Our camping experiences so far in California have consisted of State parks and although they are scenic, they have been quite expensive and lacking amenities. We didn't mind paying $45 to be camping right on the beach but thought we would have to limit our camping experiences with those prices in mind. I decided to look at alternative campsites and came across Orange County's Caspers Wilderness Park which had good reviews on yelp and with a price of $20 per night we decided to give it a try...

The park is under two hours away and we managed to arrive just before sunset to setup camp. As you can see we are still very happy with our BusDepot awning to keep in the shade and protect us from the heat. We found out that my bicycle tire was flat so after a quick repair we were on our way to explore this excellent campground

The differences with this camp were night and day compared to what we have encountered in both Oregon and California. First, I was surprised to see the entrance station was manned by a park ranger until the gates were locked at 10pm which made check in very easy. It is also the only park we have been to that was regularly patrolled by Police, we counted 4 full drive-thrus by different police cars during our 2 day stay. This was on top of almost constant patrols by several other county park rangers. Some may have considered this intrusive but I simply felt safe.

With over 8000 acres, the campsite was very well maintained with many features and facilities. Above are pictures of the visitor center which included information about the surrounding area. Below are some more shots of the beautiful scenery and attractions including the first black widow spider I have seen in the wild

The Westy seems to be loving California life and ran beautifully for the entire trip. It still amazes me that the original Dometic fridge kept everything nice and cold even during the 90 degree temps. One more shot of our site to show just how large a space we had:

We now know there are camping alternatives for us to explore in the future for reasonable prices and look forward to exploring them....stay tuned for more updates shortly!