For me, this functions as a high end Tillicum overflow lot. Tillicum was full at 2:30 on a Tuesday, so for a $9 upgrade I get showers and that state park experience. Site 13 is at a busy corner. The trash and recycling are 30' away. It's nicely shielded, but still... My overall experience here was great!
Quite a nice place, despite the $8 "registration fee". Peaceful and quiet and quite close to Bakersfield. Very pleased to be here.
They moved from a tiny one bedroom on a busy corner to a more spacious two bedroom on a quiet cul de sac in a better neighborhood. Even better, there is an upstairs where I can: 1. sleep, 2. barricade the top of the stairs so the cat can't sleep with me. So woo!
Three miles north of Old Station. There is a perfectly idyllic picnic area on the east side of the road and a campground on the west. The campground has no water so it's a little cheaper than Cave and Hat Creek. Even better, the big RVs don't come here, so it's more mellow - a win-win for me!
on the steep hill overlooking the Columbia River. Kind of a gloomy spot, but handy in the heart of the gorge area
Placid little place in tall firs. Swimming beach on the Priest River, boat ramp, kayak friendly. Road noise is not too bothersome.
quiet, pretty rocks like in the old westerns, big rocks give you privacy
What a welcome place! There is a lot of nothing between Boise and Bend. I saw some RVs just pulled off at the side of the road, and a couple at the rest stop, but there's no real place to stop for 100 miles except a couple of high-end RV palaces in Burns. So thank goodness for this pleasant stop.
Funny little place. It is mandated to be free by some old treaty or contract. There is an inside pool and an outside pool, and you can go to one or the other, and supposedly you have a 20 minute limit, but nobody was checking. I chose the outside pool,and it was really pleasant. Nice shade structure. It's very close to Tepee, so I didn't dry or change, I just soaked for a while, thanked to nice lady and flip-flopped 60 yards back to Tepee.
How have I not known about this place?! It was nearly perfect in every way for what I like to do on the road. Common Room next to the office with satellite tv. The pool is awesome. Maybe 100' across, 2-4' deep mostly, with incredibly, life-threateningly hot water comong in from the southeast end, and cooling jets shooting out from the south, so you simply ewade in and find your spot!
Conveniently located next to Interstate 5, which somehow adds to the experience. You can see the semis rocketing along less than a mile away, but you're in another world. There's a nice hike through the marshes and along a tiny creek, and a very nice auto tour with a viewing platform stop in the middle. Sometimes I do the drive then the hike, sometimes the hike then the drive. Sunset looking back across the marshes from the viewing platform can be spectacular.
Strange place - they seem to have charged me $21 to park in their yard. No bathroom, no nothin, just a parking place.
handy city-run campground, easy to walk to everything in town.
A little too close to I-5 (the road noise is really loud), but visually you'd never know it. Pretty little park centered on a cute little duck pond. Exit 163 on Oregon I-5. For tent camping you just park where you want on the grass, very cool!
THis one is right across from ther Lava Hot Springs Hotel. At the opposite end of the little town from the Lava Hot Springs where I did go.
Heading north out of Moab, take a left before the Colorado River and head upstream. There are a string of BLM campgrounds along the river. This is the sixth one, about eight miles out. It is more deluxe than Drinks Canyon, it actually has a bathroom and a dumpster! Campsites here are bigger, RV sized, but equally Spartan -- a picnic table and a fire pit, that's it. But you are on the Colorado River!
handy on the way to San Diego, kinda pretty between the road and a cow pasture, not much going on...
Down Horsfall Road off of 101 are OHV camps and trails, equestrian camps and trails, day use areas, and general use camps and trails. Wild Mare Camp - set up for camping with horses - was empty and very, very nice, but the mosquitoes were just brutal, so I moved to the OHV camping at the coast, where the breeze keeps the little buggers moving. Very pleasant here. Just a parking lot with large camping-only RV sized slots on three sides and parking for the beach on the side next to the ocean. I've stayed here three times now, and there's always a few OHV folks. Their pleasantness or rudeness and the amount of general hubbub varies greatly. The general rules is that the warmer and nicer it is, the more constant and unending and annoying will be the sound of unmuffled small engines.
What a cool discovery! You leave Route 160 just a little north of the bridge that takes you to Pittsburg/ Antioch and take a bumpy little road along the edge of Sherman Island. The road follows the southern side of the Sacramento River to the tip of the island, where there is a nice county park for the windsurfers. It's roughly where the Sac River meets the San Joaquin River, and it is a great windsurfing spot.
On Lake Mendicino, a little closer to 101 than Bushay Campground where I've gone before. Kyen is much more accessible, no three mile, 9-speed bump access road, but it's also much noisier and busier. Tonight I just want to park and crash, so it's working for me. It's in a manzanita scrub forest that's very, very pretty. The shower has the insanely heavy flow you expect at a reservoir campground, but in an historic drought, maybe a little too much. I again protest the arcane self-pay procedure by not doing it, and again I escape unscathed. I have a pleasant night and leave!
California state park campgrounds are too expensive. If you're paying for beachfront that's one thing, but parking my van on a level spot in the woods with a bathroom for $35 does not work for me. The fine young man at the entrance kiosk told me that a couple of miles back on National Forest land, the signs saying "Camping 14 days max" also signify "OK to camp here tonight". So that's what I did.