Our Stay

Sitting high on oak covered bluffs is our campground and our final night on the California coast. At the end of a 2500 mile road trip, this was a treat. We were graced with perfect weather and a shady campsite to end our whirl wind trip.

Sunset

I’ll start by stating we rarely pay for a campground stay. We don’t like paying for congested parking spots, hearing noisy people, and having a lack of privacy. However, for our final night on the California Coast it was either drive another 3 hours inland and go straight home or could I locate a decent campsite for a one night splurge. If you’re not familiar with this coastal area, there are zero free, boondocking, dispersed camping areas or even legal overnight parking options to be found.

  • Time of visit: End of August 2022
  • Temperatures: low 80s daytime and low 50s nighttime
  • Cost: $53 including the reservation “fee” of nearly $8

To maximize our time here, we stayed just 2 hours north so we could easily arrive by the 2pm check in time and get the most of our beach time.


Shady campground on the bluffs

The was much to like about the campground. Lots of shade (a must in the summer), toilets and pay showers, fire pits, and a table at each site. Most sites had some privacy. There’s 130 sites and most are in 3 loops. Each loop seemed to be on a different level of the bluffs which made the campground seem less congested and smaller.

There’s a long bike and walking trail plus a large day use area.

The Details

  • GPS: (34.4601290, -120.0236516)
  • Easy to locate: Yes; right off Hwy 1 north of Santa Barbara’s
  • Public Land: No. California State Beach & fee area
  • Cell: None
  • Crowded: not on a Thursday but Friday and Saturday were booked full
  • Buggy: No
  • Clean: yes, pretty clean clean
  • Would we stay here again: Although I thoroughly enjoyed my time here, paying over $50 for dry camping just seems crazy. So yes, periodically I’ll feel crazy and pay for another beach camping area and this is one I’d be happy to revisit.

Dolphins

The next morning we saw many dolphins. I was quite mesmerized watching dolphins up until we had to leave camp. After many shaky videos we finally caught a nice jump!

Related Tavel vlog:

Scenery and story is even better in video (especially the dolphins at the end). Take a watch and tell me what you think!

Last part of our 3 week Road Trip

This was fun trip; traveling to new places (Spokane, WA and the Redwoods) along with new experiences (River Rafting) and seeing friends and family through out journey. Great thank you to Terri and Hans in WA, Melvin and Jeanie in OR, John and Roberta in OR, and Lance and Terri in CA for letting us driveway surf along the way. Driveway surfing combined with using our favorite Boondocker’s Welcome hosts and a couple Harvest Hosts along the way, made this an inexpensive 3 weeks (other than fuel, of course).

Thank you for stopping by and joining our journey!

Harvest Host Membership

Click HERE for a preview of host map!

Boondocker’s Welcome Membership

Click HERE to view the site and how to join!