Idyllwild Park

We weren’t expecting much with open availability and the cheap price, but were pleasantly surprised by the nice sites, fire pits, benches, trails and amenities.

A great place for families with kids of all ages, especially back in the 80-90’s sites with a large loop for kids biking with little to no traffic.
The town of Idyllwild is a walk away and has great food, entertainment, art, etc.

Easy, beautiful trails right off the campground, large boulders to climb, and plenty of views from the mesa’s above.

We boondocked for 3 nights and the solar panels sufficed.

There is fresh water spigots at the entrance as well as throughout the campground.

The town of Idyllwild is a neat mountain town with lots of hiking trails. This campground is limited to mostly tent sites. There are a couple of sites at the back of the campground that can handle RV's. Site 91 is next door to a trailer park which was a little bit noisy when I was there. Given the choices in the area for RV's this is just about the only one. Scouted a couple of other forest service campgrounds in the area and they were not suitable for most RV's except tent trailers.

Idyllwild is amazing. Amazing hiking especially tahquiz trails at Humber Park. Lots of people bouldering in the area adjacent to the park. Most sites are tent only, generally uneven. Sites in the back, 80-90s are suitable for RVs. Small RVs maybe could do a few sites in the lower digits. ATT cell service stops around site 60. We will be back, nice family site.

Beautiful pine tree park but plan on dry camping. “Premier site with water” has NO water or any hook up. Nearby spigot is available to fill buckets but no threads for hoses. Also, we luckily booked mid week. They don’t advertise or mark that many RV sites are in a “group campground “ with groups like Boy Scouts who use bullhorns and are noisy, will often book weekends. We camped March 2021 in midweek and luckily the campground was empty!

Spring camping was nice here. Our 21 foot Travato fit in the spot just fine but note many sites are on dirt slopes and not very large. If you have a larger rv you should see if #23 is available as we saw a big ol class A there. Lots of pine trees and nice people. Great place for kids to blow off stem and play. Our Verizon and AT&T cell phones had internet coverage at site 12.

Host is very nice and informative. Will definitely come back

I spent two nights here to experiment with a few things.

1) How would my 17-month-old German Shepherd/Husky mix like camping? (She adores it!)

2) Will I actually get computer work done while camping? (Yes!)

3) Is the Verizon coverage adequate to hotspot a Zoom meeting? (No, not at Site 34. Way too slow. But fine for calls and texts.)

4) How is camping with my new Jackery Explorer 1000 battery? (Terrific, even without bringing the solar panels this trip. I used it to keep my laptop, phone, iPad, and small USB fan fully charged, and the Jackery only ran down to 75%. If I'd brought the solar panels, I'd have had adequate power for a stay of any length.)

Note that I'm in a 17-foot Toyota Sienna, so I fit almost anywhere. The site access was good, and it was easy to orient myself to be level enough to sleep comfortably inside it in on my camp cot.

There were several groups of teenagers down around site 90, and of course they made noise during the day. (Full disclosure: I love to hear young people having a good time! It actually enhances the experience for me.) And the park is next to an RV park and within reach of light road noise. If you want absolute stillness, you won't find it here. But everyone strictly observed quiet time from 10PM-6AM, so it's easy to get an uninterrupted night's sleep.

Most of my previous camping has been either at Harvest Hosts or remote boondocking sites. I was surprised how much I enjoyed a safe drinking water spigot right at the site, daily trash pickup, and a clean restroom with flush toilets right across the way, instead of an outhouse or my own onboard camp toilet.

Pro tip: If you're coming and going via I-10, even if home base is to the west, go five miles east of the Idyllwild exit on I-10 and get a date shake at Hadley's Fruit Orchard. You'll be tempted to stock up on dried fruits while you wait.

Came up here for the last camping trip of the season. The campground itself is nice for tent sites although not as level as I would like. The sites are fairly close together so don’t expect much privacy or solitude. Having the town nearby is nice if you need anything or wanna have a meal out, but then there’s not much quiet, chainsaws and road noise can be heard off into the distance during the day. Plenty of little critters roaming around so be sure not to leave food out. Having running water and flush toilets is a bonus as well. Bathrooms could be a bit cleaner though, there were several dead cockroaches in the Mens room that had been sprayed but not picked up. Cell phone reception on Verizon was alright, I was able to get some work done and take some zoom calls but the connection was spotty at best. I don’t think I would come back.

Seems like a decent campground but the spaces are deceptively close together (when booking online it looked like my space #79 would have tons of room - in reality my car was less than 6 feet from my neighbors trailer). And there was zero flat ground. Even the picnic table was on a significant slope. I think some other spaces looked nice but mine was very disappointing.

We really enjoyed our time at the Regional Park. The facilities were clean. The staff was amazing. We arrived and the site we booked was quite muddy from the rain. They let us easily move to another site. Site 36 has full hookups, but is listed as a Host site. I highly recommend this site if you’re using a trailer or van. Our Class B van was perfect for the spot. There are tons of hiking trails around the campgrounds.

The RV sites in the southern end don’t have AT&T service.