Best RV Parks & Resorts near Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit

Great location if you want to be near Costco and the capital city.  Great views of the Sierras and the Carson valley.  Sites are narrow, about twice the width of your RV, and separated by chain link fencing.  But all sites are perfectly flat, paved pull-throughs; easy in, easy out parking.  Also electric, water, sewer hookup, cable and strong wifi and cell service.  Sites are gravel, but the campground has nice grassy dog parks, clean bathrooms and laundry, and well-stocked store with propane refill.  Pool and fishing pond were closed but looked great.  We were there in early April 2021; with our binoculars we could see skiers at the top of Heavenly Mountain ski area!

We spend a month here every year and several weekends, too. It’s clean, the host, Julie, is very friendly and the spaces are great. Plenty of space for our 34’ travel trailer. Full hookups - water, electric and sewer and Cable tv, plus decent wifi. No fires are allowed, but you are right on the lake, with two docks and a beach with shade everywhere and amazing views, so who cares? There is a fish cleaning station, a laundromat, bathrooms with toilets and pay showers. There is also a small store and a freezer full of delicious ice cream treats. Pet friendly as long as your pets are leashed. There are two docks and you can dock your boat for a few. We leave our kayaks on the beach. Everyone is really friendly and Chuck, the maintenance man, could not be nicer or more helpful! He is a treat to chat with! A picnic table at every site, trees at every site and the lake has great fishing and boating. Can you tell we love this place?

Nice level concrete pads for travel trailers, they also have pull through sites for diesel pushers. Both 30 and 50 amp sites along with cable on the pedestals, make sure you bring your own cable to connect to the pet store or they’ll charge you $4.95 for a cable cord. Large clean bathrooms, with a laundry facility that is open 24 hours a day. Upon checking in, staff will guide you to your site and assist you in backing in to your campsite or guide you through the pull through site. They explain all the rules which are typical and show you the location of your pedestal and your sewer hook ups. Wi-Fi is strong and if there are not a lot of people at the campsite you can stream to a television which is the first time in a long time. Unfortunately when the weekends come in the campsite gets full Wi-Fi signal does degrade quite significantly. The bathrooms are well-maintained and constantly cleaned, staff is very friendly and they have a small camp in store for you to pick up small supplies. If you need anything larger there is RV country which is located basically across the street at legends which is a rather large shopping mall area. There are plenty of places to go out and eat if you would like such as outback steakhouse, Olive Garden, BJ’s and of course there is a plethora of fast food restaurants available in the area as well. The campsites are flat and level and have a picnic table with artificial turf next to your campsite. I’ll just say that the sites are very cozy. Very quiet camp area staff is very friendly and helpful

The Reno area is our home base, we are full time RVers in a 35 foot long fifth wheel.  We come to Sparks Marina RV Park whenever we are in town visiting family, and we typically stay for at least a month or sometimes two months.  We have visited ALL of the RV parks in the vicinity, and in Carson City to the south.  By far this is the best place in the area.  The sites are not at all outdoorsy, it is more of an urban feel, with a concrete pad and fake grass, but each site has a tree which is nice for shade in the hot summers.  The circulation works well and if you have a pull through you have two parking options for your tower/toad vehicle.  The spaces are long enough for the larger rigs, and are wide enough for all of the slides, even on both sides, and for awnings to go out.  Staff here is EXCELLENT.  We are always treated well, and we like how they are always there to help.  The office has some supplies for sale, and the laundry room and bathrooms are the CLEANEST we have ever seen.  Facilities are modern.  Rec room has ping pong, and pool, a large screen tv as well.  There is a small pool and hot tub, which gets a lot of use when open.  They do not allow tents.  They have a pretty robust WiFi system, and all cellular options are available in the area, so internet is not a problem.  Prices are higher than other options but the location is excellent, staff is excellent and they do a good job of security as well.  We feel safe here, and it is always clean.

I had the luxury of being a camp host at this location back in 2010 for a summer. While the USFS does over see the campgrounds on a regular basis, It was operated and maintained by Dodge Ridge Ski Resort. I'm pretty sure that if you want power you'll need to be self sufficient i.e( solar, wind or generator). Unless they upgraded the grounds, not sure if there are hook ups of any kind. I had a nice sturdy picnic table and a decent sized fire ring( remember dont leave until you drown your fire with at least 5-10 gal of water) dead out. If you dont bring your own wood that's ok. You are in national forest land if it's dead on the ground then you can burn it, dont get fires too large though. The fishing there is usually great in the summer time as long as the water isnt to high from the snow melt or a recent storm. I ate fresh rainbow trout when ever I took the short medium walk/ hike down to the river. The river is stocked with rainbow trout every Wednesday I think( check USFS website for current schedule and location) if you need to eat or have kids that wanna learn. Almost every cast was a fish for me. Albeit I'm not a beginner fisherman either so not much on the way of clunkers but still plenty of fun. However, there are many places where big fish are and every once in awhile you get a big fish. Some campsites are only for tents while some are for both. It's only available in summer due to roads to the campground are covered in ice and snow, as well as gates blocking the road (which allows the county to not have to plow in the winter.) In the summer it's usually pretty quite and the 10pm quite time, which meant voices down not a huge fire and no music, I allowed an outdoor movie if I was a large group and noise wasnt a nuisance to other campers. It was left to my discretion. Most party campers are only weekenders so weekdays are the best time for nature as well as quiet time. I dont really know about prices but I believe you can check USFS website for more details. The water temp varies is there snow run off? Is it raining or has it in the last 3 days? I found the best time to swim is later in the summer or go down the road to another lake for the day to swim. Fishing was best when the water was cold and slowed when it got too warm. Yes this is one thing I will say the large generator that is run at store was a problem and I've heard they are working on rebuilding so that may still be an issue but after the first 3 days it's not so bad plus I found that some campsites aren't as bad as others and you can barely hear it. Tent sites are even further away from the noise. Remember there are predators in the area; mountain lions, black bear, brown bear( I think however I've never seen one) Bobcats, eagles, falcons, owls. So keep children and small animals close, Watch out because the scavengers up there are very sneaky, raccoons, ravens and even the tree squirrels will steal unattended food as well as draw the bears and mountain lions closer so make sure all food is properly disposed of and stored correctly. Dont just lock it in your car, glass wont stop a bear( look it up on youtube) Remember if you pack it in, make sure to pack it out. Before you leave make sure your fire is completely out. Soak with water, stir, soak, stir, soak. If you can hold your hand over it and not feel any heat then you can leave other wise keep soak and stir. At the time I was in a motor home and was a green horn RVer and made many mistakes and had no idea what I was doing. Nor had i been shown how everything really worked. If you have an rv or travel trailer you can apply for a camp host position single or couple it doesnt matter no rent and pay on top of that. Make sure you bring what you need though there is a few stores down the road its roughly a 30- 45 min drive so double for round trip. There are several water filling stations on the way there( one was a mile sb108 at the forrest station) those are free but the dump stations I believe are all $10.00. If open, can be a line on busier weekends and holidays there are toilets at the campgrounds they are all vault toilets and were cleaned and stocked daily ( unsure if still being done).

I will definitely being returning over and over and F.Y.I If this campground is full their are about 6 more in the area plus a hike in site that's really great.