Salton Sea Sra

This review is for the New Camp campground. For some reason Dyrt has listings for all of the developed State Park campgrounds within the Salton Sea SRA except for this one. It is near Headquarters campground but is not the same campground. First off, know that New Camp has no views of the Salton Sea. For that, you need to select one of the other campgrounds. What is nice about New Camp is that the sites are large and well spaced apart and there is a degree of privacy allowed due to vegetation. Some but not all sites have electrical hookups. There is a well maintained restroom with flush toilets and showers. The campground is small and the restrooms don't get savaged like many other Cal State Parks I've been to. We met the campground host, who was super friendly, and helpful, and very knowledgeable of the local area. My dog, camping buddy and I had a great time exploring some local hikes and attractions using New Camp as a base camp for three nights. There is a busy train track that runs parallel to much of the Eastern shore of the Salton Sea and is very close to New Camp. We didn't find this particularly bothersome.

This site serves our needs since we just needed a place to camp on our way up north. The Salton Sea is beautiful in the daytime and around sunset and it was a great play to see the night sky. However other than that there isn’t much to do and there is not a whole lot around. The camp sites are also right next to each other at the beach sites.

We stayed in site 42 of New Campground. We had W/E (water pressure is really high) and the sites have plenty of rooms to spread out. A ramada, picnic table, large fire pit. Some sites have shade trees. Beautiful views of the Salton Sea (thats pretty much all its good for due to pollution and high salinity from what I read- advise against swimming boating etc. Bath houses were clean (showers $0.25/2 min).

The campground is right off highway 111 and the railway so there is a lot of noise (which didn’t bother us). Just 45 min drive to Joshua Tree NP and plenty of hiking and scenic drives in Box Canyon.