Planning works! This is super sweet BLM campground three miles down the road from Heise Hot Springs. There is a pleasant day use area with river access. The host closes the gate at 10 pm, which is a factor if you have driven back to the hot springs in the evening.
Looked good on the internet, and probably is good if you're a fisherman with a boat and a huge-ass RV as big as a mobile home.
very user-friendly, downtown right across the bridge, and next to a rec complex with bike paths, tennis courts, swimming pool, etc.
Very, very basic place. Cable is good, wifi is bad, they don't provide cups. Heater works, It's very handy to park right outside the door. Two miles down US 30 from Lava Hot Springs. The Portneuf River runs right behind it. Very scenic back there.
The place to camp if you're visiting Marble. Crystal River is a little gem. Beware the vermin.
It pays to call the ranger! I called about spring flowers on these riverside trails (not yet he said), and as long as I was there asked about staying overnight. He said the all the other parking areas were day use only, but the one at the end of the road - Perry Riffle (cool name!) - allows it. So here I am, feeling very pleased about life.
Small campground on the busy road from Crescent City to Grants Pass. Quaint lodge a few hundred yards away with breakfast and even a bar!
An older Yellowstone campgrouund, which means it's dusty, rough and crowded BUT it's in a really cool place. In this case it's a short drive or longish walk to the Norris Geyser Basin.
Nestled between too-busy US 395 and the West Walker River. Everybody is either a fishermen or folks bombing down 395. The first nice federal campground coming south from Reno. This place should be open more days of the year - closes too early in the fall, opens too late in the summer.
shady, the camp is quiet, but there is an extremely busy highway right across the Snake River. Kind of deluxe and kind of expensive, as state parks tend to be.
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!
Nothing here except a really pretty bend in the (Salmon) river, pretty well shielded from US 93, even though it's 30 yards away. Really pleasant overnight.
Small roadside campground. 2-3 sites are right on the river and awesome. The rest are just sites. Pretty close to Jackson WY.
Five sites at a boat ramp into the Snake River. A few miles upriver from the very expensive Massacre Rocks SP. Really cool little spot!
Elevation 9,500. Weather is very gloomy, so I'm not seeing it at it's best. Site 22 is very nice, level, large, with an excellent vista looking over the wide, green valley with the busy highway on the other side. The camp host says she saw moose tracks at the next campsite!
Twelve miles north of the town of Green River, on the Green River. A nice swimming beach, boat ramp, dramatic formations of the Book Cliffs in all directions.
This is a California State Park on the western edge of Colusa CA, on the Sacramento River, right where it takes a left turn. Post COVID it is being managed by the City of Colusa rather than the state, and it has a much more mellow feel to it. Anyway ... pre-COVID it wasn't inviting to me. Now it is. Go figure. Bathroom has a key code, shower requires quarters. Over 65 gets $2 off. We are right inside the levee, which is cool. There is a really sketchy trailer park right on the other side of the levee, which is not cool.
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.
A lonely outpost of Mendocino National Forest - a little chunk of federal land next to the diversion dam. The parking lots are huge, making it seem like it was full of action back when the dam was being used create the diversionary lake. Emptying the dam a couple of decades ago was sad for the boaters of Red Bluff, but great for the salmon, who were being killed off by the salmon ladder. This beautiful campground suffers from being too close to the town of Red Bluff. The bathroom has a security code to prevent random weirdos from moving in.
in town, next to the harbor, but kind of isolated because the little river separates it from the day use area. Small, not very private sites, but right next to the beach
Funky place on the Russian River, more lo-budget than its fancy neighbors. We got a lovely site surrounded by redwoods, 40 yards from the river.