Best Dispersed Camping near Manchester, CA

Tow behinds/trailers not recommended; rough roads and can’t turn back once on the path.

Otherwise 10/10 for our truck camper, had the place to ourselves for the 4th of July weekend, beautiful fresh water creek running through, great toilet & even a fire pit with abundance of wood around.

There are about 4/5 sites, only 2 with actual fire pits.

Please keep it amazing by keeping it clean.

FREE

A decent drive off the highway, but a good one. A few nice views. Google maps will not get you there, we followed the directions on this page.

Only 2 spots up here, maybe 3. But we had it to ourselves on a weeknight. The Bathroom (vault toilet) had toilet paper. There was some water in the creek, but it wasn’t super easy to access. 

The site itself is nothing special, just a couple of pullouts in the woods. Probably very hot during the day since you’re up on a ridge. Can’t beat free though.

We drove 5 hours to get to this what we thought would be a beautiful ocean view site only to find NO CAMPING signs all over the place. Do not come here and expect to camp

I love Pt Arena. The lighthouse is historic and has an incredible past; if you are anywhere near here I absolutely recommend stopping by and taking a tour (get ready for stairs). It’s only $5 a person, dogs are welcome on the premises if not inside the actual lighthouse, and there’s a great gift shop. You can also rent the lighthouse keepers quarters, which I’ve never done but seems like it would be a unique experience. I wish I had factored this into my trip, but of course you need to book them way in advance.

In Pt Arena, you are far from major towns but you have conveniences close at hand and a choice of directions to go, whether it’s down toward Sonoma Valley and the wine country, Point Reyes, or into Anderson Valley (underrated!).

Camping in this area gives you a special place to kick off into areas that most tourists don’t even know about, or don’t get to see through your eyes because they’re tucked away into posh $500/night B&B accommodations. I woke up early because I had to get back to San Francisco and I had Highway 1 almost all to myself. It was one of the most gorgeous, amazing parts of my entire drive.

As long as you have a capable vehicle and are prepared to provide for your own needs, you'll be ready for Cow.

Always fun. Love going to the tech course with our off road buggy. Crawled all over that hill.

Love taking our Rock crawler up to cow. Lots of obstacles. Camping is awesome. Few sites and vault restrooms. Still a good time.

As soon as I started going up an extremely steep hill and saw a sign that said not a through street, I should have turned around but it was impossible with my 30-foot car and trailer. I am Bart Upon A frightening , rutted, unmaintained road that is only suitable for off-road vehicles for sick four wheel drives . Barely made it out of there with everything working as it should on car and trailer and actually got stuck at one point and had to use logs to get myself traction. Do not try this and there is nowhere to stop and set up a ten , at all!