Carmel by the River RV Park

We stayed in February 2018. Small park, quiet, very friendly and helpful staff. Some long term travelers. Small lawn with picnic benches, river or stream on one side. I am a newbie and it took me a while to back in a 25’ Airstream but I did it. The sewer hook ups were too far back for our hose - same for the 27’ next to us. We mentioned this the day we left, they allowed us to pull into a spot where we could empty our black before leaving. Overall, this was a very nice place to stay and very quiet.

This small family-owned RV park, located in the Carmel Valley roughly 4 miles east of Highway 1, is a true gem. With only 40+ spots, all full hookups (no tent camping), this park has everything you need as your base to explore Carmel, Monterey, and Big Sur.

Clean, well-maintained facilities, plus a helpful and easy going staff. Excellent wifi, and solid phone reception. The Carmel river runs right alongside the park, and there's a small grassy field at the end. Perfect for picnics, dogs, etc. The spots themselves are clean, and a little tight. No worries though, if you need help getting your rig parked, the staff will provide expert support.

To the east there's dog-friendly Garland Ranch Park, full of trails, hills, fields, and a waterfall. To the west there's Carmel, Monterey, and Pacific Grove. Endless beaches, stores, and restaurants. To the south, there's Big Sur. A 26-mile drive along some of the most stunning coastal roads anywhere on this planet. Perfect for day trips.

As with all things in this part of California, things book up fast during high season. Make sure to get your reservations squared away pronto.

We were scheduled to camp here for 5 nights in January. Unfortunately it was during the period when California was receiving torrential rain, one storm after the other. We had paid a $75 deposit by phone and received an email confirmation.

We later learned that the Pacific Coast Highway had been closed at Big Sur due to rock & mud slides so we would have had to take a longer route using 101. Within the campground's cancellation window, we spoke to campers who had just left Carmel by the River and told us the river had overflowed, flooding a large part of the campground.

In their opinion, we would have difficulty getting our motorhome to the upper section where they were relocating campers. Additionally, CHP was issueing alerts for winds and rain and recommending to stay off roads if possible. We decided that we should stay put until the severe weather passed.

We called Carmel by the River and explained our situation and requested a cancellation and an exception to the refund policy due to these factors.

The woman who my wife spoke with was rude and was adamant that there were no exceptions and was evasive when questioned about the campground flooding and accessibility for our motorhome.

It's not like we cancelled on a whim and I would rather lose the deposit than go against published safety warnings to stay put.

BAD ATTITUDE, BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE, EVASIVE

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this RV park. We really didn't use any of the amenities, but I like the location and the grassy area next to our site. You're tucked in the valley just far enough away from the coast to get into ranch land, but close enough to explore Carmel, Monterey, and even Big Sur easily. And the grassy area was great for our dogs and me when I chose to work outside.

You drive down a narrow sometimes twisty road to get there, but it is there. We saw a few people stopped looking at maps. The lady at check-in suggested that we should have unhooked our toad before going down that road as the park can be tight to unhook, but we were fine. We were in the only tandem spot where you share common space with another RV which is usually a pet peeve of mine. But when we had neighbors, they were all friendly. And the fact the grassy area was like our backyard made up for it. The rest of the sites had tall hedges between them. They seem to be working on a lot of them when we were there. There are also many flowers all over the grounds and jasmine near us which was intoxicating.

There is a game room, a little store with movie rentals, and clean looking restrooms. There is no laundry on site being so close to the river, but laundromats about 5-10 minutes each way from the park. The wifi was pretty usable along with AT&T and Verizon. Unboosted Verizon was 41.26 mbps down and 13.93 up.

Earthbound Farms has a farmstand right nearby with sandwiches. We would recommend the Wagon Wheel down the street for breakfast. Next door to that is the Baaja Cantina which was pretty good also. And the Athena Cafe (turn right onto Carmel Valley near Safeway) made a good gyro and good eggplant sandwich.

The $60 rate is based on cash. It's $65 on a card. You also get the 7th night free and they have a frog card where you get the 9th or 10th night free. You'll understand the frog theme as soon as it gets dark.

This place is in the beautiful Carmel Valley, which makes it really optimal for camping. The rate of $65 per night is for using a credit card, you can pay $60 for cash. Nice folks running it and they certainly mean will but this is a business and they really pack in the RVs in very tight spaces. Plus, tow vehicles are allowed to park in front of the site. We had a really difficult time getting OUT of our site with our 25' Airstream. Had to ask the guy across from us to move his TV but couldn't find the owner of the next car parked there. Gruesome. We had notified the owners the night before that we needed to leave at 8:00am and they said they would make sure the TV were out of the way. That didn't happen for whatever reason and that's why we gave them just 3 stars. On the way out, one person told us that the owner would park and move your RV and if we come back here again, we definitely will ask for help. Keep it in mind.

We searched high and low in the entire area from San Jose south to Morgan Hill, Gilroy, Hollister, Monterey and Santa Cruz for a clean, friendly, family run, peaceful and safe RV Park and at last found Carmel by the River! We're so happy we did and we just booked our third stay in less than a year. Thanks for having us back again very soon with our 42.5'' Raptor 5th wheel!!