Pacific Dunes Ranch RV Resort - Thousand Trails

We stayed one week at Pacific Dunes Ranch & RV Resort and really enjoyed it. The location is amazing, with direct access to the dunes which you can walk and sand sled on (bring a sled if you have one!) and only minutes away from the town of Pismo Beach by car. You can even walk to the ocean from here but it is a bit of a workout because those dunes are huge!

The sites are a little tight but not as bad as most California RV parks and we had room to set up our solo stove firepit and 4 camping chairs in front of our camper. It definitely got busy during the weekend but that is to be expected given the great location. The campground was clean, with level sites that were easy to get into. They were dirt/gravel but not dusty. The amenities were adequate but nothing amazing. They also have horses which is pretty cool – we would visit the horses on our morning walks. We didn't look into the horseback riding which the offer, maybe next time.

We are Thousand Trails, Trails Collection members but only half of our stay was available through the membership. For those nights it only cost us $20 a night, for the rest we had to book outside of the system it cost us $85 a night. However, since we made our reservations in separate bookings, we had to move campsites. Note: Pacific Dunes has reserved sites that are assigned to you at check-in, it is not first come first serve like most Thousand Trails campgrounds. This didn't bother us except for how it affected our internet connection...

My husband and I both work remote full time so staying connected is a must. With our internet setup which runs off of a Verizon sim card, we usually had 4 bars of 4G and were able to take video Zoom calls for work. We noticed the connection was spotty sometimes usually in the evening but mostly worked great. We have T-Mobile through Google Fi on our phones and that also usually had about 4 bars of service as well. This was for the first part of our stay which was in the upper region of the campground on the hill closest to the dunes.

On Friday, for the second booking, we were moved to the lower section of the park closest to the office / entrance. The internet down here was near unusable, for both Verizon and T-Mobile. We were shocked at what a difference it made just moving down the hill. We tried the Pacific Dunes internet but that barely worked either. This was the case all weekend. On Sunday we were able to move back up to the campsites on the hill, close to our original spot at #122. The internet worked great up here once again Sunday–Tuesday before we checked out.

We really enjoyed Pacific Dunes Ranch & RV Resort and are already planning to stay here again. We would definitely recommend it to others, especially for the location! But if you work remotely and need cell service, request a campsite on the hill / upper region.

This camp site has pedestrian access to a large part of the sand dunes. You can bring a snow sled and slide down these dunes. Super awesome photo opportunities in the dunes too.

Site was large enough to park our 16’ cruise america trailer and car lengthwise. Full hookups work well. AT&T reception was phenomenal. Bathrooms were kind of smelly so I just did everything in the RV.

We enjoyed staying here. However, the back-in sites are short and very close together. Specifically, the ones on the west side of the park (backs up to the dunes). The big positive is access to the beach. Able to drive down on beach and drive for miles. Folks even bring their travel trailers and fifth wheels down to the beach! Crazy, but looked very cool.
Bathroom was dated, but clean and well maintained. Office staff was friendly. The park also hosted a pot luck Super Bowl party. Pretty nice.

Stayed 2 nights as part of our Thousand Trails Collection membership. Paid $20 per night.

Full hookups (50amp power, 60psi water, sewer). Internet was good with AT&T, just ok with Verizon, but with a WeBoost cell phone booster we streamed without problems.

Easy, contact-less check-in. Our information was taped to the outside window. They originally booked us in the first spot but it was clear as we parked our 42ft 5th wheel that we were too large for the site. They let us move a few spots down to site 16 and we fit just fine, although we did have to park our truck just across the little street in an overflow site.

Great location, just a few minutes from grocery stores, restaurants and the beach.

While I've read the rates at this campground are $67-$70 per night, I only paid $20 nightly due to my Thousand Trails Collection membership. Frankly even that was overpriced for my needs. Due to COVID I checked in online and never spoke to anyone here. I did see at least one golf cart circling each morning and waved.

Internal roads are paved and that is nice however the sites are mostly coarse sand and rock. At least it wasn't dusty when I was here. The sites are VERY narrow and not all that long. For the most part, I felt very cramped here. They do have full hook-ups with 50 amp. There are a number of RVs parked here full time, but they seemed to be maintained and their sites were decent for the most part.

The beach is on the other side of the dunes and I chose not to walk the distance due to my age and stability. Dogs are not allowed on the dunes, they are the State of California property!

The small laundry rooms were spread out over the facility. The one I used had 2 washers and 2 dryers. One of the washers didn't work the whole time I stayed.

There were a couple of dogs off-leash here, not sure if they enforce leashes, but they do advertise dogs must be on a leash!

Really no pool or other facility here, but with COVID it would have been closed anyway. They do have horseback riding available on the beach.

The location and the sites were ok. Sand and crushed rock for the pads made it messy, and the amenities are pretty poor or non-existent. All of this would have been a 4 star for me, but the staff and the permanent residents don't care about the rest of the paying customers. One permanent resident was riding his no muffler Harley around the campground at 4 am, two nights in a row. When we complained about it, the staff basically said, we don't care, and told me to get over it. Other permanent residents were living in total wrecks that looked like they should be condemned. Also apparently they have a theft problem as well. DO NOT STAY HERE. There are plenty of other nice places to stay in the area.

We booked a two-night stay here as one of our last chance getaway opportunities this summer. Super location, right on the doorstep of the Pacific Dunes.
If you use Waze for your navigation, be aware it will try it divert you on a dirt road maybe 200 feet or so before the actual entrance - don't go down the dirt road.
Check-in was mostly completed on the computer before our arrival, including site number assignment. When we pulled up, I did hop out of the truck to pop my head in the office. You couldn’t really get in as there was a table blocking entrance for social distance protocol. The lady in the office greeted our arrival and advised our personal map and info was taped onto the front window of the office. So I walked over, pulled down our info sheet, and off we drove to our site.
We walked the dunes to arrive at the beach - an enjoyable afternoon. If you are adventurous, bring a boogie board, long piece of cardboard, or other item that might allow you to ride the dune hills (we plan to do so on a future visit). You literally step out to the dunes from the corner of the property and then you can spend a little bit of time to a lot of time, exploring and enjoying. This is also a great place for photography. There is horseback riding available from an outfit just before you enter the property.
Proximity is close enough to downtown Pismo and some of the fun things to experience there.
While there are a good number of sites available at this RV Resort, we were pleased to find it generally extremely quiet. A good mix of vacationers along with full-timers here. Our site was a pull through (we are still RV newbies), full hookups (electric, water, sewer). Sites were a wee bit closer to each other than we would have preferred (e.g., our patio table almost next to the next trailer's sewer hose). Our rig was 30 feet end to end, no slides - fit just fine. Lots of very large rigs here too.
There are additional bathrooms on the property - including showers, which we took advantage of versus using the RV shower. Clean and large enough sized.
Our trip in the summer was met with great vacation weather (only about 80 degrees here, while it neared 100 in our hometown of Simi Valley). Also, being summer, no wind - so not sure what the experience is like here in fall and winter or anytime the winds pickup given that you are so close to the dunes. We had no issue with sand, but this might be something to keep an eye on depending on when you travel here.
Glad to have found this location. We really enjoyed the nearby areas and plan to return in the future - a probably annual stop for us moving forward.