We stayed in three different campgrounds as we made our way south through the northern California/Redwood area: Hiouchi RV Park, Sounds of the Sea, and Albion River Campground. Here are reviews of all three:
Hiouchi RV Park
Price: $31/night
Location: Just outside the entrance to Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park, a 10 mile drive from Crescent City
Site description: gravel and grass; some sites had a concrete slab
Facilities: adequate bathroom/shower facilities. Showers were not coin-operated but took tokens – 25 cents per token for about 5 minutes. Which is reasonable. The only problem is that you have to buy the tokens at the office during the hours it’s open, so you have to plan ahead a little for evening or early morning showers.
Neighborhood: The first and hopefully only time we had to move after setting up the camper (quite a hassle!) because of our neighbors. A group of 4 who were constantly smoking around their table so that it was hard to breathe on our assigned site. We tried to make it work, but we gave up and moved after dinner.
Comments: If anyone out there can tell me how the word “Hiouchi” is pronounced, you get a prize.
Website: http://www.hiouchirv.com/
Picture of the site we didn’t stay on. But they were all pretty similar.
Sounds of the Sea
Price: $33/night
Location: Just off of Rt 1 and close to the Pacific – although public beach access was about a 30-40 minute walk
Site description: Gravel space for parking, grass lawns.
Facilities: Nicely decorated bathrooms, where showers were included (finally! So many coin-operated showers lately!)
Neighborhood: Mostly retired RV-ers again, which seems to be the pattern as we get later into the fall, especially on weekdays.
Comments: The “sounds of the sea” they mention seem to be barking sea lions which we heard from time to time all night. Not in a bad, keep you awake kind of way, though. It was fun!
Website: http://www.soundsofthesea.us/
Sounds of the Sea
Albion River Campground
Price: $35/night
Location: where the Albion River meets the Pacific, just off of Rt 1
Site description: dirt/sand and some grass; no trees; short walk to the beach
Facilities: basic bathhouse, coin operated showers; office has a basic store and is also a small restaurant where there seemed to be a lot of locals coming to eat, and where they make really good pizza.
Neighborhood: quiet and spread out. A lot of people camped closer to the beach, but we avoided it because of high winds.
Website: http://www.albionrivercampground.com/
A pretty place to camp
The store/restaurant building with the bridge in the background.
Another angle on the campsite. The beach was just beyond the bridge.
This looks awesome! I really want to visit Jedediah Smith. I went to humbolt redwoods this past summer and it was amazing. thanks for sharing!