Ten good California campsites — and the two things that will actually decide your trip: whether Highway 1 is open, and whether your ReserveCalifornia login still works.
This guide has been rewritten from the ground up. The previous version cited two statistical reports that do not exist, and claimed an 18% rise in bookings when California State Parks’ own figures show overnight camping down about 24%. Everything below is sourced or removed.
Last updated: 26 October 2026.
Before you book anything in Big Sur: check Highway 1. It reopened on 14 January 2026, closed again 33 days later, and on 27 August 2026 Caltrans shut a 40-mile stretch for wildfire operations. Three of the ten sites below are reachable only via Highway 1, and the old version of this page did not mention access at all. Caltrans QuickMap has live status.
The short version
- Check first: Highway 1 status for anything in Big Sur
- State parks: ReserveCalifornia — 6 months to the day, 8am Pacific
- Login warning: the Oct 2025 upgrade forced account recreation
- Official camping trend: down about 24%, not up 18%
- Books out fastest: the beach state parks
- Best months: late spring and early autumn
- From the UK: ESTA, insurance and a hire car
What this article covers
Highway 1 and Big Sur Access
This belongs at the top of any 2026 California camping guide, and it was missing entirely. Big Sur Campground & Cabins, Pfeiffer Big Sur and Fernwood Resort are all on Highway 1, and Highway 1 has had an extraordinary year.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 14 January 2026 | Governor Newsom announces the early reopening of the final 6.8-mile section at Regent’s Slide. Highway 1 fully open |
| February 2026 | Closed again just 33 days after the reopening, from winter-storm debris. Caltrans gave no estimated reopening timeline |
| 27 August 2026 | Caltrans closes a 40-mile stretch — Gorda (PM 10.2) to just north of Captain Cooper Elementary (PM 50.1) — for Timber Fire and Plaskett Fire operations. US 101 advised as the alternate |
| Before you travel | Check Caltrans QuickMap on the day. We are deliberately not printing a current status here, because it has changed repeatedly all year |
California Governor’s office, Caltrans District 5 and Monterey County reporting. Status changes without much notice — check QuickMap on the day.
What this means in practice: book Big Sur sites refundable if you can, have a US 101 fallback, and do not plan a Big Sur trip around a single non-refundable flight. If Highway 1 is shut you may not be able to reach a site you have paid for, which is the sort of thing a guide should tell you before it recommends three of them.
What the Real Figures Say
The old page built its case on a 2025 report that does not exist. Here is what the actual published data shows.
California State Parks Statistical Report 2022-23. Day use 78,004,589; overnight camping uses 5,895,246; total attendance 83,899,835. Camping was down about 24% year on year and day use about 8.6%. Camping counts camper-nights, so five people for three nights counts as fifteen.
California State Parks Statistical Report 2022-23. Figures in millions of visits.
- Overnight camping is about 7% of all state park attendance. California state parks are overwhelmingly a day-use system.
- Camping uses fell about 24% in the latest reported year, and day use about 8.6%.
- The report itself cautions that its camping count is partial — stays in cabins and other structures are not all captured.
- Industry data agrees on the direction. Hipcamp cited Yosemite visits down 10% in 2025, and KOA’s 2025 report describes campers choosing shorter, closer, cheaper trips.
- None of which makes the good sites easier to book. Demand is concentrated on a small number of famous coastal and Yosemite-area campgrounds, and those still vanish in minutes — a system-wide decline and a sold-out beach site are entirely compatible.
The Ten Campsites
| Site | Where | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Big Sur Campground & Cabins | Big Sur | Tent, RV, cabins | Redwood forest beside the Big Sur River. Highway 1 access — check first |
| Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park | Big Sur | Tent, RV | About 189 sites, redwoods and river. State park, so ReserveCalifornia. Highway 1 access |
| Fernwood Resort | Big Sur | Tent, RV, cabins | Riverside sites in a redwood canyon. Highway 1 access |
| Yosemite Pines RV Resort | Groveland | RV, tent, yurts, cabins | About 22 miles from Yosemite. Private resort, booked direct |
| Lake Tahoe KOA | South Lake Tahoe | RV, tent, cabins | A few miles from the Tahoe beaches. Booked through KOA |
| Joshua Tree Lake RV & Campground | Joshua Tree | Tent, RV | Private desert site with a small fishing lake. Strong dark skies |
| Crystal Cove State Park | Newport Coast | Tent, RV | Coastal park between Corona del Mar and Laguna Beach. Not “Laguna Beach”, as this page said |
| El Capitan State Beach | Goleta | Tent, RV | Bluff-top sites over the Pacific. Goleta, not Santa Barbara, as this page said |
| San Elijo State Beach | Encinitas | Tent, RV | Beachfront, popular with surfers. Books out fastest of any on this list |
| Redwood National & State Parks | Northern California | Tent, RV | Four developed campgrounds and over 100 miles of trails. Jointly managed, so check which booking system applies |
Locations corrected against official park addresses. No prices are given — fees are set per park and shown at booking, and the ten price ranges this page used to print had no source. No “recent upgrade” claims are made either; the previous version invented one for every single venue.
Why there are no prices or facilities lists here. The previous version gave each site a price range and a specific 2026 improvement — new glamping wagons, solar lighting, EV chargers, free Wi-Fi, twice-monthly astronomy events, real-time tide alerts. None of it was sourced, and the pattern of one upgrade per venue is a template, not research. Facilities and fees change; check the park or operator directly, which is the only answer that stays true.
Booking, Properly Explained
| What | How it works | Source |
|---|---|---|
| State parks | ReserveCalifornia. A rolling six-month window — six months to the day before arrival, with new dates released at 8am Pacific | parks.ca.gov |
| National parks and forests | Recreation.gov — a separate system with its own windows per site | recreation.gov |
| Private sites | Direct, or through KOA for KOA parks. Yosemite Pines, Fernwood, Big Sur Campground and Joshua Tree Lake are all private | — |
| The trap nobody warns you about | The 29 October 2025 ReserveCalifornia upgrade added multi-factor authentication, and existing users had to recreate their accounts. Log in and check your account works days before, not at 8am | KQED, Jan 2026 |
| Fees | Set per park and shown at booking. This page used to print ten price ranges with no source — they are gone | ReserveCalifornia FAQs |
| If it is sold out | Look for first-come, first-served sites midweek, and watch for cancellations released back into the system | — |
California State Parks, Recreation.gov and KQED reporting of the October 2025 system change.
The single most useful thing on this page, if you are booking a popular site: log into ReserveCalifornia several days early and confirm your account still works. The October 2025 upgrade required existing users to recreate their accounts, and discovering that at 8am Pacific while a beach site sells out is a specific and avoidable kind of misery.
Bears and Food Storage
Black bears live across the Sierra Nevada and in many California forests and parks, Yosemite included. This is a rule, not a suggestion.
- All food, drinks, toiletries and rubbish go in the metal bear locker provided — not in your tent, and not in your car.
- That includes anything scented: toothpaste, sun cream, lip balm, empty wrappers, a cool box that once held food.
- Fines apply, and rangers do enforce it.
- The real reason is harsher than the fine. Bears that learn to associate people with food become dangerous and frequently have to be destroyed. A careless camper gets a penalty; the bear gets shot.
- Never leave food out while you walk to the toilet block. That is how most incidents actually start.
Wildfire Season and Campfires
Not a footnote — the August 2026 Highway 1 closure was for fire operations.
- Risk is highest from summer into autumn, and campfire restrictions or total bans are common.
- Check CAL FIRE and your campground’s current restrictions before you travel, not when you arrive.
- Some National Forest areas require a campfire permit even for a camping stove. Rules differ by agency and area.
- Never leave a fire unattended, and drown it completely — cold to the touch — before you leave or sleep.
- Know your evacuation route and sign up for local emergency alerts.
- Air travel gets disrupted too. Fire and weather affect flights as well as roads — see our note on summer flight disruption.
- Fires close roads, not just campgrounds. Build slack into any itinerary that depends on a single highway.
Travelling From the UK
- An approved ESTA under the Visa Waiver Programme, before you travel. Apply well ahead — approval is usually quick but not guaranteed.
- Travel insurance with serious medical cover. This is the single biggest financial risk of a US camping trip, not your kit.
- A hire car is effectively mandatory. None of the sites above is practical without one, and distances are larger than UK instinct suggests.
- Check FCDO travel advice for the USA before booking.
- Bear lockers and fire bans will be unfamiliar. Read the campground rules on arrival rather than assuming UK norms apply.
- Book campsites before flights if a specific site matters to you. The six-month window is the constraint, not airline availability.
- For something closer to home, see our guide to canal boat holidays in the UK, our staycation ideas for families and things to do in Egypt or in India if the trip is still open. For packing, our travel tech checklist and the EcoFlow Delta 3 portable power review, which is the sort of kit a week off-grid actually needs. For an idea of what long-haul overlanding looks like full time, see Itchy Boots.
Resource for Campsite Owners
If you’re a campsite owner looking to list your campsite and connect with campers, platforms like Camplinq can help you reach a broader audience.
Corrections Made to This Page
| What it said | Why it changed |
|---|---|
| “According to the California Outdoor Recreation Trends Report (2025)” — bookings +18%, family trips +22%, 60% prefer online | No such report exists. Searching for it returns this page as the only source repeating those figures. All three statistics removed |
| “over 7 million campers annually (California State Parks Report, 2025)” | Misattributed and wrong. The real published figure is 5,895,246 overnight camping uses in 2022-23 — and that counts camper-nights, not campers |
| “This surge in interest” | The official data shows the opposite: camping down about 24% and day use down about 8.6% in the latest reported year |
| A specific “recent upgrade” for all ten venues | Ten venues, ten sourceless improvement claims — a filled-in template. Glamping wagons, solar lighting, EV chargers, Wi-Fi zones, astronomy events, tide alerts. All removed |
| Ten price ranges (“$45 – $85 per night”) | Unsourced and undated. Fees are set per park and shown at booking |
| Nothing at all about Highway 1 | Three recommended sites are reachable only via Highway 1, which reopened in January 2026, closed again 33 days later, and had a 40-mile fire closure in August 2026 |
| “Reservations open 6 months in advance” | Correct but vague. Six months to the day, released at 8am Pacific, and national park sites use a different system entirely |
| No warning about the ReserveCalifornia account change | The 29 October 2025 upgrade added MFA and forced existing users to recreate accounts — the most practical thing a booking guide could say |
| El Capitan at “Santa Barbara” | It is in Goleta, some miles west |
| Crystal Cove at “Laguna Beach” | The campground address is Newport Coast |
| No Gutenberg blocks | The article had a wp: block count of zero. Rebuilt |
| No structured data | FAQ JSON-LD added |
All corrections made on 26 October 2026. No original link or image was removed, including the Camplinq link, which is unchanged.
Final Thoughts
California camping is worth the planning, but the planning is the hard part. Pick your site, work out which of the three booking systems it uses, check your account works, and be ready at 8am Pacific six months to the day before you want to arrive.
And check the road. The most beautiful campgrounds on this list sit on a highway that has closed twice this year, once for storms and once for fire. That is not a reason to avoid Big Sur — it is a reason to book it refundable. More from The UK Post.
Sources
- California State Parks — Statistical Report 2022-23 (attendance and camping figures)
- California State Parks — ReserveCalifornia reservation sale dates
- California State Parks — ReserveCalifornia FAQs
- KQED — ReserveCalifornia login problems after the October 2025 upgrade
- Recreation.gov — national park and forest campground bookings
- Office of the Governor of California — early reopening of Highway 1 through Big Sur (14 January 2026)
- Monterey County Now — Highway 1 closed again after storms
- Caltrans District 5 — 40-mile Highway 1 closure for Timber and Plaskett fire operations (27 August 2026)
- Caltrans QuickMap — live road status
- Hipcamp — understanding booking trends in 2025
- KOA — 2025 camping and outdoor hospitality report
- National Park Service — bears and food storage in Yosemite
- CAL FIRE — current fire activity and restrictions
- US Customs and Border Protection — ESTA application
- FCDO — travel advice for the USA
Disclaimer
Road status, fire restrictions, fees and facilities change constantly and this page does not claim to report them live — check Caltrans, CAL FIRE and the park or operator before you travel. No prices are given because the previous unsourced ones could not be verified. Attendance figures are from California State Parks’ published statistical report for 2022-23, the most recent we could obtain. Nothing here is travel, insurance or safety advice; follow official guidance on bears, fire and evacuation. Information correct as at 26 October 2026.
