Buena Vista Aquatic Recreational Area

$40 for waterfront with utilities. Beautiful grounds and very well kept. If you dont want waterfront, hookup sites are $36. They have dry camping sites starting from $10 per night. Well worth it... we are right on the water. Each site has a bin, picnic table and fire pit. Boating available as well. Would recommend for families or couples. Pets are allowed on leash.

This is our second time staying at Buena Vista. Located just off I-5, this Campground makes for a great place to overnight while traveling. Winter is quiet here and we were able to get a full hookup water front site without reservations on a Friday night in February. While it's quiet now, it's easy to imagine more hustle and bustle during the summer months. There are a lot of sites and all are spaced far from neighbors. The campground is run by kern county and could use a little sprucing up but overall it's a great place with great views.

Drove in and asked to see the park first (looked kinds rough upon arrival). They sent us to our site and we looked around. Very dirty and garbage laying around. Rate was gonna be 50$, so I called a couple parks in downtown Bakersfield with better reviews and got one for 48$ with Good Sam (Bakersfield River Run RV Park). Chose to leave. Could be a great park, but they seem not to care about maintenance our cleanliness. Cut backs, who knows...

We were really pleasantly surprised with this campground. If you get one of the waterfront sites, that's where it's at. We were here during the winter months, so I can't comment on how busy or noisy it is during the summer months. Based on the number of sites and the sheer size of the overflow parking lots, though, I can imagine during the summer it is a different experience.

Our site was $25 a night with an $8 online reservation fee. Turns out there's also a $5 a night charge for each dog you bring with you so our total ended up being $30 a night. It's not super clear on their website, I only found a mention of the charge in their frequently asked questions section (after the fact) and it's not an option to select when making the reservation online.

In general the site was pretty clean with a nice park bench and a small fire pit. All of that sits on a circular concrete pad that is a short distance from where you park your RV. Sites are full hookups, but should note that our spot (#49), on the sewer connection, there was no threading available for the elbow so I ended up weighing it down with some loose pieces of asphalt blocks so that it didn't pop out when dumping tanks. RV parking is on asphalt turnouts along the road.

There was a medium-sized playground in good condition, and a few sand volleyball courts.

From our site along the shore, we saw lots of waterfowl every day: many coots, some gulls, terns, grebes, ducks, and a few pelicans. Migrating blackbirds overnighted on the lake's islands and sang like crazy at dusk.

Your site cost also allows you to fish in the main reservoir (Lake Webb), no CA fishing license required. If you want to fish in their "stocked" trout lake on the property (Evans Lake) it's $6 a day per person. You can buy just one day whenever you decide to go over there. We fished for about 5 hours at Evans, which had been stocked 3 days earlier, and didn't get a single bite and neither did any of the folks around us. We were all commenting on whether their idea of "stocking" the pond was tossing a fish or two in there. Don't expect crazy fish action.

All in all though, we had a really pleasant experience. Would certainly recommend coming here during the winter/early-spring/late-fall months.

We stayed Friday through Tuesday over Presidents day weekend. It was quiet when we arrived early afternoon, but filled up rapidly. It was a bit noisy with kids running around and lots of groups in their campsites and around campfires. By Sunday afternoon though it quieted down a lot and by Monday evening it was dead quiet. This will never be a destination stop for us, but if we need a stop while traveling through, we would definitely stay here again, especially mid week.

They add an additional $8 fee to EVERY campsite, no matter if you actually reserve it or just pull in on an empty Monday on the off-season. They call it a reservation fee, but I'm not really sure how it can be when I never reserved anything.

The place is a ways outside of town on a road riddled with grand canyon like potholes, dusty, trash everywhere, bathrooms a wreck and several of the park crew just stood around an empty camp site for 2 hrs. Don't waste your $ on this place when there are so many BETTER options.

And OMG the DOG poop! Ugh!

The first impression of the campground was very good, lots of space and plenty of greenery. However, the restrooms ruined our total experience! We dreaded each time we had to go to the restroom. toilets seats were missing as well as locks but that wasn't the worst of it. Flies and insects everywhere and that even after it was "cleaned", which just meant hozing down the floor with some water I fear...
The showers were in the same state and really disgusting, we showered in swimwear in record time just to be out of there.

While you could swim in the lake, the water didn't look very appealing. Good for people with big RV's with their own facilities to have a place to take out your boat but certainly avoid at all cost with small campers or with tents....

Stayed one night, arrived late in day. Beautiful site lakeside, pull thru. If not for the oil smell this would be a 5. Didn’t use facilities. Nice Staff.

Large sites, well maintained grounds, helpful staff. At least in the winter off-season. Great snow bird stop over but would not wish to be there during warmer boating season.

As with most tax base supported parks Infrastructure o fBVARA is showing it's age and lack of funding

This is a well run county park with full hook up and beautiful waterfront views. There is lots of space between sites and they are all pull along sites for easy in and out. Even the non waterfront spots have water views because the sites are staggered. Full hook ups and each site has its own trash bin. Nice. We have always been here on a weekday, off season. I imaging on the weekends in the summer it can get quite noisy. There is no swimming allowed, but there have always been a motorized watercraft or two buzzing around. Fishing is allowed. Cell service was strong for AT&T.