Canoeing/Kayaking

Blue Lakes Village RV Park

14 RV Sites

Blue Lakes Village RV Park in Upper Lake, CA, offers 14 full-hookup back-in RV sites with 30-amp service and room for rigs up to 40 feet. Every site is a back-in carrying water, sewer, and electric with site-delivered WiFi. Note the electrical: this is a 30-amp park throughout, so a rig wired for heavier service will need an adapter and some load management, and the 40-foot maximum keeps it to mid-size rigs. Laundry and a bathhouse with showers are on site, and pets are welcome with a dog park. The water is why people book. A fishing pier and a beach give guests direct access to Blue Lakes, which stay private to resort guests — a genuinely rare thing in California — with swimming, fishing, kayaking, hiking, and biking from the property. Upper Lake sits in Lake County, in the wine country foothills north of Clear Lake, directly across Highway 20 from the lakes. Rates and availability are on the booking page. Fourteen sites on a private lake means summer fills quickly — reserve well ahead.

from $50/night

Clear Lake Campground

39 RV Sites

Clear Lake Campground in Clearlake, California, offers 36 full-hookup RV sites on Cache Creek with 30-amp service, taking rigs to 40 feet, plus a boat ramp, kayak and boat rentals, and an outdoor pool. Established in the 1950s, it sits on the sole natural outlet of Clear Lake — the largest natural freshwater lake entirely within California. Thirty-six sites carry water, sewer, and electric on 30-amp in back-in, creekside back-in, and pull-through configurations sized to 40 feet, with fire pits, picnic tables, and BBQ pits. Rigs longer than 40 feet will not fit, and the 30-amp service is worth noting for guests running high-draw appliances. Laundry, restrooms, and showers handle longer stays, and WiFi reaches the property. Water access is the campground's core. A boat ramp gives direct entry to the creek and lake, and boat and kayak rentals are available on site for guests who arrive without their own. Fishing, canoeing, kayaking, paddle boats, and swimming all run from the property, with an outdoor pool as the managed alternative. A playground serves families, and hiking, biking, ping pong, and birding fill out the rest. Pets are welcome. Cache Creek carries bass and catfish, and Clear Lake's position on the migratory corridor concentrates birdlife through spring and fall. Note the lake experiences blue-green algae blooms in some summer periods, which affects swimming conditions. Clearlake sits 90 miles north of San Francisco on Highway 20, in Lake County's wine country and volcanic highlands. The campground has drawn returning Bay Area families for seven decades. Summer is peak — reserve ahead, and check current lake conditions when planning swimming.

from $58/night

Mendocino Magic

Mendocino Magic in Laytonville, California, is a multi-format camping destination in inland Mendocino County offering RV sites, glamping setups, and traditional tent camping — a versatile outdoor accommodation property in the US-101 corridor of the North Coast Range where the Eel River's wild and scenic stream country, the Cahto Wilderness, and the drive to the Mendocino Coast's redwood groves, sea stacks, and art galleries give guests the most complete North Coast camping experience available from a campground positioned between the redwood coast and the inland mountain valley. Laytonville's Mendocino County position on US-101, 45 miles east of the Mendocino coast and 50 miles south of Humboldt Redwoods State Park, gives the campground the specific North Coast corridor character of a property at the intersection of the coast road's scenic tourism appeal and the inland mountain valley's quieter outdoor recreation character. RV sites, glamping setups, and traditional tent camping give Mendocino Magic the complete spectrum of overnight outdoor accommodation in a single Laytonville property — the glamping format specifically gives the comfort-seeking non-camper the curated outdoor accommodation experience that the Mendocino County inland mountain setting sustains without the tent camping infrastructure logistics, and the RV site gives the self-contained traveler the hookup service for the North Coast leg of the US-101 coastal tour. The campground's multi-format accommodation reflects the specific Mendocino County market of the coastal artisan and agricultural heritage tourism that the North Coast's unique culture sustains. Pets are welcome. Humboldt Redwoods State Park, 50 miles north of Laytonville on US-101 in Humboldt County, protects the largest remaining contiguous old-growth coast redwood forest in the world — 17,000 acres of ancient Sequoia sempervirens forest in the Eel River's Bull Creek drainage where the Avenue of the Giants 32-mile scenic alternate to US-101 passes through the Rockefeller Forest's 10,000-acre old-growth stand, the world's largest preserved ancient redwood grove, in a grove of trees that include the confirmed tallest individual specimens in the forest. The coast redwood's maximum height of 380 feet and the 2,000-year age class of the Bull Creek drainage's oldest trees give the Humboldt Redwoods the specific scale and antiquity that no other temperate forest in the Northern Hemisphere matches. The Mendocino Coast, 45 miles west of Laytonville via CA-162 and CA-1 at Fort Bragg, provides the dramatic sea stack and headland coastline of the Mendocino Headlands State Park, the Mendocino village's Victorian architecture and artist colony character, and the Noyo Harbor's working fishing fleet and salmon charter boat operation that give the Fort Bragg-Mendocino corridor its specific combination of natural coastal scenery and North Coast cultural heritage. The MacKerricher State Park's 10 miles of beach north of Fort Bragg and the Glass Beach's sea-polished glass deposits give the Mendocino coastal day trip its accessible natural and geological attractions. Mendocino Magic serves guests through Mendocino County's North Coast camping season, with the spring whale migration from February through April giving the coastal viewpoints their spectacular gray whale observation and the summer fog season from June through August creating the coastal marine layer conditions that the inland Laytonville valley's warmer, clearer summer temperatures specifically complement for the guest who values the inland camp over the often-foggy coast campground in the summer. The Cahto Wilderness in the Mendocino National Forest gives the campground's immediate backcountry hiking access in the Laytonville area's inland mountain terrain. Reserve sites and glamping accommodations ahead for the summer US-101 coastal tourism season and the fall harvest season in Mendocino County's wine and apple country.

Strawhouse Resorts and Cafe

14 RV Sites, 8 Cottages, 1 Yurt

Strawhouse Resorts and Cafe in Junction City, CA, offers 14 full-hookup RV sites, 8 cottages, and 1 yurt, with 30 and 50-amp service and room for rigs up to 52 feet. Sites come in two categories, back-in 30/50-amp and pull-in 30/50-amp, each carrying water, sewer, and electric with WiFi across the property. The on-site cafe is part of the appeal — this is a resort with a kitchen, not a campground with a vending machine. A recreation center, walking trails, and a dog park round it out, and the property doubles as a wedding venue. Pets are welcome. The Trinity River runs along the resort, and that's the draw: fishing, kayaking, hiking, birding, horseshoes, and planned activities, with the river running cold and clear out of the Trinity Alps. Junction City sits in Trinity County, one of California's most remote and most scenically dramatic inland counties, well off the interstate grid. Rates for sites, cottages, and the yurt are on the booking page. Summer river season and fall steelhead runs book earliest.

from $62/night