obstacle you can imagine.
It’s 48 acres total, so it’s safe to say that it has plenty of things to skate. There’s a wide variety of street and transition, and basically everything in between.
Camp Woodward has more than one location, but they’re pretty similar so we’re going to count them as one. There’s Woodward West, which is on the west coast, and Woodward East, which is on the east coast.
Unlike most of the other private skateparks on this list, you actually can skate Woodward. The problem is it’s around $1,600 to go to camp there not including your plane ticket, and most skateboarders can’t afford that.
They do have some programs where they allow low-income skateboarders to go for free, but there are only a few slots available each year. Woodward also has options for weekend passes, but again, they’re a bit pricey, and unless you live nearby one of their locations, it’d be super expensive just to get there.
If you get the chance to go even if it’s just for a weekend, Woodward does seem like one of the best skateparks in the world, but for most skateboarders, it’s just too far away and too expensive.
Lil Wayne’s Skatepark
Considering Lil Wayne raps about skateboarding, owns a skate brand, and constantly shows up to skateboarding events, just about everyone knows that he skates.
What a lot of people don’t know is that Lil Wayne also has his own private skatepark in Miami and a mini ramp on his roof.
If you think about it, it makes sense for someone like Lil Wayne to have his own park, because someone like him would never be able to skate a public park without getting bothered. He also has a pretty crazy schedule, so having his own park allows him to skate whenever he wants.
There’s not a lot of footage of his private park and mini ramp, but he has released a few videos there over the years, and he also used a few clips from both his park and his ramp in his video part.
Out of all of the private skateparks out there, Lil Wayne’s private skatepark is probably one of the hardest to skate. He’s had a few pros skate his park with him, but for obvious reasons, it’s never been opened up to the public.
Transworld Skatepark
The Transworld Park is a private skatepark built by Transworld Skateboarding magazine. It’s a 5,000-square-foot skatepark in Carlsbad California, which is where the magazine is based.
Over the years the park has seen a few remodels, but it’s kept the same general style.
The Transworld skatepark has a street-style layout, with a little bit of transition that ties everything together. A lot of the park is customizable, which plays into the “skate and create” slogan of the magazine. There are a decent amount of ramps and rails at the park that can be moved around and skated differently, and overall the park seems like a lot of fun.
They don’t post videos of the park as often as some of the others on this list, but they do put out videos of it on a semi-regular basis.
Transworld has said that between all of the events they host annually, it’s estimated that around 2,500 people skate the park each year. With that said, it is a private skatepark, so unless you luck out and go to one of their events, it’s going to be pretty hard to skate it.
Brandon Biebel’s Skatepark
Brandon Biebel is a professional skateboarder for GIRL, and he has one of the most popular private skateparks out there. A lot of the top pros skate his park on a regular basis, and people post clips at his park all the time.
For a while, Brandon Biebel was known for always putting out footage at his park both on Instagram and on his youtube channel, but over the past few years, he’s cut back dramatically.
With that said, since his park is so popular, there are still plenty of other people who still skate it and post clips, and chances are you’ve seen footage of it before.
The park isn’t anything too crazy, but it has all the basics and seems like a pretty solid park. Occasionally there are events at the park and people are allowed to come skate it, but it’s not something that happens very often.
Double Rock Skatepark (Thrasher Skate Park)
Double Rock is Thrasher Magazine’s private skatepark in San Francisco. If you pay attention to Thrasher, which most skateboarders do, then you’ve probably seen a few of the videos they’ve put out at the park.
Usually whenever a team rolls through San Francisco they’ll go skate the park and make an edit, and Thrasher puts out videos at the park all the time.
Somewhere along the line Thrasher started making videos at Double Rock black and white, which might have an underlying reason behind it, or maybe they just started to do it because it looks cool, but regardless it makes the videos pretty easy to recognize.
Unlike a lot of private skateparks, Double Rock really hasn’t changed a lot over the years. You can go back and watch some pretty old videos where the setup is almost exactly the same. It also isn’t that big of a skatepark, but overall it seems like they made pretty good use of the space they had available.
Since it’s a private skatepark it’s unlikely that most people will get a chance to skate it, but they do have a ton of videos you can watch of the park. They have an entire playlist on their Youtube dedicated to DoubleRock which currently has almost 200 videos, so there’s more than enough footage of the park to watch.
RIDE Channel Vert Ramp
Anyone who watches the RIDE Channel has most likely seen the RIDE Channel Vert Ramp. Now even though it’s just a vert ramp and not an entire park, it’s still enough to get the attention of anyone who likes to skate big transition.
For those who don’t know, the RIDE Channel is a youtube channel based around skateboarding that’s owned by Tony Hawk. They post a wide range of content including product reviews, trick tips, and of course skate edits.
The RIDE channel has released a ton of footage on the ramp, and most of the videos that Tony Hawk puts out nowadays is filmed there. Tony Hawk’s last video part, the video of his spiral loop, and the video of his last 900 were all filmed at the RIDE Channel Vert Ramp. Even if you aren’t a vert skater and don’t watch vert skateboarding, chances are you’ve still seen the RIDE Channel ramp at least a couple of times.
The Ramp is actually located inside of the office building where all of Tony Hawks business’ are based, which makes the ramp convenient for him to skate whenever he wants.
Aside from just videos of Tony Hawk skating, a lot of today’s vert skaters have had videos skating the ramp too, and it’s supposed to be one of the best vert ramps around.
CA Training Facility
The California Training Facility is a private skatepark built by the company California Skateparks, which is one of the biggest skateparks builders in the US.
Some of the parks they’ve built include Dew Tour Skateparks, Street League Courses, a few of Vans Contest Parks, and even some parts of camp Woodward. Basically, they build a lot of really nice skateparks, so naturally, they built their own skatepark as well.
The California Training Facility is an indoor wooden skatepark located in San Diego. It’s built like a street plaza, but it also has a lot of transition.
Most of the footage that you’ll find of the park is of people skating the street section, but there’s also an entire bowl in the back.
The California Training Facility looks like a lot of fun, but since it is a private skatepark, the only way to get in is by knowing someone.
Nyjah Huston Skate Park
Nyjah Houston is definitely one of the top-paid skateboarders, so it should come as a surprise that he has his own private park.
Nyjah Houston’s private skatepark is a 10,000-square-foot indoor concrete park. It’s located in San Clemente, which is only about 20 minutes from Laguna Beach where he lives.
As to be expected, the park is filled with both street obstacles and monster logos, as well as the logos of some of his other sponsors like Nike and Element.
Most of the park is made up of street obstacles, but he also has a lot of transition to help with the flow of the park.
Nyjah constantly puts out videos skating his park both on his youtube channel and on his Instagram, so if you want to see more of it there’s a ton of footage out there that you can watch.
The Berrics
The Berrics is probably the most well-known private skatepark in the world. Unlike a lot of other private skateparks, The Berrics is also a media company too, and they constantly put out skate content on their site and social channels.
Honestly, I feel pretty dumb explaining The Berrics because if you’ve been skateboarding for any more than 2 weeks you probably already know about it.
The Berrics was founded back in 2007 by Steve Berra and Eric Koston, and got its name by combining Berra’s last name with Koston’s first name.
Over the years the Berrics has hosted dozens of different contests, events, and series, most of which you can find on their website and youtube channel. Some of the more popular series are their annual Battle at the Berrics, First Try Friday, Battle Commander, and of course, their “do a kickflip” series. There’s a lot more, but they’ve put out so many different series over the years though so it’s hard to name them all.
Other than their reoccurring series, they also do a ton of random videos in between, and honestly, they’re really the only company that consistently tries new things outside of the standard skateboard media that everyone sees.
As far as the park layout goes, they’ve had a few rebuilds over the years, but the current park is in a massive indoor warehouse in La. One cool thing about The Berrics is that it’s an indoor concrete park which, is pretty rare.
If you want to skate The Berrics, they do occasionally allow the public to skate it. Usually it’s when they’re hosting some sort of event, so if you want to skate there your best bet is to just keep an eye out on their socials.
Even though there are literally thousands of really nice public skateparks out there, there’s still a decent amount of skateparks that the average skateboarder will never get a chance to go to.
When you stop and think about it, it’s kind of a bummer, but at the same time, it’s still cool that some of these places even exist, and let’s be honest, street skating is way cooler anyway.
Ryan Sheckler’s Skatepark
Ryan Sheckler is another one of the top-paid skateboarders, and he also skates a lot of contests, so of course, he has his own private skatepark. Any skateboarder who makes a lot of money is going to want to build their own park, and since he skates so many contests it makes sense for him to have his own place to practice.
He posts a lot of footage of his skatepark on his Instagram, so if you follow him then you’ve most likely seen it before.
Ryan Sheckler’s park is a mixture of concrete and wooden ramps. It has some normal street obstacles, but it seems like it’s mostly made up of transition.
The park is around 6,000 square feet total which isn’t the biggest skatepark, but it’s still way more than what most people have.
The Braillehouse
The Braillehouse is a privately owned skatepark just outside of San Francisco.
If you watch skateboarding on youtube then you most likely know about Braille. They make a ton of different skate content, but they also have a separate channel for gaming as well as a website.
The Braillehouse is the private skatepark they use to film most of their skate content. It was built by Team Pain skateparks, which makes some of the nicest skateparks in the country.
The park is mostly made up of wooden street obstacles, and for the most part, it seems like it’s pretty mellow.
As a private park, most people won’t get a chance to skate it. Occasionally they’ll have other skaters come skate the park, but it’s usually someone they’re friends.
The Shredquarters
The Shredquarters is a skatepark inside the Revive warehouse, which is a pretty popular brand that got its start on youtube. Just like with Braille, the Revive guys make a lot of skateboarding content for youtube, and most of it is filmed at their private park.
The park is located in Cincinnati Ohio inside a massive warehouse that also functions as a place to store and ship all of Revive’s products.
When it comes to the layout, The Shredquarters has changed up a few times over the years. It’s made up almost entirely of wooden ramps, and the park is pretty spaced out. Most of the obstacles in the park are pretty small, but they seem like they’d be great for learning and it’s probably a lot of fun to skate.
Unfortunately, since the Shredquarters is a business location as well as a private skatepark, it’s unlikely that they’ll ever open it up for public skate sessions.