On searching through the Forum I cannot find a reference to the availability of Fairground Camping in California, so would like to offer a list to help others and hope that it does not break any forium rules.
We have been touring California for a couple of months now and sorted a few things about campgrounds, which may help others who are thinking of camping California - or not.
1. California State Parks are the antithesis of what I have come to expect from the State Park system elsewhere. They are expensive, their facilities are usually close to zero and they are not reliably open when you need them, many of them do not even have dump stations.
2. Many private campgrounds (particularly in the 'tourist' areas) are really expensive, sites are close together and often not particularly pleasant.
So as a tourist I want to be able to look ahead to my future destinations and be able to plan my stay in a cheap, clean, fairly secure and fully hooked up campground, but here is no way of easily finding them.
Well having nearly done my tour of Northern California I now have the answer - Fairgrounds. Open all year, full hookup, usually about $20 p.n. Usually on first come firt served basis.
I was surprised how many small towns have a fairground with RV facililties
So I now have a list (which to be fair was mostly passed to me by others) of 50 odd fairgrounds in Northern and Central California. We called ahead for availability for all the fairgrounds we stayed in
I am attaching the list to this post. I hope they can be of use to others.
I wonder if anyone can reply with any other reliable fairgrounds I will add them to the list.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ah4HpSQvhW8adHU1dG50dmprcmpseHRqSTU1bE9tSUE
Still trying to sort this Google doc out, but I will try and add web links to fairgrounds as I can