I had an initial bad impression because not only do I not get a shower for $24, I don't even get a flush toilet! There is water for RV hookup, but no indoor plumbing, just a clean, unisex outhouse. The lady makes the very good point that everyone is here for the hot springs, and they have showers. On the other hand I am in a nice, grassy, spot a three minute drive (or a long walk) from the Lava Hot Springs pools. So all in all, pretty good. There are some heavily used, long haul train tracks a few hundred yards away that shake the earth a couple of times in the night.
I ended up here as a last resort, but it's quite a nice place. Large, spacious, level sites, looks like it was built by the Army Corps. It is near a lake after all... Most folks are here to fish on the little lake.
Right on the lake! Spacious, level, wide-open sites. Stupid reservation-only Army Corps sign-up. Bar and Grill 400 yards up the hill.
Right on the Umpqua, at the very edge of the little hamlet of Oakland OR. It's small so it could fill up fast, but darn it's a sweet little spot tucked away in an unlikely part of Oregon. I came here on an August Friday and it was FULL. It's a perfect place to go tubing on the river, so I'm (sad but) not surprised.
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!
On good ole CA 89 a few miles north of Truckee. Drove by here many times, finally staying. Boring but handy! There are two campgrounds here about a mile apart, Lower Little Truckee and Upper Little Truckee. Theis not difference between them.
A mile or so north of Cave Campground is a gravel road (called Wander Lane on the Google map) and a bridge over Hat Creek. If you follow that road you will see a couple of good campsites.
Typical National Park campground, the parking pads aren't even close to level, the roads are very rough, but they're amazingly low cost and you are in a spectacular place! This is the place you go when you know the main part of the park will be full by 11. At the east end of gorgeous Two Medicine Lake, spectacular mountains all around.
The place to go to when you can't go to Glacier NP. On US 2 which skirts the southern edge of the park. Nice campground, recently renovated, but somehow they couldn't get the brand new parking pads level.
Pleasant, well laid out, reasonably priced campground.
Pretty, spectacular view down the length of Walker Lake. You can hear the neverending semis on US 95, but they are pretty far up the hill. You come to the main campground first. I find out later this is the only unlocked bathroom. It's nice enough, but the sites are not level. After you wind down a few more hundred feet, past the boat ramp, there are more camp sites, a couple of which are nice and level. If only the bathroom door was unlocked...
I am in Thumper Loop! A lovely, very well maintained large campground. The area is thick grass, but a wide area is mowed around each campsite. Very pleasant place to be out of the madness of Black Hills traffic.
One more in the string of handy, heavily used campgrounds up the Colorado River on Utah 128 from Moab. This one is past Drinks Canyon CG, and right before Big Bend CG. It's very small, 7 sites. So named I think, because sites 6 and 7 re hidden away in a little grove of scrub oak.
Expensive for the non-resident, but a nice campground in a spectacular location, on the Chesapeake Bay just a few miles north of where it meets the Atlantic. There is a cool little boardwalk access to the beach, where you can walk along the beach to the boat ramp/picnic area/fishing pier a little south. Really fun place.
The first (lowest altitude) of the string of Inyo campgrounds on CA 168 west of Bishop. The campground itself is very much like Silver Lake CG on the June Lake Loop - exposed sites, not much shade, pleasant and quiet and level with a little stream running along the far edge.
Elevation 7,800'. Across the valley from busy US 40. Open, well-maintained, paved roads. Pretty deluxe as these things go, but nothing to do that i could see. From here it's straight downhill for a long time to Heber City There's a resort with restaurant and store right up the hill, but you gotta drive to it.
A really low-tech campground, a handful of sites carved out of a gully right next to the highway.
A quiet little loop of campsites right off US 158. The rest of the park - Visitors Center, access to the Millpond, trails - are a couple of miles to the west then south. Very pleasant place.
Very hot here, tried to choose a site for morning shade. There is a nice trail up the river. Sunset against the mountains across the river is beautiful.
Amazing location, on a bluff overlooking Grand Junction and the wide Colorado River Valley. Loop C is the tent sites, no doubt the oldest part of the campground. Parking for the sites is cramped and tricky to navigate.
Real good find! I thought these county parks were spendy, but $10 seems like a pretty good deal to me right now! On one of those little "creeks" LADWP sculpted out to constrain "their" water. Wide open sagebrush on one side, a column of willows and cottonwoods following the creek on the other. Very quiet and pretty today.