Best RV Parks & Resorts near San Juan Bautista, CA

What a find! Mostly level, mostly gravel and grass, mostly pull through sites. Water, and 30 amp and 12 V available. Not sure about 50 amp. Good cell service, bathrooms, showers and a dump station round out the on-site conveniences. Firings and picnic tables with a choice of well-shaded or solar-friendly sites. A nice walking path, circles the campground and is well used in the mornings and evenings by locals running or walking dogs and babies. The first half of the park has a rustic agriculture, museum, and lots of old farm equipment on display. There are also spaces to rent for parties and events with their own parking area separate from the campground. King City has grocery, gas, some restaurants and some shops just outside of the park.

We happened upon this RV Park as a drop in when our other park was not available. What a pleasant surprise! We’ll be making this our go to spot when traveling through the Gilroy area from now on.

For starters, the staff is wonderful. So friendly. Just an FYI, if they have open spots after the office closes they put out packets for up to 2 pull thru and 2 back in spots for late arrivals without a reservation.

Pros

• Great central location!
• Roomy spaces, by RV park standards.
• Water, sewer, electric, WiFi, and trash.
• Propane on-site for purchase.
• Laundry mat on site. Prices more reasonable than going to a laundry mat off site.
• Showers and restrooms.
• Truly dog welcoming, with multiple dog poop baggy bins and a dog run so your best friend can run leash free. They even gave my dog premium dog treats upon arrival. Wow!!
• A really nice pool.
• Wide back in spots, with wide roadways. Even a novice RVer can back it up with out concern.
• This place can accommodate truly large rigs, there were quite a few of them during our visit.
• There are likely long term rentals, but I couldn’t point them out because all the sites were neat and clean with flowers and landscaping. The park was super quiet.
• Open, lush grassy area.

Cons:

• It’s an RV park, so there is a lot of smooth new concrete and the sites are close together. If you want natural turf and more space, you’ll need to give up the amenities and go to a State Park or Forest.

You are probably thinking "Parking lot? Why did you give it 4 stars?" Because of the location! We stayed here for three nights in our 34 foot travel trailer. We barely fit into the back in site, and had to park our truck in visitor parking a short walk away. Other, smaller trailers had enough room for their vehicle to fit in alongside. The facility has full-hookups and they functioned fine. The harbor itself has trails but no other facilities for campers. No wifi but Verizon had good signal. The weather is perfect and we loved walking to the beach, to get coffee in Seabright, and driving into downtown and the boardwalk.  It's fairly quiet at night, but you do have to watch your stuff. The first night we stayed here we got woken up at 5:30 in the morning by a rattling noise. Open the door and someone is walking away from our trailer. A look at our bike rack revealed that our ties had been cut. I guess the would-be thief didn't notice that the bikes were locked to the rack. Either way, you have to be careful, because this is Santa Cruz and there are a lot of weird folks about. So yes, there are some downsides. But we love Santa Cruz and it was great to be in such a central location.

Nice parklike campground run by the City of Monterey. It’s adjacent to a day use area with a big playground and some little hiking trails. You can walk to downtown Monterey’s restaurants and shops from here, about 1-2 miles away. The campground is on a hill though, so you’re going downhill the whole way down and uphill the whole way up. 

Cost is $44/night, plus a $6 surcharge for RVs. Sites are dry camping but there’s a dump station with potable water, free for campers, $12 for non-campers. Showers are free for campers as well! A rarity in California. Showers were clean and had good pressure, but the water was only warm, not hot.  

The website and the signs in the campground say there’s a 21ft vehicle limit. But according to other reviews it seems to be hit or miss if you get called out on it by the rangers. We are in a 26ft class C and decided to go for it and had no issues. I can see why there’s a length limit though, as the roads in the campground are narrow and full of overhanging trees. The drive through town to get to the campground was a little gnarly as well. UPDATE: Ranger spoke with us about the size of our motorhome and didn’t kick us out, but asked us not to come back. Fair enough. He was very nice about it. 

Cell service was really weak in the campground, and the cell booster did not help (this was for both Verizon and ATT). Lots of trees in the campground so our solar panel didn’t get much sun. Also most sites are iffy on flatness, but #30 was ok with levels.

Plenty of sites if you have 30 amp. Plenty of full hook up sites. The 50 amp sites were all in one section. If you don’t need to run your A/C you can get by with 30 amp hook up. We loved most of the sites were pull thru. Had good picnic tables. Restrooms and showers were great. Like others have said this place needs a lot of care. A lot of sites were out of order. Nice trails there. Gilmore was a distance for us to restock on supplies. Pool was open but not heated. Hot tub was closed for the winter season. You are out in the sticks so no cell phone service. You could purchase WiFi and patch your phone thru WiFi calling.

I stayed here for one night in a 22’ RV at one of the back-in sites for the shorter term stays on a drive from Death Valley back towards the San Francisco Bay area. I believe the office is currently closed due to Covid, but they have a box of maps and envelopes plus a drop box for payment right outside the office.

It looks like most of the spots here are for pretty long term stays. There was plenty for space for short term, overnight campers. Spot comes with WiFi code, but there’s plenty of cell service too. You’re close to the I5 and can hear the soft lull of some traffic, but it’s still fairly quiet.