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Bodega Dunes Camp Grounds
2 reviews
Sonoma, CA
Category: Beaches
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Samuel P. Taylor State…
40 reviewsLagunitas, CA
Category: Parks
Bodega Dunes Campgrounds
Rating Details »
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
11 reviews for Bodega Dunes Campgrounds
With predicted highs between 105 - 110 in our part of the state last weekend, we decided to escape the heat and come camping here instead. It was a good choice! It may have been hot inland, but the days we were here were beautiful, with highs in the 80s. We had a nice time coming to this campsite.
The scenery at this campground is quite attractive, with the numerous dunes it's placed on, as well as a great deal of trees. The majority of campsites have at least some shade, which is very nice, and the sites have a good amount of privacy. There's also a cabinet on each site for all your food which is lockable to keep your food racoon-free. The rangers were also very laid back about letting us change our site after our first night here, since we'd gotten in late the night and gotten a mediocre camping spot with absolutely no shade (bad idea for two pasty white people!). In general the staff here was pretty nice and laid back.
For camping this is pretty nice - it's definitely not hardcore or back-country. The bathrooms are cleaned daily, and you can tell. They're a lot cleaner than most of the camping bathrooms I've encountered. The showers are free, have hot water, and are reasonably clean (but you'll definitely want shower shoes). With all the campsites on sand there's a little bit of dirt on the bottom of the showers.
One thing I do wish is that there was a little bit more to do around the campsite. You get free access to the beach, which is a quick car drive (or a mile or so hike) from the front of the campgrounds. There are also a few hiking trails but nothing especially large or spectacular. So unless you plan to spend your days at the beach or hanging out at your site you quickly run out of things to do.
It's not Fife's (RIP Fife's!) in Guerneville, so minus one star. BUT: It's like 850,000 times better than that shithole down at San Luis Reservoir, which I've determined is really there just for bikers traveling down I-5 who need a place to sleep.
A great spot on the Sonoma Coast, Bodega Dunes is a place that I will return to for the pretty surroundings and the proximity to the Sonoma Coast State Beaches and Jenner to the north (about 8 miles). Bodega Bay itself is of course a charming little town, although I admit my hair stood up whenever I heard a lot of birds squawking all at once!
We had campsite # 67 (I believe), a huge site with plenty of room for all 5 tents and 2 cars. Jeffrey created an awesome menu for the trip, so we ate like kings (read: pigs) the whole three days.
I concur with the rest of the Yelpers' claims to skunk sightings...they are all over the place here. Also, big red ants, spiders, and all kinds of moths and critters that love your camping lights at night. All in all, a solid four-star experience.
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Good campground. Not the best, but certainly not the worst. It is usually foggy and chilly, but it is cool. Lots of things near by and the beach is great....not really a beach you would swim in, but cool just to hang around. Gets really crowded so make sure you make your reservations early. Close to Jenner which is a prime fish local.
Not wilderness camping but decent place for car camping with your family with clean free showers. Skunks did make several appearences but I did not smell any spays. Most of the sites have privacy but sound carries well so don't expect total silence.
Camp grounds are next to trails leading up into the dunes. Also included in your entrance fee is access to South Salmon Creek beach which has nice sand and big waves. It is a short drive from the campgrounds. The wooden stairs are broken and closed so it is a short hike up and over top of the sand dune to beach.
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disclaimer: I don't do real camping, I like to carry things 10' or less from the car then sit around the fire all weekend and usually drive into town for a meal or two.
The spot we had at Wright's Beach [#22] turned out to be completely paved meaning no way to attach tent to ground so it wouldn't blow away [important here on the ever-so-brisk Sonoma coast] so they sent us down to Bodega Dunes. Sites seem to be hit or miss here, we looked at several before signing in and there were varying levels of windiness and some sites are not a whole lot more than a giant pile of sand [which kids seem to find nice for sliding down on cardboard but sounds like a nightmare of sand-in-my-butt weekend to me]. We got #59, which is down at the bottom of the camp and pretty sheltered with grass/wood chips to minimize sand contact.
We toasted marshmallows, cooked from Sarah's excellent campfire menu, trudged through sand to beach, drove over to Spud Point Cab Co. for the MOST EXCELLENT chowder & crab sammich. It was good.
Sand also makes the ground far softer for sleeping on than anywhere else we've camped to date.
+ short walk through the trees to the road around to Bodega Head; far warmer than I thought it was going to be; longish walk over to Salmon Creek Beach [which is gorgeous]; so little light pollution we could see the Milky Way on the night that it wasn't fogged over.
- lot of SKUNKS. I had never seen a skunk before and they were EVERYWHERE and I was seriously terrified; do not pick site next to youth group because those girls are LOUD at 7 a.m. talking about their mascara and omg this boy or that boy. Jesus does not love shrieky so STFU.
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I had never been camping before this, and let my boyfriend know. He decided to ease me into it by introducing me to "campground camping."
I thought camping would be the old school "Kumbaya" sort of camping - nothing but you, trees, a campfire and a tent. You know, what you see in the movies.
So I was pretty disappointed when I found out you literally drive up to your campsite and pitch your tent (heheh) right by the car. You're pretty close to the other campers there (in our case, we were right by a family with a child screaming almost all night. Seriously?!).
There are facilities (bathrooms) close by and they are clean for the most part. As the other Yelpers mentioned there is no soap but thank goodness I carry my antibacterial hand lotion/rub with me everywhere.
It was FUH-REEZING cold at night but I did enjoy it, considering it was my first time camping at all.
I don't know if I would want to go again. My boyfriend assured me that this was campsite camping, which is VERY different from what real camping is like. That gives me some hope.
Still fun, though.
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My expectations for camping trip:
clear moonlight night with coyote howling in the background
roaring camp fire and ghost stories
enough smores to last throughout the night
basically, roughing it and communing with nature
What I got at Bodega Bay:
a parking/camping spot
a designated place for building a fire and nearby BBQ pit
some guy selling fire wood
showers and public restrooms
RV's and gas run generators
super cold weather at night.
The experience:
It wasn't exactly what I'd call roughing it but we still had a good time. There was BBQ, fresh air, fishing, a lot of brew, a little Texas hold 'em at night followed by Madden on the PS3. I'm just kidding about the the PS3. We only brought DS's.
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Well, the actual physical scenery is really nice here: dunes and all, but and there is a 'but': the cold at night here has been a real issue for me the past two times I've stayed there in a tent.
There are two parts to the campground: an upper part and a lower part. The lower part, which I've stayed in twice, seems to attract more people with screaming children and drunkards. The last time I stayed in the lower part, the bathrooms had been totally vandalized and ruined for everyone by what I suspected to be some idiot teenage kids.
The upper part by contrast, is much nicer, quieter, and the bathrooms were a lot cleaner. The only thing is the cold, and if you set up a tent in the sand, be prepared to freeze your a$$ off all night, and I mean ALL night. :)
This is a campsite in Bodega Bay. To get there, drive north past Bodega Bay and look for the entrance to Bodega Dunes, which is on the east side. To get in, like other campsite, you need to pay a fee, depending on the size of your vehicle. Unfortunately, the attendant, who I guess is a park ranger, gave us big time attitude. At first, I thought it was an anomaly, but talking to others that had arrived before me, the attendant was a pain. But once you get passed that, it's just you, your friends, and the wilderness.
When I go camping, it's usually in the wilderness, where there are no roads and outhouses and other people, besides your party. So I was a little perplexed when there were roads winding around campsites and houses with restrooms and showers. It's fine to have this amenity except that when you get used to using them, the urinal - the only one - in the men's restroom clogs up b/c too many guys are using it, so we get teased with a restroom but wind up having to go in the bushes. On top of that, no soap in the restroom - I didn't wash my hands once that weekend, even before eating; I'm surprised I didn't get sick. I think what saved me was the massive amounts of alcohol I drank, which will kill any organism, even my liver.
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My night in Bodega Dunes told me this is no place for star gazing. While there's minimal light pollution, there is plenty of fog to obstruct your view.
Also, camping here is definitely not roughing it, unless you're OCD and consider lack of soap a rough experience. It is, however, a good way to ease newcomers (e.g., those who ask questions like, "What is a tent?") into the camping experience.
free showers! no soap in the bathrooms. close to the ocean, the water's cold- just gotta watch out for great whites, though.
