Lake Skinner Recreation Area

It's been a while since we were here. Still a great park. Not too expensive, great location, full hookups, and an awesome park to explore. Walking/hiking trails for days, kayaking, fishing in Lake Skinner, etc. Tons to do for anyone. We come here, of course, because it's RIGHT in the middle of all the Temecula Valley wineries. One of our favorites is less than a mile outside the park entrance. Lake Skinner is the perfect place to camp, explore, then spend the evening around the fire with a couple bottles of amazing wine and something fresh and local from the Temecula Farmers market (Downtown Saturday morning). Great access to San Diego and the surrounding area as well. Campground A and B are pretty tight, but have the best views (only views really) of the lake. Campground C seems to have a little more space, but it's further away from the lake. We were in B with our 40 foot class A and toad. We had a spectacular view every morning, but we used every inch of that space. Our water heater broke, so we had to use the showers at the park. They are by far the worst camp showers I've ever used. They don't stay on constantly (3 seconds maybe in most cases), water was cold forever, there is no place to hang/set personal stuff, no heat, etc. They got the job done, but the were awful.

Explore the park and nearby trails, check out the wineries (many are dog friendly), take the walking tour of Old Town Temecula, go to the farmers market on Saturday mornings. So much to do. You could easily spend a week or more and not get bored.

Did you know southern California has wine country? There are about 50 vineyard and wineries in Temecula, Riverside county. (I am not a member of Harvest Hosts) While in the area I stayed at Lake Skinner (attached picture) and saw beautiful sunrises and sunsets. $200/week with full hookups. Weather: Winter tems: highs in the mid 60s, lows in the mid 30s. Good cell service. The camp is clean and well maintained, dirt pads, worn asphalt roadway, fairly level pads, park is a little old and remote, about 15 minutes to wine country and 25 to shopping and suburbia. There is little shade in the camping area but plenty of trees in the day-use park and picnic area. The lake accommodates boating and fishing but not swimming (it's a fresh water reservoir). There is a Camp Store for convenience items.

https://www.rivcoparks.org/lake-skinner-recreation-area/

This was our first camp trip with our new trailer. It was the first time with any trailer. We chose this site because it was close, familiar and had pull through sites. The sites were clean and well maintained. The staff was friendly and except for the occasional Ranger drive by, they stayed out of site.

We spent the afternoon in nearby Temecula (wine country) touring breweries and meaderies (not wineries). Lake Skinner is close to anything you’d want to do with wine and sitting outside watching the hot air balloons float by on occasion was a bonus.

Women's bathroom needs to be power washed something fierce! Broken water faucet, no paper towels. 1 toilet out of order, no hooks anywhere in shower area, floor was filthy. Glad to have a motorhome with my own bathroom and shower!
My campsite had all kinds of trash, which I picked up and disposed of, and fire ring had a bunch 50+ cigarette butts in it-Upon request Ranger did come and clean it out.
Sites are very close together so little or no privacy what so ever.
There was quite a bit of noise due to the construction of chain link fencing going up throughout the Park in expectation of the Wine and Balloon festival.
Number of tent campers with a lot of Trash and junk around their sites.

We used the Passport America rate for a mid-week stay. It is off-season so the park is quiet and lots of space. You do need to call the park in order to get the Passport America rate.

The kiosk staff, host and store staff are very friendly. Our space was flat, clean and easy to access. I agree with another review that stated not much of a division between sites (but doesn't matter much for a mid-week/winter stay). Our space is located in the outer loop so we have green grass off the back of the site. Aim for outside and end sites in each loop.

The store has some helpful picnic type supplies, ice cream, and sodas. The staff was very nice and helpful. Boat rentals are on site as well. We checked out the laundry facilities and found them full of dog hair and a bit pricey ($2 wash/$2 dry). The store staff was really friendly and very willing to clean them out for us.

I am very sorry to see no hiking trails. It is a beautiful huge open area, but everything is off limits for wildlife. The only path goes down to the lake, but not around it. So no hiking from your site. If you are a fisherman or it is warm enough for kids to play in the playgrounds or the water splash area then bonus.

There is a nature center/old schoolhouse on the grounds that are open 3 days a week. With the lack of footpaths, I think you need to drive over there.

We love the easy access to town and wineries and would stay here again to visit friends. Full hook-ups are great in Loop C and our site has a clear view of the lake and the setting sun.

One note - upon entry we noticed a sign for 'Court Appointed Parking' and wondered what in the world that could be. Turns out the park maintenance is done by WRP 'work release'.

Reading the other reviews surprised me a bit. We really enjoyed this spot. We only stayed one night, but had a nice time there. We had a full hookup site in campground B (EWS), we didn’t need full hookups for just one night, but the ranger said the other camp areas can get rowdy on the weekends with a younger crowd and tent campers. We had a beautiful lake view and enjoyed the short hikes down to the water. Our site had a picnic table and fire pit and wood was available for purchase at the camp store for $7.50. We’d definitely go back to camp again. I’m sure it gets crowded at times, but it was very peaceful when we were there. Camped Saturday, January 6th. Also, there’s a $2/dog fee added to the camp price ($40 for the site + $4 for our pups = $44/night)

Note: We stayed here in a tent. This park is huge, is close to a stocked lake and, for those of you with kids, has a Splash Zone to rival any water park we've seen in a while. Therefore, the park is usually croweded. We lucked out by staying on a weekday in off-season, but still didn't have a great experience.

The sites in our loop, which I believe was A, were really close together -- so close that we seriously didnt know what spot was actually ours because there's no real dividing line between them. Also, its all gravel and dirt - no trees. On the plus side, there's a grassy field behind the outer loop of this section to walk your dog. The restrooms have showers with hot-ish water, but there's no water in the sinks (they were dismantled when we were there) and there are very few bathrooms for as many sites as they have.

Also, our check in experience wasnt great at all. When we got here, they took my drivers license and wrote down my info. Then came back and asked or my vehicle registration, then wrote that down and then asked for proof of insurance, which I didnt have on me, but told them I could look up online and show them. They told me that wasnt good enough and that I would have to call my insurance company so they could talk to them and verify that I was insured. However, the check in kiosk is so far outside the actual park, there was no cell reception. So I told them we'd just go find another place to camp, but they got their supervisor to come out and walk around our car and double check our license and registration. I really felt like it was a bit of overkill.

And now that Im writing all this down... I should probably give them 2 stars.

We stayed Mon-Thurs in early November. Until Thursday night, it was just us and the 4 (!!) campground hosts. Very quiet, no noise.

We had a leaky faucet when we hooked up. But after talking to the Host briefly, we had a maintenance worker there in less than 5 minutes replacing the valve!

We stayed on the North side of loop A, which had large grassy areas nearby and was a 2 minute walk to the "camp store". The campground is located close to Temecula's wine country, which is a big plus. Not much else around, though.

Verizon had 2 bars of 3G on my phone. 2 bars of LTE with a booster. No ATT coverage. I did notice a bit more LTE coverage on my phone in loop "C".

Who knows how crazy this place gets during the summer, but it was a nice little retreat in the off-season.