Best Dog-Friendly Camping near San Jose, CA

Getting there: From San Jose it took me about 40 minutes. The road is windy, narrow, and not for the car sick. Be prepared to pay $6 for parking.

Campsites: The campsites are nicely maintained. Plenty of area to pitch a tent, all the sites have a BBQ, fire pit, and picnic table. The sites are close together to maybe bring ear plugs in case you have loud neighbors.

The Park: Really pretty, really small. I would say in 1 full day you can explore 100% of this park. No need to make an entire weekend out of this place when you can do all of the pretty stuff in just a few hours.

What to do: Go see the waterfalls. With the current California drought all of the falls were at little more than a trickle but still something to see. To hike to each fall it's about 6ish miles with just a few hundred feet of total elevation gain. The trails are large and well defined for an very entry level experience.

High priced. Nice people at desk. Damon who helped us park was very friendly. Almost entirely high-priced big rigs, some of whom seem settled here but it's clean, 'orderly,' very quiet. Rigid rules keep the order; nice that no political flags/signs allowed. 2 dog parks and lots of grassy areas to take for a walk. Showers in locker-room/bldg, bathrooms nice and clean. Green grass. Also has laundry with 2.50 wash and.25 dry for 8 min. Skunk wandered by site in the night. Cool train sounds from nearby tracks at night. Was probably the most convenient to San Jose, otherwise we likely would've been in mtns. and too far away from town for our needs at the time. Would not be a regular choice for us.

Castle Rock State Park is located a few miles from the "Saratoga Gap", which is the junction of Hwy 35 ("Skyline") and Hwy 9.  Road and mountain bikers in the Bay Area will be familiar with this area, and on weekends the parking lot where these highways meet is busy with cyclists starting their rides.  There are two parking lots for this park, the first a few miles past the Saratoga Gap on Hwy 35 south.  This is the main lot where the ranger station is located.  If you have reservations for the hike-in campground, you'll need to stop here first and get a parking pass.  The parking lot for the trail head is just a bit further down Hwy 35.  When I visited it was the offseason and we had to unlock the gate in order to get access to the lot (the ranger gave us the combination to the lock).  I'm not sure if this is the case in the spring/summer/fall.

The campground is about a 2.5mi hike in from the trail head at the parking area. Although there was a fire road at the campgrounds that looked like it maybe could be used to drive in and drop off gear, I didn't see anybody doing it, so be prepared to carry everything on your back.  In other words, don't expect to get a Yeti cooler full of beer out to the campsites.  

The hike itself is great, offering sweeping views of the Santa Cruz mountains and the Pacific ocean to the west.  There's even a waterfall right at the beginning of the hike.  There are a couple of different trails you can take, but the most scenic one IMO is the one that follows a west facing ridge.  There's a couple of spots where you'll need to do some scrambling up the rock faces, but nothing to worry about.  I wouldn't bring a toddler on it, but anybody older should be able to handle it.

The campsites themselves are typical California State Park "primitive" sites.  There are pit toilets, fire rings, and picnic tables.  Fires are increasingly banned in the dry months (i.e most of the year) in California now, but in January, when I was there they were allowed.  Because carrying firewood on the hike would have been a huge effort, the rangers kindly stocked bundles of wood at the main entrance to the campground with an iron ranger for making payment via the honor system. 

IMPORTANT NOTE: Although there is a communal water source at the campsite entrance, the water was deemed not safe to drink when I was there, and that had been the case for a while. The water tank apparently needs to be decontaminated.  So, we brought all our water in with us as well as water filters so we could get water from the nearby creeks.  Again, in winter, this isn't a problem. The way the drought has been going for the last decade in all of CA, I'd guess these creeks are running dry by mid May, if not sooner.  If you go in the summer, bring lots of water.

All in all, this is a great getaway for being so close to the megalopolis that is the San Francisco Bay Area.  As the crow flies, you're probably only about 25 miles from San Jose. But you'll feel like you're a lot further away.  And that's the whole point.

Why 4 stars instead of 5?  Please see this explanation of my ratings system.

5 stars - Worth traveling from far distances to visit.  Minimum of 3 night stay recommended in order to fully explore the area. A special place worthy of repeat visits. Example: Yosemite, Tahoe, Plumas

4 stars - Worth visiting if you're in the area as part of a larger trip.  For locals (i.e those within a few hours driving distance), a top tier spot, one that you'll visit regularly, maybe even annually. Example: Pinnacles, Lopez Lake, Lake Sonoma

3 stars - Convenient if you're a local. If coming from out of state, a convenient "home base" for nearby attractions, but not particularly beautiful or scenic itself. Example: Flying Flags RV Resort (Buellton), KOA Petaluma

Under 3 stars - Don't bother. It's an area that's not really worth exploring, or you can find something better in the same area.

Having great on/off access along US 101, Betabel is one of those camps that is centrally located. To the north, you have Morgan Hill, Gilroy and San Jose; to the west, Santa Cruz and Watsonville and to the south is Marina, Monterey and Salinas.

The park has some shaded and some open sites. It is not a resort property but does offer some walking trails. The camp store is a good backup supply source, though I have not been in it due to the pandemic. All the facilities seem to be well kept including the bathroom/shower and laundry facilities.

Discounts for AAA, Good Sam and AARP.

Definitely recommended!

Pros: Lots of sites. Pretty area. Facilities well maintained. Cons: We stayed here several times because of its proximity to San Jose. Almost every time time, though, it was crowded and noisy. Also there are lots of wild pigs! In my opinion, it’s a last resort campground.

The first time here, we put a table cloth and some small items on the picnic table at our site, then left to run an errand. When we returned, someone else was camping in our spot. :0/  Luckily, there was another spot available so we moved and all was well. Still surprised that someone would do that, though.

This park has mostly long-term residents. It was super quiet, though there was a somewhat noisy road next to us. We were on the first site next to the road, so I suspect it would be a non issue for most of the sites.

The dog park is extremely well-maintained. Beautiful grass, very nice fence, a bench to sit on, water for your pets and plenty of space to run.

There a really nice stream to hike along. And underneath a bridge there are bat houses. We went under there at sundown and watched the bats come out. Strongly recommended!

The lady who runs the place was extremely nice and helpful.

Full hook-ups and relatively large, gravel sites with some shade. However, I needed to raise one wheel about 5 inches and another 2 to get level.

Short drive to downtown Morgan hill or Gilroy. And there’s a Camping World as well.