Sanborn County Park — Attraction in Saratoga

The Sanborn County Park is in Santa Clara County past the downtown area of Saratoga. It is quite easy to get to from the freeways and about 20 minutes away from highway 85. To get to the park entrance, you will need to make a sharp left onto Sanborn road. One thing to remember is that the area where you enter the Sanborn road area is a one way road with three way lights. You will need to wait quite a while but can conveniently use the control on the street light to signal you are waiting for your turn.

The park is open for both visitors who want to visit the park for the day or those that have reserved camping spaces. There are RVs that we noticed as well which seemed to be using the services there.

You need to pay at the entrance for entry and parking at the station manned by some friendly park rangers. Once you get past the entrance, you will find adequate parking for both the daytime visitors and overnight camp guests.

The picnic areas are well laid out and spacious with beautiful views of the nature around. There are a couple of creeks that run through the park area which are accessible with a little bit of hiking. Those with walking difficulty are better to come with folks that can support them well. The elevation quickly builds up as you navigate through the trail.

If you plan to use the camping spaces, you can make advanced reservations online. The parking for accessing the camp sites is the very last one of the parking lots. You have to park and walk up to your camping site from there. Please note that there is quite a bit of walking that is required here to reach the camping spaces. If you plan to bring in a lot of items including propane stoves, you are better off bringing your own cart. Packing light is recommended.

There are wheel barrows available for you to use from the parking lot to your camping site. However, when we visited the park, we found that there were no carts available in the parking lot. We noted that visitors usually took the carts to their camping site or space and never dropped them back. Getting in early during the checkout time might help to get a cart easily.

The camping site or space itself was flat with a good storage area (secure) and a grill/cooking space. The camp site itself was very convenient and all the camping sites are closer to a creek which makes for a great experience.

RESTROOMS: There are two restrooms which are conveniently located between the camping sites around camp sites 9/10 and 27/28.

There is absolutely no signal reception for your smartphones or network connection that allows you data access. The parking lot conveniently provides some tech connectivity by offering some free Wi-Fi for guests with decent connectivity all through the day.

As is to be expected, there is absolutely no network connectivity once you reach your camping site or space. We did however enjoy the lack of connectivity!

The night stay in the camp allows for great star viewing from the trail near to the campsites. The sound of gushing water from the creek sets up a nice ambiance when you sleep along with an occasional owl hooting now and then. You might hear some wild animals now and then.

Note: There is a small amphitheater where they have the park rangers explain about night life. This starts around 7 PM in summer and kids get to touch the hides of some wild animals. Overall, kids reported a positive experience with this activity.

Staff: The park rangers we encountered were all very friendly and we would rate this one of the best parks for camping.

No points deducted for the hilly terrain as that adds to the experience. Expect to burn some serious calories.

Accessibility: Not recommended if you have knee or health issues as you need to hike a decent distance to get to the camp sites.

We did see a lot of families with small kids and babies in strollers who visited and made it through the camping experience. Smaller kids and teens would absolutely love it here! (From personal experience)

Come well prepared. Enjoy and be prepared for a great and memorable...

I need to preface this review with a little background. My wife and I travel full time from March till October of every year. This is our seventh year on the road. We don’t stay in one place for six months, rather we move on down the road every 2 to 5 days. This gives you an understanding of the level of experience we have with traveling. Sanborn County Park is a stunning refuge from the busy world. You will find incredible wilderness right in the heart of San Jose and the surrounding cities. There are miles of trails in this 3,000 plus acre park. There are walk in tent only campsites. Once you enter the redwoods, oaks and fir trees you feel wilderness immediately. This place is a haven for tent campers that need a quick break from city life. --- The RV sites can accommodate rigs up to 30 feet. It is basically a parking lot type of arrangement. Water and 30 amps on site with a dump station. In short, this place is stunningly beautiful. Everything is very clean and the friendly staff is a pleasure to talk to. ---- OK here’s the negative. The road leading into this park is narrow and dangerous for campers pulling bigger rigs. There are several blind curves on this extremely narrow road with a one lane bridges to cross. The campground will take rigs up to 30 feet in length, but the restrictions on Sanborn Road leading to the campground limit rigs to less than 25 feet. The bushes and trees lining the road have limbs extending out into the road, and low lying limbs are everywhere in the campground. My rig is 12’ 8” high and it was a maze trying to navigate the road. Frequently I had to get over in the other lane to avoid vegetation from brushing the camper. Be very careful in the campground in avoiding low lying limbs. Lastly, DO NOT MISS your turn into this park. The road dead ends about a quarter of a mile away. It is almost impossible to turn around at the end of this road and there is nothing but small narrow private driveways that couldn’t be used to turn around. In short, you are pretty much doomed if you miss your turn and continue looking for a place to turn around. The locals told us that they have seen campers stuck at the end of the road for over six hours waiting for people to move their cars so that they could turn around. In closing, this is a great campground for tent camping and small rigs. This campground should restrict campers to 25 feet or less. Driving the road to the campground is not for the faint of heart. I wish I could give this campground two different ratings. I would give it five stars for campers with tents or rigs under 25 feet. For campers over 25 feet I would give it 3 stars and not recommend traveling here. P.S. No Verizon cell signal. I heard others say they had no...

THE TENT CAMPSITES ARE HIKE IN ONLY. If you are at the highest campsites, ie. 31-33 or the group campsite, you are looking at 250ft of elevation gain from the parking lot. The trail from the parking lot is paved, but no vehicles are permitted.

There are 6 wheelbarrows for all of the campsites, however you may have to wait half an hour for anyone to return a wheelbarrow. We waited a good 45 minutes, during which time 5 wheelbarrows came down to the parking lot and the same people took the wheelbarrows right back up to bring more loads down. The group campsite was using 3 of the wheelbarrows, and once we finally secured one, we noticed one campsite just had one of the wheelbarrows sitting overturned on their plot since before we had gone down.

If you can haul your own equipment without a wheelbarrow in 1 trip to the car, this is otherwise a very nice campground. There are ample water spigots at each plot and there are 3 restrooms along the trail through the campsites. The restrooms are flush toilets with regular sinks, soap, blow dryers and changing tables. There is one outlet in the bathroom, but it is working. The restroom at the parking lot also has showers with a limited but noticeable amount of hot water.

At each plot there is a picnic table, a bear locker, and a fire ring with grill. You can purchase wood at the entrance for $13. The fire ring was cleaned of coals and well maintained when we arrived. There are trash bins with bear locks throughout the campground and they are emptied daily.

Beside the campground there's a nice creek, and you can walk across a shallow portion of it as you go further up the trail past the campsites. The campsites are well shaded due to large trees nearby. When you get to the hill ridge of the trail there is less shade. Bring bug spray if you are prone to mosquito bites, but if you are not you'll probably not need it.

If we were to go again our group would opt for the RV camping rather than the tent campsites, as the RVs park right at the base...