Guajome Regional Park — Hotel in Oceanside

So when you get there you drive through the park part where we saw people were sleeping in their cars. Then you drive through the parking area that is covered day use parking and you come up on the gate to the campground In front of you and some more parking that is not covered off to the right which is overflow parking for campground guests.

The Ranger at gate made us get out of vehicle to grab paperwork instead of bringing it to us. Not sure what that was all about. He said “you’re going to need to come get this“. Of our 16 years camping we’ve never had someone tell us to get out of our RV and “come get this”. But whatever.

First of all This campground is primarily tents. This is parking lot camping! All of campground is asphalt, there are 2 parking stops in sites and that made it a bare to get our jacks past them. They don’t want you in the dirt but our rv has the door in the rear. So we either exit on the parking stop or park over it and exit in dirt. We had site #28 it accommodated our 19 foot trailer ok but the truck has to be parked across nose of trailer to fit in spot. If parking lot camping with noisy tent campers is your thing that’s great. We are not parking lot campers. And the loud music and partying all night from the large tent groups got really old!

There is one bathroom for the campground. You pay for showers. 1 token for 2 minutes. Not sure how much as we stayed here in an RV.

The ranger drives around in the evening. Not sure why or what he does. They were Not enforcing the rules or the blaring music at all hours wouldn’t have happened for the more than half our stay. The rangers love to use blowers to clean the sites off. That was loud and we had to come inside to avoid the blowing dirt.

Every spot has a designated fire pit and a metal picnic table which was in fairly good shape and clean. Some spots have shade trees.

Sunday afternoon all the tent sites left. Then there were just RVs there. Then we had a different experience! Everyone was respectful and friendly from Sunday on. The RVers at this park are not the problem. The tent campers are loud, obnoxious, run through our sites, play ball against your site. This is a park I believe we will more than likely...

This park is $29 for W/E (both 30 and 50 amp) plus $5 online booking fee and $1 a day for pets (makes no sense, but this is definitely a CA thing) with an easily accessed dump station. It is pretty with tons of hiking/walking/biking within it's boundaries and nearby, including a paved path that goes 8 miles to the ocean. Our site was level and somewhat private (most were) including some spacing and mature growth between sites, and our utilities worked perfectly. It was a little bit of work getting into our site, but ours and a few others could accommodate a bigger RV. The rangers and camp hosts were very friendly and made check-in very easy. The CG is ideally located, an easy 8 mile drive to the beach and 1.5-4 miles from everything else you might want- groceries, gas, laundry, restaurants, etc. Our Verizon worked perfectly, but if you care, there are 0 over the air TV stations. Aside from being a little tight for driving a large RV (and based on the tire tracks we weren't the only ones who struggled), the main draw back of the park is the dirt... actually, the mud. We had a few days of rain at the beginning our stay, and while our pad was concrete, the area around our RV and all the paths do not dry out quickly and turn into super sticky mud. It was hard to get out and enjoy the trails and even stepping out of the RV was a mess. Had we stayed here when all they had was sunshine, it could be a different story, instead it was a huge mess even days after we hadn't seen a drop. I don't usually complain about these things... mud, ants, etc... we're camping right?! However, this placed got messier than most and stayed that way. That said, this is a great spot, we would definitely stay here again, and we've already recommended it to...

Though it’s been here for quite some time, this park still feels like one of the best kept secrets in North County, which is why I’m hesitant to write a glowing review because I kinda like it that way. But I had to write one after reading someone’s 1-star review about “500 runners a day with screaming people cheering them on” ruining their camping vacation. I run Guajome’s trails every day, and if I pass more than a half dozen other runners I’m shocked. What this person described sounds very much like the 4 or 5 times during fall cross country season when the park hosts local high school teams to race there. It’s wonderful to watch these young athletes compete, but on any given meet, it’s over by 11:00am at the latest. Some people just go out into the world expecting everyone else to adjust to them, and it doesn’t work that way. This park is beautifully maintained by a paid staff and on-site volunteers (like Diana, Donna, and Josh), and has so many amenities for such a relatively small park that any visitor can be happy there, if they have a mind to enjoy rather than criticize. I LOVE this park, have made many friends there on my daily runs, and if you’re a walker, runner, cyclist, bird watcher, fisherman, picnic-er, dog (on a leash), kid, or kid at heart, you’ll...