San Benito Thousand Trails

We got a free TT membership when we bought our brand new trailer. We hadn't stayed at any because they weren't convenient to anywhere we wanted to go. Then something on our trailer broke and we had to wait to get it fixed. We found this San Benito TT near the RV repair. I wish we had another place to go. There's only so many times you can hike at Pinnacles. Hollister is boring. The only good thing is the coast is only a hour away. San Benito TT is crowded and you have to pay for wifi which doesn't work. There's absolutely no cell service for AT&T or Verizon. This is not good for people who need to work while on the road. We have to drive a few miles out to find any cell service. If you want to hunker down and not do anything San Benito TT is fine. They have big shade trees, a dog park and a laundry. As a matter of fact most of the people there live there. They have very good rates if you just want to live in place like this.

First time at this TT-Park, and the first time we had to show vehicle registrations and proof of insurance?
The staff was friendly and helpful. This park for October / November was only 1/3 full, so make it a very quiet. Halloween night they had a parade around the park for the kids in costumes and collected candy.
Our only complaint was the WIFI, which we had to pay $15 for a week, but our Wifi was very slow and was dropping out all the time. I don't mind paying but Good WIFI but down speeds were at 1.3 and up was at 2.2 Mbps Not Good when you are paying.

This campground advertises 596 campsites, I would guess if it was fully opened and repairs were done it would be much more. Typical of Thousand Trails Campgrounds are older and bought in a state of disrepair. It would take millions to fully bring it up to date. Despite that, I like it here and will return next year.

I enjoy the setting in the middle of a seven thousand acres ranch. The Paicines Ranch was founded in the 1800s and is just beautiful. I found on my visit the hosts and associates were more than friendly and helpful. What facilities I have visited (that were open) were clean.

You can visibly see new repairs being done in a number of areas. Still, a lot of work is needed. The buildings, which were closed due to COVID seemed unkept, but I would expect that considering.

The grounds while a little better than my visit last year, still looked dead (I visited in Fall) but many trees had been removed or in the state of being removed. I am hoping my next visit will show even more improvement.

I’m a 1000 Trails Member and have never been treated this bad in all the campsites I have gone to. Staff Isabel and Manager Joann will do what it takes to make your stay miserable. Water was out when we were there and they wanted to charge an unattended rig fee because I go to work! Pictures are false. There is no greenery only dried weeds.

We sheltered in place here for about 15 weeks, left for one, then returned or another two weeks.

The park is good. Well maintained, but there are a lot of areas that aren’t in use (outside of lockdown restrictions), including a few bathrooms (so check before you set up).

It’s big, with different “feels” in different areas. It has full hookups and 30 or 50 amp electric (50 is limited to one side of the park).

Access is easy but long and quite far away from anything. Though it’s a few minutes away from Pinnacles NP. The drive is scenic. The access road is steep, paved, some vehicles had a hard time hauling their loads out. So if you’re grazing your limit, take caution.

There were two things that we didn’t enjoy - one - no cell service for AT&T (not always a problem for us but we were there a long time!) and their own internet that’s they sell for $20 for three weeks was rubbish and really not worth the money. There’s WiFi in a few spots around the park (adult lodge, family lodge, laundromat).

And second - the “rangers” aren’t very friendly. There’s a few, like 2, that smile at you and talk to you but mostly it was just “Ranger” against visitor and it seemed like they were always trying to catch you out on something. If you’re camping with precocious kids, who love to explore, they’ll see you coming and you’ll be targeted. We were sited for our dog running loose at the time our dog was very sick and we feared he wouldn’t make it (he had a foxtail abscess - excellent to google if you don’t know what that is before arriving). He wasn’t running anywhere, so I’m not sure whose word they took but they were mistaken. A neighbour was kicked out (during lockdown) because his dog often got free. There are also wild pigs and we were told they carry a disease that is fatal to dogs, another neighbours dog died while there. So beware of your dog’s safety. The pigs didn’t bother us much but our dog isn’t likely to chase them and we were mindful of their droppings and such.

The park was quiet. Though it’s actually amid of people who use TT to live and those that just visit for a weekend.

89 is a great site, with a seasonal stream behind it (we think it must flow down from the ranch above, so use caution!) It was a great spot for kids to get out from under the very watchful gaze of “rangers” and have some good ole camping fun. There is poison oak EVERYWHERE and the flies can be ridiculous.

It is close enough for a quick day trip to Monterey Bay Aquarium.

There is wildlife in the park so you will want to keep an eye out.

The park itself could use a lot of work. There is a ton of goats heads in this park, so you will want to have a good size mat. If you park under a tree, make sure to inspect it. A lot of their trees in this park could use a good trimming. The Laundry facility was ok. The lodge was clean and the staff is very friendly.

It seems some people use the spaces to store their RV's. We had a few abandoned RV's around us. We did experience an Earthquake here and I believe this is in an area of an active fault line.

We had little to know cell service here, but they do offer a third party "purchase" wifi. It worked great for us. I would recommend getting a spot near their bathrooms as that is where the WIFI repeaters are located.

The cell service is definitely affected by the number of users. There just isn't enough bandwidth out here for lots of people streaming their shows. Weekends are terrible. The WiFi is hit or miss. You need a good booster antenna on your laptop and hunt around for the one node putting out good bandwidth that day. Again, it's probably a function of how many people are using each node, but the park has not been more than half full. If it weren't for the fact that my antenna let's me see most of the nodes in the park, I probably would have hated the WiFi service.

Now, the campground is nicely laid out, while there appear to be several sites with electrical issues, they are clearly marked and as of the end of December, there are a lot of choices. During the busy season I can see how some people would bet upset with the number of converted tent sites. I expect that TT has this place on it's list and will get to it as soon as prudent.

The dog park is in good shape. The spa closed for maintenance. The roads are a bit rough but they have people out filling holes so I can't complain but so much about that. The staff appear friendly and knowledgeable.

Running my Roku through my unlimited data Verizon hotspot is marginal for streaming at times, but the Roku works just fine using my iPad Pro as a hotspot. I guess I need to save up for a new hotspot router (it heats up and has other issues). Funny thing is that he hotspot seems to work pretty good for work and I can route my AT&T iPhone through the hotspot and have no problems with making or receiving calls. There are a few drop outs and bandwidth issues when I try to make a conference call while doing other data intensive tasks, but it's good enough for 90% of my work needs. Weekends are terrible, and on a few weekdays I hit some rough patches.

The CG WiFi is pretty good if you have patience and a good external antenna. I find that I have to watch the speed so that when it drops off, I then switch to a different AP. I have a signal boosting WiFi antenna so I can reach out and touch most of the nodes in the campground. This is not the first time I've seen this problem with campground WiFi. Unfortunately, while I can see a few nodes on the Roku, connecting to the CG WiFi is laborious so I'm forced to eat up my iPad's quota when the hotspot is acting up.

The dog park is not big, but it's well maintained and doesn't seem to have any problems. The laundry facilities are decent and at $1.50 for washing and $1 for drying, helps the park's rating. The roads have lots of potholes and standing water, but I've seen much worse and there isn't very much mud.

We're here during the winter holiday season and it really isn't that crowded. There are at least two open spots between a lot of the campers so it's really quiet and pleasant. The power is solid and LP here is under $3.50 so it's not bad considering it's CA.

The store was closed during the holiday season for renovations, but it's open now and looks nice and well stocked (for a CG store). They have several of the RV and camping basics, more canned goods than usual, plenty of ice cream, and enough of the basic sodas and snacks to make people happy. Overall, if it weren't for the one thing (explained below), I would definitely consider this a place worthy of returning, time and time again.

Once you head back for Hollister, AT&T and other services pick up with very strong signals. The airport dog park in Hollister is being rebuilt, so it looks like we'll need to go back to Morgan Hill on the weekends. Wong's has decent Chinese food and the Safeway and Nob Hill grocers are well stocked. Fuel is a bit pricier here than in the Morgan Hill area. The main roads are pretty decent and the area is quite nice looking.

Pictures do not do justice to anyplace we've been, so far, so I'll just say that everyone should spend a season traveling the Pacific coast. It's an education on so many different levels and well worth the time.

The wildlife is thick here. Lots of deer, bunnies, birds, quail, squirrels, wild pigs, and other smaller four-legged creatures. We also saw a huge fox and regularly hear the nightly coyote serenade in the distance. Also a few feral cats.

A Note on My Rating System

Regarding the stars I assign, my definition of access is how hard is it to get to it and how are the roads? 5 means it's probably just off of a 4 lane highway with smooth roads, 4 means it's a country road or a bit of a hike, while 3 and lower indicates some level of kidney damage or potential for driving into a ditch.

Location tends to mean "does it feel like it's away from the city but still have a Starbucks nearby?" 1 star is subtracted if you need to travel more than 30 minutes for a decent cup of coffee and fill your tank. If I give it less than 4, read my review. A really good gas station with decent coffee and some groceries will tend to buoy the rating if everything else is rather distant. Especially if I'm in the mood to get away from everything. One big exception is someplace like Williamsburg, Tampa, or Orlando where there are attractions that we want to be near, and I'll usually mention that in the review.

Cleanliness is simply the state of the facilities and "guy clean" earns you 5 stars... so there's that to consider.

Site quality is all about standing water (or potential), having room to set up my pop-up, depth of mud, and if anything stinks. I usually don't worry about how hard it is to maneuver through a campground unless it's just plain bad. Lots of people think Williamsburg is impossible and I wonder what they talk about as I can swing my 43' 5th wheel through without issue; so I leave it alone unless there are corners that require backing up a couple of times to make the turn or more than one loop forbidding big rigs.

Noise is very subjective and you should mostly ignore my take as I lived within a literal stones throw from the I-95 / I-64 interchange in Richmond VA and had no problems sleeping at night. If I give it a 3, you should consider wearing hearing protection. A rating of 2 means you'll probably be bleeding from various orifices before the end of the week. A 1 means there was a non-stop screaming kid next door or some loud-mouthed jerk (but I'll mention that).

Now for the reason I won't come back. Color me picky.

The BURRS! I thought people were kidding. OMG! My crocks pick them up like magnets and scatter them all over the floor of the rig. On the first night it looked like I was doing the dance of the sugar plum fairy or something, because I was hopping around half the night when I would encounter another burr. I need to get booties for the dogs, ASAP, and then start wearing something like steel plated shoes. This is my only malfunction with the park and the only reason I would not consider coming back. I'm sure some will think that's silly, but I've never seen burrs to this extent. The grounds are well mowed, so I can only imagine the burrs spring up very quickly and are very low to the ground. Sticking to the gravel areas does nothing as the burrs seem to be evenly distributed throughout.

Give me vampire mosquitoes and clouds of kamikaze horseflies before you send me back here. I can wear repellent and put up bug zappers, but how do you protect from burrs? IMHO, the only thing worse would be to realize there were things outside waiting to eat me.

Since I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority on the burr thing, I'm docking only one star and will simply vote with my feet. For those who don't mind or have some secret weapon, you'll find this to be a lovely, out of the way, place.

Stayed for 3 weeks with my TT membership for free. Surprisingly the CG was not near full and could be why I enjoyed it so much. 50 amp FHU service. Sites are pretty level. You have a choice of open or treed 30 or 50 amp service.The bath houses are fairly old but in decent condition.The main road in paved with all the feeder roads gravel. Can be dusty but not near as dusty as other California TT CGs. It gets VERY windy every day in the summer so you may not be able to leave your awning out. Nearest town is Hollister and that's 15+ miles almost 30 minutes. Walmart is another 15 minutes from there but Hollister does have a Safeway and another market with a number of places to eat. Verizon had a strong signal throughout the CG. No ATT signal with any booster. TMobile has a signal with a booster only but location may dictate your experience even further. Lots of deer, ground squirrels, pigeons, quail and wild boar. The wild boar is the bad part. They defecate all over the place and the smell can be horrid (at least that is what I think the smell was). It's not all over or all the time. They only show up at night and I did see a large one on the side of the road dead. You're in the valley and hill of central California here. Lots and lots of farms and vineyards which I do enjoy. 30 miles to the east entrance of Pinnacle NP. The west entrance was a couple hours away. Big Sur, the PCH and Monterrey are also an hour+ to just get there and if there is traffic you can expect a couple of hour drive (there always seems to be traffic in CA IMO)

This is a huge campground with lots of spaces (600 I think they told us). We are here at end of January so not full at all and very peaceful. There are lots of deer and wild pigs (although we haven't had any pigs around our site, but we see signs of them elsewhere). Birds are everywhere and make for beautiful morning awakenings. This place is only an hour or so from the coast (Monterey or Carmel) and so makes for a nice central base camp. It is about 30 minutes from Hollister (closest groceries). It is a great spot for R&R and getting away from it all. We were also able to work easily with a booster and even without it had about 1-2 bars of Verizon LTE. AT&T is dead in this park. Staff is very friendly and helpful. The only downside we could see is that there are some annual sites that people just have let go downhill and are junky looking. Really takes away from some of the areas of the park. We parked far away from any of them so was okay, but there were some nice sites near some of them, but we avoided those for that reason. I think TT should have some enforced guidelines for people that use these spaces for long term. Overall, was a good experience though.