There is NO check-in procedure here, only check-out. Odd. Just pick a site, do your thing, and there's only one way out, so pay at the station when you leave.
Very handy campground on the Virginia side of Cumberland Gap. You drive a while off the highway to get here, but you're really just looping around to be right by the highway again, so there is road noise.
Expensive, but oh so cool, on the bluffs at Cardiff CA. The town is right across the highway, great bluff-waking for miles northward, Cardiff Beach and beach side restaurants southward. Mornings and evenings are often pretty gray and damp. Nice firepits.
If it were 30° cooler, this would be spectacular, but it's just too hot tonight. It's set up as a tents-only area on a little peninsula on the lake, but there's no one else here, so I'm hanging in the parking lot. The bathroom (with shower!) seems to be of recent construction and is very nice. The stifling heat and stillness became kinda neat after a while...
right outside Ashland, dusty little hippie place near the fancy Lithia Hot Springs Resort. The pools were excellent and clean, as was the pavilion area with wifi and electrical outlets. But the rest of the place was third world and had a weird vibe.
Really nice hot pools in a wide, beautiful valley. Camping area is the parking lot. Paths and pools are full of uneven rocks so it's difficult to walk on the former and you're always banging your shins in the latter, but the water is really nice. Has a smoking pool - a pool where you may smoke ciggies while you soak! Disgusting, but kinda cool!
very user-friendly, downtown right across the bridge, and next to a rec complex with bike paths, tennis courts, swimming pool, etc.
Very hot right now, but what a cool place. Tucked away in the scrub oak forest along the shores of this little CCC-made reservoir. Few campers because it is so insanely HOT. The shade is a real attraction in this area. Also the shower!
Cedar Pass CG in Badlands NP was full on Friday night, so here I am. It is in the town of Interior, at the edge of the Badlands, so the name makes more sense than you would think at first. Six rows of sites, the hook-ups for the big boys are on the inside and the tent sites are on the edges. Some sites have picnic tables, some don't. I decided I'd rather be on the edge with an unimpeded view of the Badlands than in a couple of rows with a table. The shower was nice and very welcome. Things are well-worn but well maintained also. Nice place, and a godsend when the Park is full.
Real name is Boice Cope Campground, but that hides its coolest feature, that it's on a sweet little freshwater lake! Site T-2 also looks awesome. Turns out you can park on the grass. This place is crazy popular with kiteboarders and windsurfers, of which there are many in Oregon. Floras Lake is a pretty little jewel of a freshwater lake separated from the Pacific by just one little sand dune. Crowded though the place is, I am angled away from it all pointing at the lake so I can pretend I'm all by myself.
at the end of beautiful Silver Lake. Probably has great lake swimming/kayaking in the summer. Sites 16-27-ish have best lake access. Spectacular fall color spot. All the June Loop campgrounds no longer allow checking yourself in at the kiosk. A stressed-out concession employee must come and personally check you in. A step backwards, IMO.
pleasant but too close to New York. Check in was confusing and a pain. You know you're too close to civilization when there are pizza delivery numbers at the campground office.
Due west of Chico, about 12 miles on the west side of I-5 is Black Butte Lake. It has two ACE campgrounds, this is the secondary one, it closes in early September. It's a few miles closer to Orland and on a bluff 100 or so feet above the water. Very pleasant.
real nice find! Crab Orchard is a pretty big place, with four campgrounds. The other campgrounds have full hookups for the big boys and cost more. But E Loop is the oldest and has become the bastard stepchild in the corner. Electric only inside the loop, no hookups outside. Its bathroom is kinda gross, but hey, $5 for overnight and a shower ain't bad.
Nearest gas is > 80 miles in any direction. An unexpected valley full of reedy marshes in the middle of endless high country desert. There's little warm pool and bathhouse with two showers that run always forever. The whole thing is quite unexpected!
Allstays calls this Indian Memorial, an ACE campground. The signage is in the standard ACE font and color, and it just has the distinctive well-engineered style, so I am calling it ACE also. If so, then clearly it has been leased back to the tribe. It's on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Nice place!
Most of their tent sites are truly for tents, but there's a little group of three new no-hookup sites that are really nice. Up on the hill, fairly level, private. I chose the one away from the folks playing loud country music. It's a short walk down the hill to the swimming beach, which was incredibly refreshing on this muggy day. Bathroom and shower are close but not too close.
What a great place! Walk over to the golf course clubhouse to check in, she gives you the wifi password, then you pretty much park on the grass anywhere you want. The wifi was great, it happened that I parked 30' from the bathrooms What with food at the clubhouse, good wifi, and a short walk to the shower, I literally could live here a while.
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.
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!
Pleasant, well laid out, reasonably priced campground.