Tina B.

Reno, NV

Joined April 2018

I love camping!

Awesome Cabins!

There are 4 cabins that can be rented from the Park Service however, they are not actually in the park. They are across the highway and up in the hills. We drove to the park but it's only short distance.

The cabins are great but expensive, $170 per night, so I deducted a star. They are rustic. No TV, no air conditioning (just ceiling fans), no bedding or towels. You bring your own.

Great alternative to an expensive hotel

This large campground (which is run by the city) is right in the middle of South Lake Tahoe and across the highway from The Lake. It's right in the middle of town so if you're wanting to "get away from it all" you better keep looking. We stayed here over Labor Day weekend and it was PACKED. There are 179 spaces at this campground and every one of them was occupied (we made our online reservation months in advance). That being said, we loved it here! We wanted to partake in some Labor Day activities around The Lake and staying here was ideal. For the amount of people that were there, noise was minimal. We stayed in "D-loop" which is a non hook-up spot. We choose this area because it's away from the traffic of the main entrance and somewhat away from Hwy 50. The spots close to Hwy 50 are NOISY. Also, D/E/F loop spots seem to be larger. Some of the people in the A/B/C loop sites were RIGHT ON TOP OF EACH OTHER. Our spot was quite large, clean, and flat. We easily parked our 29' RV and our SUV with lots of room to spare. We were semi-close to the restrooms/showers, water faucet, and trash receptacles ( a couple of people cut through our site to get to the facilities - NOT COOL). Unlike some other public campgrounds, we were allowed to fill our RV water tank at the campground's public water faucet which was awesome!

Camping here is like staying at a "rustic KOA". They have cabins and tents to rent, a little store (we didn't go in), sites with hook-ups, free RV sewer dump, and crappy wi-fi (lol). The showers and restrooms are far from fancy and could definitely use a remodel but whatever, it's CAMPING and they were good enough! While staying here we coined the phrase "city camping". We loved "city camping" and are looking forward to going back!

No Frills

Lahontan is an acquired taste. If you're looking for a cool "forest" experience, shady pines, and easy-breezy camping then this is NOT the place for you. It's a huge man-made reservoir in the desert. It gets very hot in the dead of summer and shade is limited in many areas. The trees are mainly cottonwood and willow. Most of the camping areas are not formally developed and you just kind of have to "cop a squat" if you can find a decent spot. The area is hugely popular with boating, fishing, and jet-ski enthusiasts so the beaches and the lake can get very crowded. The restrooms in some areas are BASIC - some would even call them "outhouses". Others are much less primitive. There is one developed camp ground on the Silver Springs side (no RV hook-ups).

I grew up camping, boating, and fishing at Lahontan so it has a soft spot in my heart. Just know that it's not for every one.

Awesome little campground!

We have camped here many times over many years (in tents as well as RVs). Relatively quiet, spacious camp spots (fairly level), beautiful area with lots of trees, a lovely creek running through the back of of the campground, clean bathrooms, just 25 minutes from Reno and three miles from Frenchman's Lake. There's a wonderful general store a few miles down the road and the camp host sells firewood. No electric or water hook-ups at the sites. There are (potable) water faucets sprinkled throughout the campground but you're not allowed to use them to fill your rv water tank. Due to several years of drought and the trees getting old, many had to be cut down around the campsites. Some of the sites aren't as shady as they used to be. You may need a shade structure. Tip* camp away from the main highway. Those spots have far less shade and there is quiet a bit of road noise.