Linny

This RV park serves a purpose and it does that very well. No, it is not an RV resort and it is not a campground you visit to spend all your time onsite. It is a convenient homebase and jumping off point to the many things to do in the area. And it it is significantly cheaper than the other RV parks in the area.

Of all the parks we looked at in the area, most ranged from $80 to well over $100 a night... We paid $65 a night for a 30amp full-hook up site. Yes, the sites are small but not much smaller than most RV parks we have visited in California and paid much more for. And these sites were nicer than other parks we have visited, with new picnic tables, a fire pit, and well-tended plants.

This KOA must have been updated somewhat recently because the past reviews about it being dump are not accurate. In fact, I was very impressed by how clean and well kept this park was. As soon as a camper left, I saw staff come to the site to clean up any trash and even wipe down the picnic tables! During the week staff tended the plants at every site. The entire park has smooth, newer-looking pavement. I felt completely safe walking around the park both during the day and at night (trying to keep the Fitbit happy).

Yes, the park is just off of the highway, which makes it very convenient to go places, but others have complained about the noise. The road noise never bothered me. It wasn't very loud outside and I couldn't hear it at all from within our camper – and we were on the side of the park closer to the highway. I feel like the only way I would have noticed it is if someone was laying on their car horn as they drove past.

Others have complained about roosters from the long-term residents next door. I did hear them "cocka-doodle-doing" at multiple times throughout the day but I only heard this because I took walks around the park every couple hours or so. I could not hear the roosters whatsoever from within our camper, but that could be different if you were one of the sites sharing the fence with these neighbors.

My husband and I work full time remotely and never had any issues with cell service / internet during the day. We have Verizon and T-Mobile which we were able to use for video calls and work without issue. In the afternoon, we did notice the Verizon would slow down quite a bit and we would use the T-Mobile for streaming instead.

If you are looking to explore the area (Monterey, the coast, Pinnacles NP even) and just need somewhere nice to park the camper and sleep at night, this is an excellent park for you. If you are looking for a peaceful campground with large sites in the middle of nature to spend all your time at, look elsewhere. We will definitely be back to this KOA in the future.

We stayed one week at Pacific Dunes Ranch & RV Resort and really enjoyed it. The location is amazing, with direct access to the dunes which you can walk and sand sled on (bring a sled if you have one!) and only minutes away from the town of Pismo Beach by car. You can even walk to the ocean from here but it is a bit of a workout because those dunes are huge!

The sites are a little tight but not as bad as most California RV parks and we had room to set up our solo stove firepit and 4 camping chairs in front of our camper. It definitely got busy during the weekend but that is to be expected given the great location. The campground was clean, with level sites that were easy to get into. They were dirt/gravel but not dusty. The amenities were adequate but nothing amazing. They also have horses which is pretty cool – we would visit the horses on our morning walks. We didn't look into the horseback riding which the offer, maybe next time.

We are Thousand Trails, Trails Collection members but only half of our stay was available through the membership. For those nights it only cost us $20 a night, for the rest we had to book outside of the system it cost us $85 a night. However, since we made our reservations in separate bookings, we had to move campsites. Note: Pacific Dunes has reserved sites that are assigned to you at check-in, it is not first come first serve like most Thousand Trails campgrounds. This didn't bother us except for how it affected our internet connection...

My husband and I both work remote full time so staying connected is a must. With our internet setup which runs off of a Verizon sim card, we usually had 4 bars of 4G and were able to take video Zoom calls for work. We noticed the connection was spotty sometimes usually in the evening but mostly worked great. We have T-Mobile through Google Fi on our phones and that also usually had about 4 bars of service as well. This was for the first part of our stay which was in the upper region of the campground on the hill closest to the dunes.

On Friday, for the second booking, we were moved to the lower section of the park closest to the office / entrance. The internet down here was near unusable, for both Verizon and T-Mobile. We were shocked at what a difference it made just moving down the hill. We tried the Pacific Dunes internet but that barely worked either. This was the case all weekend. On Sunday we were able to move back up to the campsites on the hill, close to our original spot at #122. The internet worked great up here once again Sunday–Tuesday before we checked out.

We really enjoyed Pacific Dunes Ranch & RV Resort and are already planning to stay here again. We would definitely recommend it to others, especially for the location! But if you work remotely and need cell service, request a campsite on the hill / upper region.

Flying Flags RV Resort in Buellton was the most expensive RV park or campground we have stayed at yet, but it was one of the few that have deserved the title "resort". You get what you pay for. It is a very well maintained, fancy RV park with top notch amenities in a prime location minutes away from downtown Solvang and close to Santa Barbara and many vineyards.

The park is very clean with manicured landscaping, friendly and efficient staff, and great amenities. There is a pool and hot tub, a well-stocked store onsite with all the essentials and more, and even a restaurant (only open on certain days) serving wood fired pizza and rotisserie. During our stay, we tried their buffalo chicken pizza and it was delicious.

My husband and I both work remotely and had no issues with the cell signal during our stay. Our internet setup uses a Verizon sim card and our phones use T-Mobile and everything worked great without interruption. We did not try Flying Flags' wifi so I can't comment on that.

The campsites are very level, gravel pads each with a patch of green grass (a rarity in California). Not much shade or tree cover available. We got the basic campsite without a picnic table, which I would recommend doing if you don't need it and would like to set up chairs and a firepit as the lots are quite narrow...

My only complaint about Flying Flags is that the sites were very tight. For the cost, I would have liked them to have a little more space between you and your neighbors but we weren't that upset by it. We read reviews ahead of time and were expecting it, and this is the case at most California RV parks – especially in highly sought after locations like this one. We still had enough room to set up our outdoor mat with our solo stove firepit and 4 camping chairs.

We didn't have any issues with noise. It definitely got busy for the weekend and many guests were outside enjoying their expensive campsites playing games or sitting by their fire which should be expected. This is definitely a vacation RV park. But the quiet hours were respected and we never had any issue.

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Flying Flags Buellton and plan on visiting again in the future for a special occasion to help justify the cost.

My husband and I are new to the Thousand Trails membership and were excited to try out Rancho Oso. The location so close to Santa Barbara and the photos online of the park looked fabulous. I did not read reviews ahead of time (unfortunately) and were not prepared for the terrible roads to get into the campground and lack of internet connection.

Roads: As others have mentioned, the roads in are extremely steep, winding, and narrow. We have a 31ft Airstream and definitely scraped our bottom just turning onto the road to get into Rancho Oso. Thank goodness no other campers came down the road because I have no idea how they could have passed us. We left early in the morning in the hopes of avoiding any incoming traffic and I got out of the car to spot at the exit of the road so we could exit without bottoming out (it is possible but wasn't easy and took a lot of maneuvering).

Internet: The cell service / internet at Rancho Oso was unusable. From the campsites there is no service and even at the community center there is barely internet (incredibly slow, still unusable). We have Verizon internet in the camper and T-Mobile (through Google Fi) on our phones and had no service anywhere. We both work remote so this was a deal-breaker. At least at a couple other Thousand Trails campgrounds with poor cell service we were able to purchase the Jabba internet to get connected, but Rancho Oso doesn't offer any internet. We were planning to stay at Rancho Oso for a week, but unfortunately, after one night we had to leave early the next morning to go to a different campground with internet before work. (We went 10 minutes down the road to Lake Cachuma Campground and now have 4 bars of 5G!)

Rancho Oso did have incredible views of the surrounding mountains. In the early morning as we were packing up to leave the mountains were shrouded in mist and it was beautiful. The horse stables are fun and the community areas looked nice, so it's a shame the internet and the roads make it unlikely we will be back to this campground. If you don't need to work remote and have a shorter rig, this could be a great campground for you.

We are Thousand Trails members so we made this booking for free. We had booked a one-week reservation at San Benito but 2 hours after arrival we left. This campground was a 2-star for us, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't work better for you depending on your needs. But I wanted to share our experience so you can make that decision for yourself.

My husband and I both work remotely, so internet / cell service is a MUST. The front office had told us they have good Verizon reception so we thought this campground would work for us. We arrived on Sunday afternoon and circled the park several times with laptops and phones out trying to find a spot with any sort of cell service. We have Verizon and T-Mobile and were never able to find any connection. At one point near the lodge we had maybe 1 bar of T-Mobile that couldn't even load a Google search. We had to go into the lodge and connect to the park wifi just to search for a different campground to go to.

The park wifi at the lodge worked well but we didn't want to go there to work everyday (there were people watching videos and being loud – not a good work environment). Apparently there is a wifi you can purchase to use in the campground but it never showed up for us when we were circling the park. The park worker we spoke to said it was pretty slow anyway.

Besides the internet, another major issue for us that we noticed while driving around the park were the ground squirrels. I have never seen so many in my life. Look in any given direction and there would be 6+ ground squirrels in your immediate view. I am not exaggerating, I wish I took a picture. Normally I like wildlife but this was more like an infestation. Burrows on every campsite. I saw a ground squirrel stand on the front step of someone's camper and others looking up at the belly of campers. I would be concerned about them chewing through something.

Another negative of this campground is the location. It's definitely in the middle of nowhere, which could be a plus for some I guess. The park was also just sort of dusty and felt aged / a bit run down.

There were some positives though. I thought it was cool how there was a pasture with sheep right behind the campground. Also the sites are more spaced out than other Thousand Trails campgrounds. And the 2 park workers that we spoke with were both very helpful and kind!

We especially appreciated their help and understanding when we told them we had to check out early and find another campground with cell service. The worker said he would keep our reservation for the night in case we didn't find anywhere with availability then we could come back. So thoughtful. Luckily, we found another park closer to the coast with availability and great cell service that wasn't too pricey, and we were good to go for work on Monday.

In summary, San Benito had unusable cell service, a crazy amount of ground squirrels, and just wasn't a very nice campground. We won't be back. But if you don't work remotely and don't need reliable internet, don't mind the ground squirrels everywhere, and like the quiet seclusion of the park's location, this could be a nice campground for you.