Best Glamping near Three Rivers, CA

This place is great if your looking to camp by a river. Close to three river stores and lake kaweah too.

Lake Kaweah is a great spot to stop and camp or explore before you head up the hill to the Sequoias! There are great hiking spots, camping spots, and you can fish or cool off in the lake. Nearby is Three Rivers for some beautiful views and places to relax for the day and cool down from the valley heat. A major factor to know before deciding to stay here are the water levels. Sometimes they are very low depending on the drought status and other times they are so high they cover up the campground. The ideal times to come here are Spring through May and Fall before the temperatures drop!

This by far is my favorite one! Plenty of options and good with kids too. They all have the events close to the park entrance. Three Rivers is about 5 miles away, i was blown away with this lake by the foothills but it really feels like a lake on a mountaintop! Its not as clear as Lake Tahoe but theres camp grounds along the bay, for military personnel, we have learned that theres an army campground here. You can reserve your spot and camp and this closes by night time, check your mwr or militarycampgounds.com for more info. I believe this is exclusive for active, reserve and retired. Be ready for an identification for the park rangers will check randomly. Also along the bay, watch for the tide. Some paved roads can be under water. That weekend there were trees under water and huts only roof left thats visible so be aware of you leave your belongings try to keep it on the higher ground or in the vehicles. We dont want to ruin this area because this is actually a dam. Anything debris could potentially be a hazard. Plus for the creatures thats living in the water. There were people that brought their boats and some were fishing. Plenty of hotels in the area but if dont come unplanned like what we did. We did not reserve a camp site since its first come first serve basis and it was a memorial day weekend.. holidays- plan ahead! 😂 but we still found a place to stay and the next day we explore the park and its was magical! 

Importantly due to the elevation, always bring chains with yall, there are some places there that rents or buy the chain but it could be really pricey.

This is a stunning campground. It is just a short (very steep) hike from The Wheel Meadow Grove of Giant Sequoias. It is great for large groups of students and lots of opportunities for wildlife viewing. The trail going from the campground down to the trees is a great Mtn Biking trail. Loads of turns and beautiful views. The bathrooms sometimes have black widows so be careful! But the sites are great and there are even yurts if you are interested in that.

It was a very peaceful and calm campground on the I stayed in one of the yurts. It was very clean and there is a bunkbed with two full size beds and another separate full size bed. The bathrooms were also kept very clean. I didn’t get a chance to go hiking in the area, but there are trails nearby. There is no service but it is about a 5 minute drive from a cafe/store/lodge that has Wi-Fi. I was in site 28. Sites 6-10 looked amazing for tent camping.

Relatively small campground. Camp host was nonexistent. Lots of trees in most campsites. The non yurt sites didn’t have bear lockers. Fire ring was in rough shape. Loud neighbors first night. Second had techno from group site until late. Ponderosa general store was going to be my go to for firewood but it had burned down. So foraged for wood and picked up some at the campground at trail of 100 giants. Vault toilets were clean and stocked. Water spigot scattered around campground. No cell service on Verizon or wifi. Would come back here.

Great place to stay. With clean sites and plentiful amenities, you can camp comfortably while seeing the sites that California has to offer.

Of all the places we took our kids on their first camping road trip (Grand Canyon, Yellowstone etc)it was right here in California that they found their favorite here at Kings; big trees ( and fallen giants you could walk through) cave tours, hikes, rivers .. they loved it. So much to cover its best to go to Recreation.gov and choose your camp area. Highly recommended by this family !

This is a really cool little campground near the entrance of Sequoia National Park. The sites are tent only, so no hookups or anything like that. Pretty nice sites though, a lot of space. I think there can be fire restrictions in the summer since it can get so dry, so just be aware of that. As far as places go, it wasn't too pricey. I think we paid about $20 a night. There are bathrooms with running water, and the sites have picnic tables and fire rings. Each site also has storage lockers for your food, so be sure to lock it up in order to keep the bears from getting into it.

As for stuff to do around here, you obviously have to check out the trees. Go look at General Sherman and all the other Sequoia trees. They're so amazing and honestly it humbles you a little. Also check out Moro Rock Trail. The view from the top is amazing. You'll also probably see a fair amount of wildlife while you're hiking around, so be careful of the bears. Out of all my trips to California, I've seen the most bears here in Sequoia. They are super cool creatures, just keep a respectful distance and of course don't feed them.

Good place to crash if the sequoia campgrounds are full. Good amenities, and friendly staff, but you sacrifice privacy and immediate access to the park’s trails. About 1.5 hours from Giant Forest and Wolverton, but it’s a gorgeous 1.5 hours.

The only reason I’m giving a 1-star is due to our tent site next to the river—which was fun and refreshing especially for the kids. Also the proximity to the national park was very convenient. First of all there are signs at the riverfront campsites for other campers to NOT walk through people campsites to access the river but people were doing it all the time. The bathrooms were disgusting, atrocious! The campground didn’t adhere to the maximum visitors per site so there were so many people packed into one site. The worst, worst part of this campground people did not adhere to the 10pm quiet at night. Literally music, screaming, and yelling up until midnight and 1am. There was no security or anybody enforcing these rules. I would never stay at this campground again even if you paid me!

There’s a river all the kids love to play in. Water moves slowly but it’s not necessarily ‘clean’ although none of the kids mind. Pool is a little murky but full of people. There’s a resident teenage bear named Horse that comes around and they also warn you about snakes. We had a few issues with locals trying to cause problems by coming in and creating dust clouds but the camp seemed to take care of them pretty quickly. Full hookup sites are fine. Somewhat shady with all the trees. People seem friendly.

We got a spot right on one of the river branches, with a great mountain view. Park was relatively empty. The weather was unseasonably warm and sunny with cool nights. Nice, semi-grassy sites with fire-pits made from washing machine tubs(good idea!). Staff was friendly. Campground close to nice coffee shop--Sequoia Coffee Co; quaint little bar/deli--Totem Market; and nice restaurant with a great patio view right on the river--Gateway Lodge. Also close to small market and general store. Would definitely stay here again.

Don't waste your money. Bathrooms were disgusting. Was looking forward to a hot shower after traveling two full days....would not even go there cause it was that gross. You can tell no one who works there cares. The amount of deferred maintenance is astounding!

We chose this campground to be an easy "getting back to camping" campground since it was supposed to be developed and even have showers.

Cons: The central restrooms/showers have been non-operational for over a year based on the maintenance log of the porta potty. While the porta potty was well maintained, there were no hand wash stations or anything to make up for the loss of sinks and showers. The tap outside the building didn't work and neither did the water fountain.

The host was not there for check-in. Thankfully, we ran into a very kind maintenance worker that gave us the predator rundown for the area and told us how to get to our site. The host eventually showed up, but was not there for at least 5 sets of campers who were trying to check in.

Nearly every campsite has a major hill, so most will not have a good flat area for a tent. Site 61 is flat and a couple of others have flatter grounds, but many will have you sleeping on an angle.

Cons Site 61: The previous group was very disrespectful of the site and left glass shards everywhere. We had to sweep it away from our tent site and kept finding more as we were using our site. It was especially a problem since we brought our dog, so eventually we just laid tarps out to let her walk on instead of the dirt for her safety.

No shade at all. While most other sites had trees or an aluminum awning to provide some sort of shade, Site 61 had nothing. Thankfully, we planned for that, but definitely worth mentioning for other campers. Most sites on the inside of the loop had good tree coverage, so if that's what you're looking for definitely book one of the inner loop sites like 63.

For those looking to be fully removed from the world, you should know this campsite is RIGHT off the highway, so there is traffic and some headlights if drivers have their brights on. That didn't bother us, but we've lived off of major streets for years, so we tune it out pretty well.

Pros: There was running water, but you had to find it near other campsites. (Closest one to ours was near Site 63, which was very convenient)

Pros Scenery: The stargazing is beautiful. There is some limited light pollution emanating from the other side of the foothills, but because you are surrounded by foothills you get some good, dark surroundings to really appreciate the stars. Similarly, the sunrise and sunset were slightly late/early because the sun was contending with the surrounding hills. When the sun was rising over the hills, there was a beautiful glow to them.

Pros Site 61: You have absolutely no neighbors, which gives you more privacy and the ability to face out in any direction and enjoy the scenery.

Predators: Coyotes, rattlesnakes, meat bees (bring cheap canned meat to set out during the day and they will leave you alone for the most part)

Cool Wildlife: Various birds, though I was never able to get a good enough look to identify them. There were also bats at night that really helped with the bug problem and created a cool ambience while stargazing. My husband loved listening to them hunt!

Overall: We enjoyed the site, but were extremely grateful that we are redundancy packers. If we didn't have our extras, we probably would not have had a good time since it was 100+ degrees every day we were there and the grounds weren't totally as advertised. (Toilets, showers, etc)

We spent 2 nights here on our way to Sequoia/Kings Canyon NP. The spot was nice, right on the lake with nice mountain views. Sites were generally not level as it is situated on the hill down to the lake. Bathrooms were messy and half were out of order due to a maintenance project. The RV Dump station was also unavailable (same reason). During peak season I'm sure this is a great spot, but at the time of our visit it was a bit out of sorts. If we pass by again in the future we'll give it another try.