RV Campgrounds in California: Hookups, Sites, Honest Reviews

california RV camping is a weird beast. you've got $80 state beaches where the surf hits the side of Patricia at 4am, and you've got $24 Forest Service sites with vault toilets and a view that costs nothing to look at. the spread is wild.

i've rolled through CA probably a dozen times in the van. some of these I've actually slept at, some I've scouted and bailed on for reasons I'll get into. this is the honest version, not the brochure version.

quick housekeeping: "full hookup" in this post means water, electric, AND sewer. partial usually means water + electric. state parks in CA are weirdly inconsistent about which loops have what, so always read the site description on the booking page, not the campground page.

state park rv camping: the good, the booked, the suspect

the California state parks system runs the most coveted RV camping in the state. it's also the most stressful to book. ReserveCalifornia is the platform — not Recreation.gov, not Reserve America, the state has its own thing. it works fine on desktop, it's mediocre on mobile, and the 6-month rolling window means popular coastal sites get nuked the second they drop.

Morro Strand State Beach (right off Highway 1, north of Morro Bay) has no hookups but the sites are basically on the sand. great for self-contained rigs. Pismo State Beach – North Beach has electric and water hookups in some loops and you can hear the waves. San Elijo State Beach in Cardiff is a bluff-top RV park run by the state with partial hookups and ridiculous sunsets — and yeah, ridiculous demand.

for the inland crowd, McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park (off Highway 89 near Burney) has hookups in a few sites and the waterfall is genuinely one of the prettier things in the state. way less competitive than the coast. you can knock out some easy hiking here without breaking a sweat.

full state park list and booking lives at parks.ca.gov. and yes, the cancellation refresh trick works — set a reminder for the 7-day mark before your dates and just refresh.

national park RV options (spoiler: limited)

california NPS sites are mostly tent-friendly and RV-tolerant. there's basically one place with real full hookups inside a national park, and it's in the desert.

Furnace Creek Campground in Death Valley has a small number of full-hookup sites. you book through Recreation.gov, the rest of the campground is dry sites. it's $36ish for the hookup sites as of recent seasons, double-check before you book. summer here will literally cook your batteries so plan accordingly.

Upper Pines in Yosemite Valley takes RVs up to 35 feet but no hookups, and the booking situation is famously brutal. Jumbo Rocks in Joshua Tree fits smaller rigs (Patricia squeezes in, a Class A does not) with zero hookups but the rock formations around your site are wild. Manzanita Lake in Lassen Volcanic is underrated — no hookups but quiet, cheap, and you can actually get a site without a panic attack.

browse the whole system at nps.gov/findapark. anything with hookups inside an NPS unit will say so explicitly — most don't.

full hookup RV parks worth the money

sometimes you just want to do laundry, dump tanks, and not think about your battery for three nights. private RV parks fill that role and they range from "cute family operation" to "asphalt grid with a vending machine."

i'll be upfront — i'm a vanlifer, my full hookup needs are lower than someone in a 40-foot fifth wheel. but i've stayed at a few that earned their nightly rate.

• Flying Flags RV Resort — Buellton, off the 101 in wine country. expensive, but the showers are excellent and there's a pool. great if you're spending two days in Solvang.
• Newport Dunes Waterfront RV Resort — Newport Beach. lowkey overpriced ($100+ in summer) but you're walking distance to the bay. only worth it for the location.
• Auburn Gold Country RV Park — Auburn, off I-80 on the way to Tahoe. solid stopover, decent rates, full hookups, nothing fancy.
• Pismo Coast Village RV Resort — right next to the state beach, easier to book than the state park, costs about 3x more.
• Bakersfield River Run RV Park — when you need a stopover on the 99, this exists. that's all i'm saying about Bakersfield.
• Bodega Bay RV Park — coastal northern CA, full hookups, way less madness than the Sonoma Coast state beaches.
• Casini Ranch Family Campground — on the Russian River near Duncans Mills. full hookups, river access, dogs welcome.

booking fee racket warning: a lot of private parks list one price on their site and then add a "resort fee" or "reservation fee" at checkout. read the cart total before you commit. and the cancellation policies are usually worse than state parks.

cheaper alternatives: forest service and BLM

this is where my coffee budget actually survives. national forest campgrounds in CA are gold if your rig fits and you don't need hookups.

Kirk Creek Campground on the Big Sur coast (Highway 1, Los Padres National Forest) is one of the better RV-capable spots in the whole state. cliffside sites, $35ish, no hookups, no cell service for most carriers. you book on Recreation.gov and it fills the moment it opens. Plaskett Creek a few miles south is similar, slightly more inland, easier to snag.

Fallen Leaf Campground near South Lake Tahoe (Forest Service, off Highway 89) takes RVs and has a small number of electric sites. it's one of the better Tahoe options that isn't $90 a night. Wrights Lake Campground in El Dorado National Forest is gorgeous, no hookups, mostly small-rig friendly.

for desert dispersed RV camping, BLM lands around Anza-Borrego and the Alabama Hills near Lone Pine let you boondock for free with a 14-day limit. self-contained only, no facilities, but the stargazing is unreal. forest stuff is mapped at fs.usda.gov/recmain.

which booking app actually works

i'm going to die on this hill: Recreation.gov is the cleanest booking experience for federal sites. the app is fine, the website is better, and the search filters actually let you specify RV length and hookup type without lying to you.

ReserveCalifornia (state parks) is functional but slow. the map view is borderline unusable on phone. book on desktop.

private park aggregators are mixed. Campspot is decent for the parks that use it. KOA's own app is fine if you're going the KOA route. avoid third-party booking sites that aren't the park's actual platform — that's where the booking-fee racket lives.

cell service notes from sleeping in Patricia in too many of these places: Verizon wins the Sierra and most of the coast. AT&T wins parts of the desert. T-Mobile is great in cities, often nothing in the parks. don't trust the coverage map, trust the campground reviews.

seasonality and the stuff nobody warns you about

coastal california state parks: book the second the window opens, 6 months out. desert parks (Anza-Borrego, Joshua Tree, Death Valley): great Nov–April, miserable June–Sept. Sierra parks: most don't open till late May, some till mid-June depending on snowpack — check the park's page before you drive five hours to a locked gate.

fire season is the curveball. PG&E power shutoffs can knock out electric hookups in northern CA state parks without much warning. if you're depending on shore power for medical equipment or whatever, have a backup plan.

and the wind. Pismo, Morro Strand, anywhere on the central coast — afternoon wind will rock a high-profile rig like its job. point the nose into the wind, retract the awning, don't be the person whose awning becomes a kite.

oh — Walmart overnight parking in CA is vibes-dependent. a lot of municipalities have banned it. always ask the manager, never assume, and don't set up chairs outside. that's the fast track to getting kicked.

gear that actually matters for CA rv camping

quick rundown of what's actually earned shelf space in Patricia for california trips specifically:

a real surge protector for shore power — older state park electrical pedestals are sketchy and i've seen them fry a converter. a 30-to-50 amp adapter (or vice versa) because half the older CA parks are 30A only. a water pressure regulator because some of these spigots will absolutely blow your lines.

for non-hookup nights, the rest of the gear setup matters more — a decent stove if you're cooking outside (allowed in most CA campgrounds outside of red-flag fire days), and a warm sleeping bag if you're doing Sierra elevation in shoulder season. nights drop fast above 6,000 feet even in July.

more on specific campgrounds and routes lives over at /parks, and if you want hiking ideas for your layover days check /trails or browse AllTrails CA.

honest take

if i had one week and an RV in California i'd skip the expensive private resorts entirely and bounce between Forest Service sites on the Big Sur coast, one night dumping tanks at a cheap stopover park, then a few nights at a state beach further north. full hookup RV parks are great when you actually need them — laundry day, hot shower day, working-remote day. the rest of the time, you're paying for asphalt.

the california RV park scene is more about timing than money. book the cheap good ones early, accept that the coastal state beaches are a lottery, and have a Plan B campground saved offline before you lose service. Patricia and i have been burned by "we'll just figure it out" more than once. don't be us.