China Camp Campsite — Hotel in Santa Venetia

Raccoon Rave at Campsite #4 🎉🦝

If you’ve ever wanted to feel like a celebrity being mobbed by paparazzi, except the paparazzi are 30–40 raccoons with grabby little hands, this is the campground for you.

Here’s the lowdown: No signs or info for campers on how to keep food safe from the local masked bandits.

“Critter-proof” wooden storage boxes… except ours had a raccoon-sized hole and a latch that looked like it had seen better decades.

Communal trash bins = all-you-can-eat raccoon buffet. The Racoons are straight up opening the lids and hanging out in the trash!

Walk-in site means you can’t just stash things in your car, so we tried to be good humans and follow Leave No Trace…

These raccoons aren’t shy. Food? No food? Doesn’t matter, they came for it all and tried to explore all our / neighbors sites all night.

Friendly request to Friends of China Camp: Please consider fundraising for proper metal bear boxes. I’ll gladly donate (and I bet other campers would too). And a little visitor education on food storage could go a long way because right now the raccoons are running the place, and they’re winning.

P.S. They threw an all-night rave at the campground. Zero stars for sleep, five stars for...

My experience here is mixed.

Pros: Close to the City, the nature is beautiful, and the China Camp Beach and historic village is nearby. Bathrooms are very clean, many families and kids around so our little guy made lots of friends.

Cons: You cannot drive up directly to the campsites so you WILL have to haul your stuff in by hand and you will be doing this most probably up a steep incline from the parking lot. It was brutal carrying up ice, food and firewood (along with all the rest of our gear) in the dark to our site. Some of the more experienced campers had some collapsable handcarts that they had brought with them. The site had about 2-3 empty plastic garbage cans you could use to haul your stuff, but for 30 sites, these were not nearly enough. Also, the nearby campsite was full of very drunk, loud partiers playing music and and shouting until at least Midnight. So, don't expect quiet hours to be enforced.

I may come back here again, just for the convenience of it being so close to SF, but the carry-in situation was almost a dealbreaker for us. You've...

Found friendly camp host in campground parking lot. Bring cash for firewood. Bring a wagon or be prepared to walk multiple times to the car. Busy weekend in campground lots of students of all ages. Bathrooms were fine. Bring your own tp jik. Showers cost many quarters. Campsite 16 near Shoreline trail and bathrooms. Decent site. Too close to other people. Large with trees. Fire ring with a grate. Turkeys, deer, many birds plus an interesting night visitor (maybe a fox or coyote). Great trails. Beautiful park. Head to China Camp store for a beer. Told me it’s the oldest liquor license in the county (?)! Great place to identify local edible plants. Was able to find and ID most of what’s in Bay...