Doane Valley Campground — Palomar Mountain State Park

My friend and I went together for one night and we loved it! It was her very first time camping and she enjoyed it very much. Here is our review:

-NO T-Mobile: There was no signal at the campground at all. We drove about 7 minutes to the Palomar State Park Parking Area (based off Apple Maps) to find spotty signal. Just good enough to make a phone call if needed. 

 -Privacy: Many of these sites such great privacy, even though we were neighboring #19, there are a quite a bit of trees. Also, you walk down a few stone steps to pitch your tent, so your car parked a level about you on the street provides nice privacy.

-Convenience: The bathrooms were pretty close to us and were kept fairly clean. Also the firepit and grill were a plus.

- CRITTERS: I mean who doesn't know this but the squirrels and crows were greedy! They had no issues flying/ skittering to your food if you were 6 feet away lol. 

-BEAUTIFUL!!!: You can hear the Doane Creek flowing and the stars are just an absolute sight, we took the rain-fly off our tent so we could see the stars

I'd imagine spots 21 and 26 would be great because of the privacy and creek location. 

I'd avoid spots 28-30 just because of the steeper hill to walk UP to your campsite. It's already a pain to lug all your gear.

This is a well-maintained campground. It really is a beautiful area. There’s blue jays, wild turkeys, woodpeckers, and at night there’s the sound of frogs, and lots of stars. We stayed 9/22-9/24 but the weather was mild during the day, mid to high 60s. The nights were getting chilly. (We stayed nearby at Bailey’s a couple years ago in late October and it was freezing.) So, one word of caution. MOSQUITOS. Tons of mosquitos and little flies. I used mosquito incense sticks that I happened to have in my camping supplies, which helped a lot but we needed bug spray. The general store nearby has some but holy moly. I highly suggest the incense. I kept them lit around our site and when they burned off, the swarm returned. We also had the unfortunate experience of a large group that took over the four sites across from us that had in total ten kids. They were so loud and mean. No supervision. It really ruined what was supposed to be a relaxing family trip. Just a reminder to be mindful of other campers. Also, a lot of the sites have a small incline, some did not. There’s stone steps up to or down into most of the sites. Each site comes with a fire ring, bbq, and its own water spigot. Site 15 is steps of the rest rooms, both a blessing and a curse. There’s token-operated showers, with a token machine that takes dollar bills. No cell service (T-Mobile.) Don’t forget to visit the observatory, but go early. It closes at 3:30. (Bummer).

Nice