Planned Activities

Grey Squirrel Resorts

19 Cottages

Grey Squirrel Resort in Fawnskin, California, has welcomed families, couples, and group retreats since the 1950s, bringing more than seven decades of mountain hospitality to a collection of 19 private cabins spread across three wooded acres on the quiet north shore of Big Bear Lake. Tucked in the small mountain community of Fawnskin—across the lake from the busier Big Bear Lake resort corridor—the resort provides an intimate and unhurried alternative to the high-traffic south shore lodging scene, giving guests direct access to San Bernardino County's premier mountain resort while preserving the peaceful forest character that defines the north shore experience. The 19 private cabins accommodate a range of group sizes and comfort preferences, offering more privacy and enclosed space than hotel rooms while maintaining the forest-immersed setting that draws visitors to Big Bear Lake in every season. On-site amenities include a pond, spa, walking trails, and wedding venue capabilities that make the property versatile for romantic retreats, family reunions, and celebration events alongside standard vacation stays. Pet-friendly policies, a general store, and Wi-Fi support extended stays, while the resort's access to golf, hiking, and mountain biking from the property ensures guests can build active itineraries without driving across the lake to the south shore infrastructure. The Fawnskin area's forest setting—ponderosa pine, white fir, and black oak woodland at approximately 7,000 feet elevation in the San Bernardino Mountains—provides a true mountain environment that contrasts sharply with the Southern California coast and desert communities that send the majority of Big Bear's visitors up the mountain. The north shore's relative quiet and the absence of the commercial density found on the south shore give Fawnskin an off-the-beaten-path character that has attracted loyal repeat guests to properties like Grey Squirrel for generations. Big Bear Mountain Resort, accessible via the south shore road around the lake, offers skiing and snowboarding in winter alongside mountain biking and lift-accessed hiking in summer, making the surrounding mountain landscape a legitimate four-season outdoor recreation destination. Big Bear Lake itself provides boating, fishing for trout and bass, kayaking, and paddleboarding from multiple marinas and launch points, and the PCT-adjacent trail system of the San Gorgonio Wilderness to the south provides backcountry hiking access to some of Southern California's highest and most dramatic mountain terrain. The Moonridge Animal Park and the Baldwin Lake Ecological Reserve provide additional nature-focused excursions in the immediate area. Grey Squirrel Resort operates year-round in Big Bear Lake's four-season mountain climate, with winter skiing season from December through March and summer's lake and mountain recreation driving the two peak demand periods. Fall's aspen and black oak color in the surrounding San Bernardino National Forest creates a third visitation surge in October, when the mountain's foliage rivals the more celebrated deciduous displays of the eastern United States. Cabin reservations for winter ski weekends and summer holidays fill months in advance, and the resort's intimate 19-cabin scale means early booking is essential for any stay during Big Bear's peak windows.

from $75/night

Golden Village Palms Resort

Golden Village Palms Resort in Hemet, California, is one of the largest RV resorts in the state — a 55-plus destination in Riverside County's Diamond Valley with full-hookup sites, a spa, fitness center, mini-golf, and pickleball courts behind a gated entrance, open all year. Personal mailboxes and RV storage support the long-stay residents who fill it through the winter. Full-hookup sites serve the resort's largely seasonal population, with laundry, RV storage, personal mailboxes, restrooms, and showers handling the practical side, plus WiFi and recycling throughout. Check-in for RV sites is 1:00pm with check-out at 12:00pm; early arrivals and late departures may be available for a nominal fee, and cottage check-in times differ — confirm when booking. The amenity roster is the reason people come. An outdoor pool and spa anchor daily recreation, with a fitness center, clubhouse, craft room, and game room for the social calendar. Pickleball, bocce ball, shuffleboard, horseshoes, volleyball, billiards, corn hole, and sports courts fill the competitive side, with mini-golf and a dog park besides. On-site dining covers meals, live music and planned activities run through the season, and the resort also serves as a wedding venue. A casino, hiking, wine tasting, and hot air ballooning are all nearby. Pets are welcome. Hemet sits in the Diamond Valley between the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa Mountains, in the inland reach of Southern California — warm dry summers, mild winters, and a dramatic mountain backdrop, roughly 30 miles west of the Palm Springs resort corridor across the San Jacinto Fault. Winter is decisively the season. Book well ahead for January through March.

from $64/night

Cathedral Palms RV Resort

62 RV Sites, 1 Onsite RV/Trailer, 1 Apartment

Cathedral Palms RV Resort in Cathedral City, California, offers 62 full-hookup RV sites and an apartment with 30 and 50-amp service and rigs accepted to 55 feet on a big-rig-friendly layout, with EV charging on site. Deluxe and water-and-electric back-ins join the Happy Camper travel trailer rental, with a pool, hot tub, and pickleball courts. Sixty-two back-in sites run in water-and-electric and deluxe full-hookup categories carrying 30 and 50-amp, sized to 55 feet, with site WiFi. EV charging is available — still uncommon at RV resorts and increasingly decisive for guests towing with an electric vehicle. The Happy Camper travel trailer rental and an apartment serve guests without a rig, with check-in for rental units at 3:00pm. A laundry, propane fills, dump station, RV storage, bike rentals, restrooms, and showers handle the practical side. An outdoor pool and hot tub and sauna anchor the property, with a clubhouse, community fire pit, and dog park besides. Pickleball, bocce ball, basketball, billiards, ping pong, and corn hole fill the competitive calendar, with biking from the property, planned activities through the season, and a golf course and national park nearby. Pets are welcome. Cathedral City sits between Palm Springs and Palm Desert in the Coachella Valley, which puts the region's golf courses, spa culture, national park access, and mid-century modern architecture all within easy reach. Winter is decisively the season in the desert. Book well ahead for January through March.

from $65/night

Joshua Tree Lake RV & Campground

Joshua Tree Lake RV Campground in Joshua Tree, California, provides a lakeside and desert camping experience at the gateway to Joshua Tree National Park—the 800,000-acre California desert preserve where the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts converge and the iconic twisted Joshua trees create the alien landscape that has made this park one of the most photographed national parks in the American West. The campground's pond and lake, wedding venue, live music programming, and exceptional dark-sky stargazing access distinguish it from the park's own developed campgrounds, providing resort-amenity camping with the Joshua Tree character—moonlit boulder piles, star-filled desert skies, and the haunting silhouettes of Yucca brevifolia in the desert night—that defines the high-desert camping experience at the edge of one of California's most beloved national parks. The campground's facility reflects the desert environment and destination event character: a private lake and pond for fishing and desert water recreation, planned activities and live music and entertainment programming that takes advantage of the dramatic desert landscape setting, a wedding venue for celebrations in the Joshua Tree destination event market, bird and wildlife watching in the desert tortoise and roadrunner habitat, a general store, pavilion, showers, bathrooms, dump station, pet-friendly policies, Wi-Fi, and mountain and desert views that frame every camping site with the park scenery that brought guests to Joshua Tree in the first place. Stargazing events and the campground's exceptional night-sky access provide the evening programming that no facilities can improve upon in this dark-sky desert. Joshua Tree National Park's Wonderland of Rocks—a concentration of massive rounded granite monoliths that rose from magma intrusions 100 million years ago and were exposed by erosion to create the boulder-pile landscape that defines the park's distinctive visual character—contains over 8,000 documented rock climbing routes that have made Joshua Tree the most visited and most iconic rock climbing destination in North America. The Skull Rock Nature Trail, Keys View's panoramic Coachella Valley overlook, and the Cottonwood Spring oasis in the Sonoran Desert section provide the representative national park experiences accessible on day hikes from the campground's Joshua Tree gateway position. The town of Joshua Tree, Twentynine Palms, and the High Desert arts and culture community that has grown around the national park's western gateway have developed a distinctive creative culture of galleries, music venues, and the annual Joshua Tree Music Festival that reflect the desert landscape's effect on artistic practice in the creative community that has colonized the Morongo Valley's high desert terrain. The Noah Purifoy Outdoor Desert Art Museum in Joshua Tree—a free outdoor sculpture garden of assemblage art created by Purifoy from the debris of the 1965 Watts Riots—is one of the most significant and unusual outdoor art installations in California. Joshua Tree Lake RV Campground operates year-round in the high Mojave Desert's four-season climate, with the fall and spring seasons from October through April delivering the most comfortable desert temperatures for hiking, rock climbing, and boulder exploration in Joshua Tree National Park—the summer months above 100 degrees Fahrenheit make the park's sun-exposed terrain genuinely dangerous for unprepared hikers in the heat of the day, while the mild winter nights create extraordinary stargazing conditions when the desert air's low humidity and the campground's minimal light pollution combine with the Milky Way's winter arc over the park's boulder silhouettes. The spring wildflower season in February and March after winter rains creates the desert bloom that brings maximum visitor volume to Joshua Tree.

from $16 $14/night

Emerald Desert RV Resort

97 RV Sites

Emerald Desert RV Resort in Palm Desert, California, offers 97 full-hookup back-in RV sites across 33 acres with 30 and 50-amp service, cable TV, and rigs accepted to 56 feet on a big-rig-friendly layout, open all year behind a gated entrance. Luxury, elite, premium, and deluxe categories join a pool, hot tub, spa, fitness center, and disc golf course. Ninety-seven back-in sites run in deluxe, premium, elite, and luxury categories, all carrying water, sewer, and electric on 30 and 50-amp with cable TV and site WiFi, sized to 56 feet. The four-tier structure gives real budget range within a single resort. A laundry, propane fills and exchange, restrooms, showers, RV storage, and boat storage handle the practical side. An outdoor pool, hot tub, sauna, and spa anchor the property, with a fitness center, clubhouse, craft room, pavilion, and disc golf course besides. Tennis, pickleball, bocce ball, billiards, ping pong, and horseshoes fill the courts, with a dog park and live music through the season. The resort is LGBTIQA+ friendly and operates as a wedding venue. Championship golf, concert venues, shopping, dining, wine and beer tasting, and Joshua Tree National Park are all nearby. Pets are welcome. The Coachella Valley's winter climate is the entire proposition — reliably sunny, warm, and dry from November through April when much of the country is frozen. Winter is decisively the season. January through March fills with snowbirds and festival traffic. Book well ahead, with far easier availability through the hot summer months.

from $68/night

Lake Piru Recreation Area

228 RV Sites

Lake Piru Recreation Area in Piru, California, offers 228 RV sites on a 1,200-acre reservoir in Ventura County, with 30 and 50-amp service, ADA-accessible sites, and rigs accepted to 55 feet on a big-rig-friendly layout. Full-hookup, electric-only, and no-hookup back-in categories serve every budget, with a marina and boat rentals on site. Two hundred twenty-eight back-in sites span full-hookup, electric-only, and no-hookup configurations, carrying water, sewer, and electric where noted on 30 and 50-amp, sized to 55 feet, with fire pits, picnic tables, and site WiFi. Accessible sites are available. The tiering by hookup level is genuinely useful — self-contained rigs can take a no-hookup site at a lower rate. A general store, laundry, dump station, restrooms, showers, and firewood handle the practical side. The reservoir carries the recreation. A marina and boat rentals put guests on the water, with boating, water sports, canoeing, kayaking, swimming, and fishing all running from the property. A disc golf course, walking trails, hiking, volleyball, basketball, horseshoes, a playground, and a dog park fill the grounds, with planned activities through the season. Pets are welcome. Lake Piru sits where the Santa Felicia Dam impounds Piru Creek in the Topatopa Mountains, surrounded by the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and Los Padres National Forest — one of Southern California's most scenic accessible mountain lakes, roughly 60 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Summer draws heavy demand from the LA metro. Reserve well ahead for warm-weather weekends.

from $32/night

Shadow Hills RV Resort

95 RV Sites, 19 Tent Sites

Shadow Hills RV Resort in Indio, California, offers 95 paved full-hookup back-in RV sites and 19 tent sites in the Coachella Valley, with 30 and 50-amp service, cable TV, and rigs accepted to 60 feet on a big-rig-friendly layout. A spa, hot tub, fitness center, business center, and library sit behind a gated entrance. Ninety-five paved back-in sites carry water, sewer, and electric on 30 and 50-amp with cable TV, sized to 60 feet. Paved sites hold up better than gravel through a desert season and make setup cleaner. Nineteen tent sites and cabins round out the accommodations. Laundry, restrooms, showers, and a snack bar handle the practical side, with a gated entrance controlling access. The amenity set is built for a long winter stay. An outdoor pool, hot tub, sauna, and spa cover daily recreation, with a fitness center, clubhouse, game room, craft room, and library for the rest. A business center serves guests working remotely, and a pond, walking trails, community fire pit, dog park, and horseshoes fill the grounds. Planned activities run through the season. Pets are welcome. Indio sits at the center of the Coachella Valley's date palm agricultural belt and hosts two of the world's most attended music festivals. Palm Springs' cosmopolitan appeal and Joshua Tree National Park's high desert are both within easy reach, and the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway and Art Museum are close. Winter is decisively the season, and April festival weeks tighten the entire valley. Book well ahead for both.

from $45/night

Paradise by the Sea Beach RV Resort

90 RV Sites

Paradise by the Sea Beach RV Resort in Oceanside, California, offers 90 full-hookup RV sites with 30 and 50-amp service, cable TV, ADA-accessible sites, and rigs accepted to 60 feet, behind a gated entrance on the coast. This is an adults-only resort, with named site categories including Island Back-In, Bamboo Hillside, The Jetty, and Motorcoach Pull-Thru. Ninety sites span group, island back-in, motorcoach pull-through, premium back-in Bamboo Hillside, premium back-in Beach Preferred, and The Jetty categories, all carrying water, sewer, and electric on 30 and 50-amp with cable TV and site WiFi, sized to 60 feet, with picnic tables and BBQ pits. Accessible sites are available. Naming categories by position rather than tier makes choosing genuinely easier. A general store, laundry, propane exchange, restrooms, showers, personal mailboxes, and recycling handle the practical side. Note the adults-only policy before booking. An outdoor pool and hot tub and sauna anchor the property, with mini-golf, a game room, arcade, recreation center, clubhouse, billiards, shuffleboard, ping pong, and corn hole besides. A beach, walking trails, community fire pit, dog park, and playground fill the grounds, with surfing, swimming, fishing, hiking, and biking from the area and live music through the season. Pets are welcome. Oceanside sits 90 miles north of Los Angeles with direct I-5 and CA-78 access. The pier, Oceanside Harbor whale watching, the California Surf Museum, and Carlsbad and Encinitas are all close. Summer is peak on the Southern California coast. Reserve well ahead.

from $80/night

Coachella Lakes RV Resort

352 RV Sites, 8 Cottages

Coachella Lakes RV Resort in Coachella, California, offers 352 full-hookup RV sites and eight cottages with 30 and 50-amp service, cable TV, and rigs accepted to 75 feet. Lakeside, front row, and K9 Corner back-in categories join a splash pad, hot tub, fitness center, and clubhouse in the Coachella Valley. Three hundred fifty-two sites span back-in, deluxe back-in, front row back-in, lakeside back-in, K9 Corner back-in, and pull-through categories, all carrying water, sewer, and electric on 30 and 50-amp with cable TV and site WiFi, sized to 75 feet. The K9 Corner sites are worth requesting if you travel with dogs, and lakeside is the premium outlook. Eight cottages round out the lodging. A general store, boutique shop, laundry, propane fills and exchange, restrooms, showers, and firewood handle the practical side. An outdoor pool and splash pad anchor the warm months, with a hot tub, sauna, fitness center, clubhouse, game room, craft room, and business center besides. Pickleball, billiards, ping pong, horseshoes, and corn hole fill the courts, and a lake supports fishing. Walking trails, a playground, dog park, golf cart rentals, a bar, and live music round it out. The resort also operates as a wedding venue. Pets are welcome. Coachella sits between Indio and the Salton Sea, 40 minutes from the sea itself, with Spotlight 29 Casino two miles away, Fantasy Springs seven minutes, and Palm Springs within comfortable reach. Winter is decisively the season, and April festival weeks fill the whole valley. Book well ahead.

from $49/night

Escondido RV Resort

95 RV Sites

Escondido RV Resort in Escondido, California, offers 95 full-hookup back-in RV sites with 30 and 50-amp service, cable TV, and rigs accepted to 65 feet, open all year in the San Pasqual Valley. Six tiered categories run from deluxe through premium, premium plus, elite, luxury, and platinum, with an outdoor pool, hot tub, and clubhouse. Ninety-five back-in sites span deluxe, premium, premium plus, elite, luxury, and platinum categories, all carrying water, sewer, and electric on 30 and 50-amp with cable TV and site WiFi, sized to 65 feet. The tiering makes it straightforward to match site quality to budget. A laundry, propane fills and exchange, dump station, restrooms, and showers handle the practical side, and the resort is open year-round. An outdoor pool and hot tub anchor daily recreation, with a clubhouse and games for other hours and a dog park for pets. Ron McLeod City Park sits immediately next door with a playground, which effectively extends the resort's family facilities. Planned activities run through the season, and boating, a golf course, a casino, wine tasting, and hot air ballooning are all nearby. Pets are welcome. Escondido sits 30 miles east of downtown San Diego in the agricultural heart of North County — a valley of avocado orchards, citrus groves, and chaparral hills that feels entirely different from the coastal resort corridor to the west. Few Southern California campgrounds match the variety of regional attractions within a short radius. Winter snowbird demand and spring bloom season drive the heaviest bookings. Reserve ahead.

from $58/night

Stagecoach Trails RV Park

115 RV Sites, 17 Cabins, 17 Tent Sites

Stagecoach Trails RV Park in Julian, California, offers 113 RV sites, 17 cabins, and 17 tent sites with dedicated equestrian back-in sites, horse paddocks, and horse pens — the premier horse-camping destination in San Diego County's backcountry. Sites carry 30 and 50-amp full hookups and take rigs up to 100 feet, with an outdoor pool and sports courts on site. Sites run from 30-amp back-ins and pull-throughs to 50-amp pull-throughs and dedicated equestrian back-in sites, all carrying water, sewer, and electric and sized to 100 feet. Seventeen cabins and 17 tent sites round out the accommodations. Horse paddocks and horse pens handle overnight boarding — the infrastructure that makes this a genuine equestrian base rather than a campground that tolerates trailers. A general store covers basics and WiFi reaches the property. The name on the reservation must be present at check-in. On-site recreation serves both the horse crowd and general campers. An outdoor pool anchors the warm months, with sports courts, pickleball, basketball, volleyball, horseshoes, and corn hole across the grounds, plus a playground, dog park, and community fire pit. Planned activities run through the season, and the mountain setting supports strong bird and wildlife watching. Pets are welcome. Julian sits at 4,200 feet, an apple-orchard town with nineteenth-century gold rush roots. Trail riding runs into Cuyamaca Rancho State Park and Cleveland National Forest, and the terrain drops east toward the Anza-Borrego Desert in one of the most dramatic ecological transitions on any Southwest trail system. The four-season mountain climate keeps riding comfortable most of the year. Fall apple season and spring wildflowers are the busiest windows — reserve equestrian sites well ahead.

from $69/night

Oak Creek RV Resort

99 RV Sites

Oak Creek RV Resort sits in El Cajon at the eastern edge of the San Diego metropolitan area, positioned in one of Southern California's most accessible camping corridors—close enough to the coast, mountains, and city that guests can spend a morning at the beach, an afternoon in the mountains, and an evening at a San Diego restaurant without a long drive in any direction. The oak creek rv resort is operated by Sunland RV Resorts, a brand that sets a consistent standard of amenities across its California properties, and that standard is evident from the moment guests pull onto the property. Sites include standard, deluxe, luxury, and pull-through options, all with full hookups—water, sewer, 30 and 50-amp electric, and cable TV—on paved, level pads that accommodate rigs up to 45 feet. A heated pool and spa, fully equipped fitness center, and coin-op laundry handle the primary guest needs, while the central clubhouse provides a social gathering space with a fireplace, wide-screen television, billiards table, foosball, and a book exchange library. A fenced dog park allows pets to stretch out, and resort-wide WiFi covers casual internet use, with premium streaming service available for guests who need more bandwidth. El Cajon's valley setting, surrounded by the coastal range to the west and the Cuyamaca Mountains to the east, gives the resort a distinct inland Southern California character—dry and warm, with clear sight lines to the ridgelines that ring the basin. Mission Trails Regional Park, one of the largest municipal parks in the United States at over 8,000 acres, begins practically at El Cajon's doorstep and provides hiking, cycling, and birding on trails that range from casual walks along the San Diego River to summit climbs on Cowles Mountain. The Santa Ysabel Creek corridor connects the valley to the backcountry beyond. Cuyamaca Rancho State Park is about 30 minutes east and encompasses 25,000 acres of pine and oak woodland in the Peninsular Ranges, with trails to rocky summits and reliable wildlife sightings in the meadows that fill the park's interior valleys. Julian, another 15 minutes east, is a former gold rush town that has evolved into the apple cider and pie destination of Southern California, drawing visitors year-round for its orchards, historic downtown, and the cool mountain elevation that makes summer visits particularly appealing. The San Diego Zoo, Balboa Park, and the Pacific coast beaches are all under an hour west. Oak Creek RV Resort operates year-round in a climate where rain is rare and temperatures are moderate across all seasons. Summer brings the warmest weather and highest occupancy, while fall and winter deliver the mild sunny days that define the Southern California outdoor experience at its most comfortable. The combination of full-service resort amenities and genuine proximity to one of the most destination-rich metros in the American West makes this a campground that rewards the traveler who wants a base camp rather than just a parking space.

from $47/night