Best RV Parks & Resorts near Los Padres National Forest

Flying Flags RV Resort& Campground is one of my favorite RV resorts.  It is located in Buellton, CA very near the historic town of Solvang, as well as Lake Cachuma and Los Padres National Forest. The campsite is in a beautiful setting surrounded by green rolling hills. April, May is the perfect time to visit. 

The resort features a plethora of housing options, including vintage trailers and airstreams, cottages, luxury tents, and RV/tent camping spots. 

Free WiFi, a full laundry facility, pools, and a hot tub, every aspect of your stay is covered. For a relaxing time, they have poolside cabanas, a communal fire pit, picnic areas, and a communal TV lounge with pool and foosball tables. 

If you have children there is a playground as well as bocce and horseshoes. There is a full fitness center in case you want to get your workout in without the heat. All of the amenities are very well maintained, including the bathrooms and showers. When you get hungry the campground/resort has a few options. 

There is a full fitness center in case you want to get your workout in without the heat. I rode my bicycle to Solvang, which is 4 miles away. All of the amenities are very well maintained, including the bathrooms and showers. When you get hungry the campground/resort has a few options. There is a convenience store and snack bar on-site, as well as the Campfire Cafe, an eatery with a full menu that allows you to eat in or even deliver to your site.

In case you are feeling like an adult beverage, Flying Flags has a fairly extensive wine and beer bar. There are also restaurants, convenience, and grocery stores within walking distance. The location of Flying Flags is perfect if you are looking to venture out for an evening or you are here for the wineries. 

There are several museums in the area, including the Solvang vintage motorcycle museum. There are also golf courses, breweries, wineries, a casino/resort, and the Solvang farmers market. This resort and campground overall is a very nice spot to stop on a long journey, or just to get away for a while. 

Well worth the trip. It seems like the RVs in the RV park are newer, the park is pretty upscale. I would assume most of the people are full-timers, retired couples who are spending some time in the park. Although it was beautiful weather, you hardly see people outside, it seems like everyone is keeping to themselves. I am not sure why that is.

Part of the Thousand Trails network. There is very clean bathrooms, room for RV'S, a rec center, store, pool, hot tub. There is a small creek and plenty of hiking trails.

This RV resort has everything. Super clean, great staff. Close to so many things to do.

RV hookups , pool , huge jumping pad for kids about a mile walk to the lake . They have yurts for tent & cabins.

This Campground belongs to the Thousand Trails network. We use it quite often as it is only 2 hours from our house. The campground is nice. There are wild turkeys that wander thru the campground and you will see an occassional deer or 2. Good & bad is that your wifi, cell service is very limited here. If you want to get away from that hectic "connected 24/7" life this is a place you can do it. If you need that constant connection you won't like it.

Wonderful resort with great views. Great staff, great long term campers, great amenities! Will definitely go back for another visit!

This a a very nice campground nestled in the hills of Santa Barbara county. The sites for dry camping are the largest that I have every come across in 50 years. The full hookup sites are your standard size that you see at most rv parks. The lake is nice but is at an all time low water level because of the ongoing drought. The Danish town of Solvang is 12 miles away and there must be 50 places that you can go wine tasting in the area if that is your thing.

If you find yourself up near Santa Barbara, this luxury RV Resort and Campground is a real splurge. The grounds are beautiful, overlooking the ocean, and connecting to the El Capitan Canyon glamping resort, which offers yurts and safari tents. We enjoyed exploring the property's hiking trails and the heated pool was really nice. 

If you don't feel like cooking, there's a really cute little deli and gift shop called Canyon Market that sells a nice selection of California wines, craft beers and BBQ kits for grill-your-own meals. Their breakfast burritos were really good, and they also serve tacos, burgers, sandwiches and salads throughout the day.

El Capitan State Beach is about a 20 minute walk away, so keep that in mind if you have a lot of beach gear. 

My video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Djcr_GYf1kc

We have spent many weekends at this resort, they have great amenities. Walking distance to downtown Pismo. You can’t beat the price and location. They have full hook-ups.

Nice sites, all on sand/hard pack. Lots of permanent campers or long term folks. They had horseback riding and a small playground. We came in late and it was hard to find our map and site reservations.

No one ever answered the phone whenever we tried to call, days prior, day of, etc. that was disappointing.

Our site was night to the dunes so easy walk to the sand, but about 30 minute hard walk to the ocean, it was worth it.

This is one of the most excellent coastal locations with full hook-ups. Our family loves heading to Old West Cinnamon Rolls, biking around the town, and visiting the beach. The park has excellent activities, and an on-site restaurant delivers to your site. Play structures are throughout, and the sites are tight, but clean and mostly level. We come here as often as we can.

We stayed at Rancho Oso for two weeks. We chose it because it was near Santa Barbara. And it was affordable (with Thousand Trails). So near to Santa Barbara is a relative term. It’s a 35 minute drive on a lovely windey mountain road. Beautiful drive!!! The problem was the resort does not have wifi or Verizon cell service. So I had to commute daily, I work remotely. If you want remote this is good. The other problem was ants. The 2nd day we came back and we were infested. We were able to move spots but what a hassle. We used all of our available poisons (windex, bug spray, rubbing alcohol) to kill or drown them. Then vacuumed for hours. It took two weeks before they were gone. The resort knew they had a problem but didn’t really help. So we recommend you be proactive and watch for them and maybe spray your perimeter occasionally. So no wifi and cell service - on them. They need to fix this.
Ant infestations- they should spray. Hot, dry, things closed because of Coronavirus and fire risk - not on them.
If you want remote, it’s good.

While visiting Los Padres National forest on a Valentines Weekend, we unfortunately couldn’t do much camping near the higher altitudes due to high wind gusts so we headed toward the other camps, Davy Brown and Nina. Only problem was these were all reserved!! Why I hate most camping in California Bc nothing is ever available. Either way I hate these type of campgrounds where there are fire pits, and bathrooms, and typically more humans nearby. So we ditched that and settled on a campsite off the road since the sun was setting. It was off one of the many horse/hike trails and was at least flat and somewhat further from the road and hidden by brush and trees. It was a nice night and enjoyed a quiet night alone on the forest. We only needed to do an overnight since we were doing the wineries and we’re staying at an bed and breakfast the next night. Overall it was nice but rather stay in 2 other spots we found that could make for future camping trips. ☺️⛺️

Nice little campground in the Los Padres National Forest. Gets pretty hot in the summer. Great view of the valley on a nice clear day.

Large water district camping outside Ojai Ca. Full hook ups at most sites. $50 a night plus extra for tow vehicle. 8 areas to to choose from. Water park in summer, disc golf, fishing, boating, home of the ‘84 Olympic rowing competition. Gates close at 10 pm and had to park outside when I didn’t get back in time and walk in. Dirt and grass sites depending on where you choose. Many amenities

Beautiful area. Spring and early summer water is in the 2 small lakes or hike to the Rose Valley Water falls. Hiking, biking or just hang out. Gateway to some beautiful hikes in the Los Padres National Forest. Plenty of trails to explore.

We were there in the middle of summer in the dumpster fire year of 2020. Make sure you get the correct weather report of ‘Cachuma Village’ and not assume it is the same climate as the much cooler Santa Barbara (15 degrees difference).

There are hundreds of campsites and many have RV hookups. I found the following YouTube video helpful when reserving a space. We were glad we picked a space that was under the canopy of two mature trees. https://youtu.be/sDWHOIo66F4

Although the lake looks beautiful, it is only a boating lake. There is no swimming nor paddle boarding allowed on the lake. There were plenty of fishing boats there as well as rentable pontoon boats.

There is not much of a hiking experience at the Lake except to walk around it. As we walked around, we loved seeing how other campers set up their camps since we’re relatively new campers.

We brought our dog and she loved it despite having little balls of thorns attach to her paws like magnets. (See picture). We ended up having to just carry her.

We’d love to go back again but next time we’ll make time to rent a boat and go fishing ON the lake.