one of my favorite little spots ever! very pretty, Datil has a quite useful store/restaurant (with wifi).
Huge, the overflow lot for the Yellowstone camping system. Annoying check-in procedure where you wait in a long line to be assigned one of 300-something spots by a functionary who does nothing but that all day.
huge, rv-friendly campground. No elec hookups, so generators are running everywhere. On the hill a few hundred feet above the lake.
The real name of this place is Samuel Buckland Campground, but it's easier to just call it the campground at Fort Churchill. The terrain is barren high desert hills for miles, except for this lovely belt of ancient cottonwoods along the Walker River.
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.
steep, slippery hike down to the springs, which are a couple of hot streams falling into pools by the river
Large campground at the foot of Convict Lake. Really cool place, mountains on three sides, nice little bite-sized hike around the perimeter of the lake (2.6 miles). Quite popular, but it's a big campground so there are usually open sites. Downtown Mammoth is fifteen minutes away.
Due west of Chico, about 12 miles on the west side of I-5 is Black Butte Lake. There are two ACE campgrounds. This one is the main one, with a nature preserve and large recreation area. Open all year, on a point of land jutting into the lake, quite scenic. This campground is closer to the lake.
quiet, pretty rocks like in the old westerns, big rocks give you privacy
hyper-busy tonight, first night of the season, Memorial Day weekend. It would be restful and pleasant next to the happy little creek most nights I think. As a campground, this is nicer than Sardine up the hill. I walked up to Sardine Lake, which was a very pleasant hike, with some excellent sunset views ... if you don't mind walking along the highway. They raised the price again this year here too.
Sites sprinkled around giant rocks. Nice little 1.7 mile loop trail. Beautiful, restful place, even when crowded.
Camping is just the edge of the forest behind the lodge. Next to a very pretty cow pasture at the edge of the huge Sierra Valley. Nice lodge to hang out in, wifi and kitchen, free to campers. The Hot Springs has also taken over the hotel in town. There is also a breakfast place and aMexican restaurant in town, both pricy but good!
pretty setting at the edge of the huge Ione Valley, short walk from the fossil site. Morning talks at the fossil beds
Your two choices are tent camping and parking lot. It's a small lot, and everybody but me was running their generators till 10. Whatever is special and interesting about this park is not apparent from the road.
central Florida, savannah-like, nice big campground
Driven past many times, finally stopping! Good news: It's in a lush, peaceful crevice in the mountains along a little burbling stream which opens onto a driftwood-strewn beach 1/2 mile away. Bad news: US 101, also runs through the same narrow crevice so you rarely hear the burbling stream. You hear semis rocketing past 40 yards away all night. In the summer, you can camp in the Lower Loop, 600 yds from the beach. In the winter you have to walk (or bike!) an extra mile from the Upper Loop.
Right on the beautiful and swift-flowing Green River. Migratory birds. Winter grazing for big game (elk, mule deer), the occasional moose they say. Biggest thing I saw was a dragonfly, but the place is beautiful and remote. Getting here entails about 20 miles of gravel road, most of it pretty nice. The rest is rough and washboardy.
Pleasant, quiet state park campground. In the flats at the bottom of the gorge. The gorge is an easy hike away.
Preposterously expensive for non-state resident visitors. Pit toilets, no showers, no services of any kind really, for $28. Flathead Lake is just a rumor, a faint glimmer between the trees. What is very real is the traffic noise, where US 93 loops around Loop A of the campground. The only other choice for 50 miles are upscale RV Parks and the Kalispell Walmart.