Hartley Springs Campground

Came from Livermore yesterday and stumbled on this site. Nice and spread out. I was bringing my camping trailer out for the first time. So appreciated the ability to drive right into the site. Bathrooms were nice as well.

Just stayed one night but it was great to get away from the smoke of the Bay Area.

This campground is great because it’s donation based, each site is huge, and it’s all far away from the road and any traffic noise. It’s a bring-your-own-water and pack out your trash campground, but it does have decently clean toilets with toilet paper. The missing star is because the roads getting there are suuuper rough and very hard on any non-four-wheel-drive vehicle (the deep holes in the soft dirt road messed up the alignment in both mine and my friend’s cars), which makes going up and down the hill to get to the nearby lakes and whatnot a challenge, and in the summer people ride their off-road bikes and 4-wheelers all around the campground kicking up a ton of dirt on you, into your lungs, and all over everything you have out. It’s also very loud when they come around. That said, for a free/donation-based (please donate) campground surrounded by gorgeous nature, it’s great as long as you know what to expect.