Anthony Chabot Regional Park

We had no idea that we had this beautiful gem of a park just 45 minutes away from us. It's hard to find a campground in a natural setting that has full hookups. All the sites have a perfect distance between them. The fire pits are well made. You can buy the firewood at the gate. The park has lots of wildlife. The road to the park is a bit winding; I would recommend you take Redwood Drive from the south end i.e., get on it from I-580; that way, you will only need to drive about 6 miles on Redwood Drive, and that portion of the road is much wider. Also, remember that the entrance gate closes at 10 PM, you can leave but can't get in after 10 PM.

Beautiful campground 29 miles from San Francisco that is affordable and in such a picturesque setting. Lake Chabot is so pretty. The road leading up to the campground is very twisty and turny, steep and tight but doable for any size rig as long as you take your time. Clean showers, some sites with hookups (price varies w/ option) and spectacular views! Would’ve stayed longer but it was booked for the weekend. Weekdays are pretty empty for dry camping sites (75 sites total) and it does have a dump station. Lots of wild life and quiet, safe area!

I cannot recommend a more beautiful place to camp in the Bay Area, there are not a lot of options here but this campground is a gem. Catches are that you have to be back by 10pm as the park is locked after that — night owls beware — and you can also not stay past the 2 week mark. All this aside, this is a beautiful park surrounded by giant eucalyptus trees. The drive up on Redwood Road can be windy so likely not good for giant motor homes. We loved out stay here and will be back!

Beautiful piece of land with all the huge eucalyptus trees, they are also a pain in the butt when trying to back your rig in. Our space was paved but was narrow with a big drop off on the door side, the site it self was rather large with a huge picnic table and nice fire ring. Our 5er is 35' long and is probably about the max for site 12, there are a few other sites that will accommodate larger rigs but not in this circle. road into the park is rough narrow and winding, but manageable. There are a few full up 30a sites but most are dry and NO Generators allowed!

Not often do we find full-hookup camping in such a nice setting and with excellent spacing. For this alone does this campground deserve 4 stars. Great trails in the park, and fairly close access to Redwoods park and the city makes this a good place for a week or just a weekend. During the week it was exceptionally quiet, and it never filled up even on the weekend.

Many of the non-hookup sites were very nice, especially the sites around #70 which was closed for the winter months. I'll callout a few considerations though:

• You cannot use generators in this campground, and due to the very tall Eucalyptus trees your daily solar yield will be relatively low. So, plan ahead if you are not staying in a full hookup site.
• Redwood Rd to the park is very narrow, twisty, lumpy, and often there are tuners which enjoy racing on it.
• As typical to most of the Bay Area, there is considerable poison oak on the trails. While the campground staff has done a phenomenal job with removing poison oak from the immediate campground sites, there is a ton of poison oak elsewhere.
• There are lots of wildlife and birds. We spotted multiple Coyotes hanging around the campground, Bobcat and Deer along the road, and there was a Skunk which enjoyed hanging around our site most of day which made for careful entry/exits of the trailer. Coming back one day I didn't notice that the Skunk was at our steps waiting for us - fortunately my wife did and pulled me back at the last second!

Most everything has been said below, but I can add to make sure you're aware of the fees. We came on a Tuesday and had no problem getting a spot as the park was almost empty. We chose a dry camping spot to save money ($10 cheaper) and use our solar, but had to pay an additional $8/a night for the car (probably because we have a motorhome) and then $2 per dog per night. It added up fast for our bargain spot.

The park is pretty with lots of eucalyptus trees. The roads can be a little tight and the road coming in is very twisty, beware of falling things in cabinets. We stayed in spot 57 which had an open view for sun/solar, but was a tight curve and we barely made it driving out without scraping our tires. Anything bigger than 31 feet might have trouble.

And, yes, the curfew is 10:00 pm and you cannot walk from the gate to the cg easily.

If this park had a self pay kiosk it would be one of our top ten best campgrounds. But because it is overstaffed with extremely unhelpful employees it is on our top 10 worst campgrounds. The online reservations are extremely complicated and are not up to date at the check in office. Because of reservation mistakes they had us jumping from sight to sight.

The whole park seemed poorly managed. It felt like no one wanted to help us and they only wanted to do their job in the absolute easiest way possible. They somehow managed to believe that their reservation mistakes were our fault and had no interest in making our stay enjoyable.

There are only 11 (they say 12 but they keep one site for staff emergencies only) hookup sights and a strict NO generator rule in the dry camping loops. We had plans in nearby areas and with few other options we didn't want to leave but they made it feel impossible for us to stay.

With the parks beauty, amazing trail systems and location this place could be fully booked all the time. Which the hookup sites are and we were lucky to squeeze in without a reservation. But with the strict NO generator rule it really limits who can stay in the dry camping sites. After jumping from sight to sight to accommodate to their ridiculous reservation mistakes we decided we had had enough but weren't quite ready to leave the area. We decided to put our batteries to the test and see how long they would last in a dry sight. Which I have to mention, all three dry loops were completely empty. We get the no generator rule and to be honest here, if we had solar we would probably greatly appreciate this rule. But we don't have solar yet so our options felt small. And the factor that completely defeats the point of the NO generator rule is that the campground backs right up to the Anthony Chabot shooting range. The guns fired all day long and were unbelievably loud. The loud noise of the guns made any bothersome noise from a generator seem ridiculously small.

The park itself is unbelievably beautiful though. With tall eucalyptus trees towering over our airstream and more than enough space between campsites. Wild turkeys and deer wandered the campground. AT&T worked great. 4 bars and LTE but Verizon had zero. The mountain bike rides were amazing but the trails have lots of rules so make sure you stop to read them or you will be fined.

If you come to this park make sure to make reservations well in advance. The least amount of interaction with the staff the better. Oh and expect someone to come knocking at 12:01 if you aren't out of your sight on checkout day. Even if you are the only camper in all the dry sights.

The campground is only 45 minutes from San Francisco. We enjoyed spending a day in the city and then returning to the beautiful eucalyptus woods. But beware that they lock the gates at 10:00pm and make no exceptions. They will lock you out and not let you in until the next morning.

As others have said, this park is the most beautiful place to stay if you need to have access to the Bay Area. It's a bit time consuming to get into/out of, and many of the sites are a bit tight (at least for a 25' trailer).

They don't have many hookup sites. We dry camped for a few days. Allstays says they have 12 hookup sites. I saw 4 of them (#1-4), they looked roomy. There is a dump site.

We came in last minute without reservations, so we had to move a few times. We stayed in #55 one night, then #40 for two nights. They tried putting us in #25, but it was too tight. There was a tree on one side, the site marker post on the other, and someone in the spot across from it, so we couldn't get in. We also had to back out of the loop that #25 is on, because it was curbed and way too narrow for us to drive through. I think the guy who assigned us that spot didn't have experience with a trailer.

It takes 5-10 minutes to drive out of the park. It kind of feels like you're entering a National Park, which may or may not be appealing if you have to go out to the city much. The road to it is a tiny mountain road with no shoulder, and, in the springtime, a lot of branches that need trimming. We scratched our rig trying to avoid pushing opposing traffic off the mountainside. At one point we also had to stop in the middle of a bend and let a bunch of cars pass because it was too tight with all the rush hour traffic. But that was just one particularly tight part.

The sites themselves are generally on top of hills with Eucalyptus trees, gorgeous views, and totally reasonable space. You would never imagine that there is a metropolis just on the other side. There are definitely sections where the sites are pretty close, but generally I didn't feel crowded here.

A nice park with located atop the rolling Oakland hillside, with decent access to San Francisco. Accessing from the East Bay is pretty easy and would serve as an convenient base, however access to Peninsula and/or coast is quite far and would a huge hassle on any regularity.

RV campers have choice between full hook-up or primitive campsites. Hook-up sites are close to campground entry and decently spaced, whereas the primitive campsites are spaced much closer together.

I very much like this park, but would highlight a few things in particular:

• Chabot gun club is out of visual range from the campground, but close enough to hear. The gunfire can be quite loud at time, especially over the weekend.

• Sewers are old and easily back-up ... which I discovered first hand, and likely much to the annoyance of neighboring campers. Emptying tanks must be done very cautiously.

• Sites 1-4 are isolated from the rest of hook-up sites, and I think it is the best loop in the park.

• Sites 1-4 offer the best data coverage. I found Verizon (voice and data) to be poor throughout the park, but AT&T was fine, especially when boosted. I had not issue streaming video.

• No generators are allowed in the park, even at primitive sites.

• Tire puncture spikes prevent vehicles from accessing the park after 10pm. However, exiting the park is no issue anytime.

I'd agree with everything the other reviewers have noted, except for the connectivity via Verizon. It seems to vary quite a bit by site location. In some places we had calls dropping frequently, and from site #5 data connections were extremely poor, often falling back to 1x with low speeds, even with a rooftop antenna and Wilson booster.

Our visit was during the peak of El Nino storms, which may have been a factor. It definitely affected the electrical service in the park. When the rains arrived the power went out repeatedly. My external power protector (a Progressive Dynamics unit) cut the electricity several times because of unsafe conditions including an intermittent open ground, and high voltage (>132 volts). I reported this to the campground but they could do nothing until the electrician arrived after our visit.

On the last day the circuit breaker on the campground pedestal simply tripped off whenever anything was plugged into it, so we gave up and relied on battery for the last 24 hours. (I tested the power at another campsite and it had the same problems.)

All of the sewer outlets have been labeled with signs warning you to open dump valves only partially. Apparently there have been sewer problems. We had no trouble with that.

This is still the only really decent place to stay in the Bay Area (even with the winding road and 10 pm curfew), so despite the problems we'd probably stay here again if we needed to be in the area.