Calico Ghost Town Regional Park

This was our second visit here. Fun camping among the rocks. Access to the ghost town too.
Some sites are dry, some only have electric. They were obviously short staffed. The bathrooms were not as clean as they should have been. Some coin operated showers were not functioning. Biggest issue this time was that one of the campers knocked out a water faucet when backing in. Water was off for half the park.
Took over 24 hours for staff to make the repairs. This is a destination for ATV fans. So daytime can get a bit noisy.

It's great that a paid camper also gets access to the ghost town. The sites are large that bathroom facility acceptable, not real clean on this Sunday night. The campground was very quiet overnight with beautiful colors from the sunset. The dumpsters were full but were emptied early-early Monday morning. In my site someone previous had a wood fire on the ground in the middle of the site. I learned this after parking my trailer in the middle of the ash. I am guessing they burned pallet wood as I found about a dozen nails around my curbside tire. This combined with the big rocks and stray wood make think the sites are not routinely groomed between customers. The utilities worked well. The picnic tables are weathered. The campground is dusty, in part because it's desert and the area has ATV access so ATVs are coming and going.

The two stars is because I expected better for $47/night.

Good:
The A sites seemed large enough. They were close together, but it was July so we were the only ones there

You can walk to the ghost town from camp. It is worth seeing

Not so good:
Three of the four restrooms didn’t work. One did

The pay shower ($1 for 5 minutes) did not work. Wouldn’t accept quarters

Water pressure was really low. Pressure from my water pump was much better. It was so low you could barely take a shower.

We had site B4 fortunately we have a small rv with door on back of unit. You could not walk down either side of our site. Both sides had yellow poles and utilities. If our door was on the side we’d have been stepping out over neighbors sewer hose and ducking to not hit their slide. Site was not level at all. Which was no biggie for us we come prepared. Picnic table was a joke it was all warped. B4 should NOT be a camp site.

Bathrooms were not clean. All toilet seats were nasty, no soap for washing hands. Trash was all over the camp ground. No rules were being enforced. Atvs, (Atvs all over camp ground and up at the ghost town.) unleashed dogs, swimming pools at rvs?! (One up hill from us dumped pool and flooded 3 sites) Neighbor checked in at 11pm. Camp fires till midnight.

We left camp ground one time to run errand and had to sit in a 40 minute line to get back In. If you camp here don’t leave, there is no line for campers already checked in. It’s one line that is for Ghost town and camp ground entrance.

We have camped here since 2006 and boy has it gone down hill over the years.

We stayed overnight for Calico's California History Days, which is awesome event to check out and why overnight camp costs for drycamping so expensive. But History Days well worth it - cute ghost town, live music, historical plays, crafts, games, eateries. The schoolhouse demonstration was excellent! Campsite was decent, no hookups site. My main complaint were showers. Some out of order, no hot water. Tried newer section and it TRICKLED out, like a dripping bathroom faucet. And that was $1 for 5 minutes. Husband had better shower stall, but who wants to re-dress and search for a functional shower?! Although it was crowded, neighbors in our area were quiet, respectful and didn't run generators during quiet times. Cell service nonexistent. We left early due to impending wind storm.

The sites are small to quite large. We arrived in the dark and a park ranger helped us find a site large enough we didn’t have to unhitch. We had no problem leveling. It is windy but not terribly. The sites are clean and the bathrooms were clean too. We camped in a dry spot but full hookups are available. Two dump stations and they are clean. The ghost town and mine were fun to walk through.

Calico campground grows on you despite being rough around the edges. We usually use this place as a stop over while traveling the Interstate. Many families stay here as their destination. That would be a mixed bag. Sometimes it's quiet, and sometimes party central. There is no host and the Ranger only comes around to collect your money so its pretty much a free for all. But nothing too big or out of control. Thank goodness.
There isn't much maintenance done on the place so it lacks care. Campfire rings are just rock circles here and there. And the picnic tables are quite beat up. At least some sections have electric and water hookups. The road and grounds are very rocky and uneven, again no maintenance is done to improve this.

The campground itself is pretty much litter free but as soon as you go up a wash, canyon, or up a cliff trash is everywhere. A lot of trash. Yes, it's the desert and it gets windy here but there is just no excuse for this. My husband always picks up bags of trash.
However we still enjoy our stop overs, and visiting the Ghost Town while staying here. Its quite the jewel but suffers from neglect.

We have stayed here 3 times, most recently just before NYE, 2018. Prior to that we used it as a night stop on our way to Arizona - a great spot to sneak out of work early and add a night to a trip. We had the dry sites sort of up a canyon - nothing to write home about. Dirt, with some sites right next to each other - like feet apart. The F loop has really long back in sites, so we grabbed two of those with our friend's trailer facing ours. If you have young children, they will love the ghost town. Or if you have people into dirt biking or ATV riding, they will love it. We liked it for the night sky and the F loop where we really didn't have anyone around us. A bit odd on this trip though - ranger at the check in booth said just go grab a site and another ranger would come by to collect the camping fees. No one came by, but when it was dark the ranger BANGED and I mean banged on the door (scaring the you know what out of us) and demanded we pay. I explained what the gal in the booth said, but this guy wasn't in a good mood. And they were charging a $10 holiday premium. A bit odd... but we still had fun!

We stayed in our trailer and our son stayed in a tent in the site next to us. The site we had only had power but we used the dump station to dump before we left. The site showers were free and close so the kids used those showers and we used our trailer shower. The ghost town is close and a fun way to spend a few hours during the day. Otherwise, the site was quiet but they were a little small.