We stayed at Thousand Trails San Benito in Paicines, California. (Campground Reviews listing.)
Our second stay here. Our first stay was our very first experience of a Thousand Trails park. Not a super great experience, but not bad enough to put us off TT. (Which we have some misgivings about, but it has been mostly worthwhile.)
This time, the campground was in the midst of a much-needed major improvements to their electrical system, with new 50/30/20 amp pedestals on all of the sites. At the time we stayed, only about the third of the park was open.
Dates:
- Check in: 2025-10-20
- Check out: 2025-10-31
- 11 nights
Weather:
- Mostly sunny
- High temps 65-82°F, lows 48-54°F
- Little wind, gusts to 17 MPH
Noise:
- No road noise
- No train horn noise
- Little neighbor noise
Site:
- #C-010, back-in, gravel
- Needed to disconnect toad, parked beside coach
- Somewhat level site; a little high on passenger side; used hydraulic leveling
- Gravel driveway about 60 feet long by 12 feet wide
- 75-95 feet to neighbor on passenger side
- 32 feet to neighbor on driver side
- Just grass between sites
- Picnic table
- Fire pit
- Tall trees
- Somewhat clean site
- Elevation 720 feet, front facing north/east/south/west
Utilities:
- 50 amp power, conveniently located
- 60 PSI water, conveniently located
- Good sewer connection, conveniently located (1 10-foot pipe needed)
Internet (in usage priority order):
- Starlink: 76-108 Mbps down, 22-44 Mbps up, 30 ms ping
- RoamLink: 50 Mbps down, 3-5 Mbps up, 125 ms ping (RoamLink uses whichever is best of AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile)
- AT&T: 101-145 Mbps down, 1-5 Mbps up, 70 ms ping (I have AT&T on my iPhone)
- Campground Wi-Fi: none
Amenities:
- Garbage dumpsters
- Pool
Campground map; much of the campground was being renovated at the time of our stay:
An interactive map:
Our site:
The tree next to our site:
During our stay the electricians needed to make some modifications to the pedestal; replacing one of the breakers:
And installing a ground rod:
Can’t get packages at the campground, so we used Amazon lockers in Hollister (30 minutes away):
And the nearby post office in Paicines (9 minutes away):
Pool (and ex-hot tub):
While there, I added a Pokémon Pokéstop at the playground:
Other sites:
New big solar array over storage area:
A big stump with a bird box:
Lots of gnomes around the place:
Cat:
Deer:
Birb:
A mostly peaceful campground. We’d be happy to stay here again.