We stayed at Thousand Trails Yosemite Lakes in Groveland, California. (Campground Reviews listing.)
A fairly typical Thousand Trails park, with choose-your-own-sites. Most sites are only 30 amp; only a few 50 amp sites. Just minutes from an entrance to Yosemite National Park.
Dates:
- Check in: 2024-09-16
- Check out: 2024-09-22
- 6 nights
Weather:
- Partly cloudy
- High temps 60-75°F, lows 43-55°F
- Negligible wind, gusts to 11 MPH
Noise:
- No road noise
- No train horn noise
- Little neighbor noise
Site:
- #82, back-in, gravel
- Needed to disconnect toad, parked beside coach
- Fairly level site; high in front; used hydraulic leveling
- Gravel driveway about 55 feet long by 10 feet wide
- 15 feet to neighbors on both sides
- Two picnic tables
- Fire pit
- Tall trees
- River right behind our site
- Unclean site; small bits of trash (as is common for Thousand Trails; they typically don’t clean sites)
Utilities:
- 30 amp power, conveniently located
- 110 PSI water, conveniently located
- Loose sewer connection, conveniently located (1 10-foot pipes needed)
Internet (in usage priority order):
- Starlink: 80-160 Mbps down, 15-22 Mbps up, 30 ms ping
- Campground Wi-Fi: 0.05-11 Mbps down, 1-3 Mbps up, 70 ms ping
- T-Mobile: no service
- AT&T: no service
- Verizon: no service
Amenities:
- Garbage dumpsters
- Gas station
- Close to Yosemite National Park
Our review on Campground Reviews:
Nice riverfront sites, if you’re lucky
If I were a retail customer, I would rate this campground much harsher than I do as a Thousand Trails member. If I were paying the retail rate, I would give this a scathing 1-star review and never stay here again. But by Thousand Trails standards, this place is not bad, and I would’ve happily stayed longer than a week. We did not luck out and get one of the scarce 50A sites by the river, but we did get a perfectly lovely 30A spot on the river that was actually level and decently wide. I’m glad that my navigator/co-pilot does extensive route planning for our travel days, as the correct road to the campground is not the one the GPS would’ve sent us down, so we were prepared for that. The proper access road isn’t great as it is, but going down Hardin Flat would’ve been extremely dicey. Once you get into the campground and start hunting for a site, the roads inside the park are not for the faint of heart or the low of ground clearance. Driving around in our Chevy Colorado was bad enough, but getting the 40′ motorhome around them was a fun exercise in obstacle avoidance. Once we got parked, though, we were delighted. Since our primary purpose was to visit Yosemite National Park, it was a great launching point. You can’t get much closer without staying in the park (which we couldn’t do with a big rig anyway). We camped at Thousand Trails Yosemite Lakes in a Motorhome.
Campground map:
An interactive map:
Our site:
South Fork Tuolumne River runs right behind our site:
Sitting by the river:
Ducks in the river:
Utilities:
The electrical pedestal only has 30 amps, so we used a “dogbone” to adapt it to our 50 amp plug (and watched our power usage; fortunately it wasn’t too warm, so we avoided AC use most of the week):
After visiting Yosemite National Park, we added the sticker to our coach (gonna need to use a stepladder for future stickers):
There was no cellular service, so we used our Starlink dish. There were some obstructions, but the dish could see enough of the sky to have only occasional disruptions:
The campground has its own gas station:
Other sites:
No, this isn’t our coach; a similar model:
Some buddy sites:
Tent sites:
South Fork Tuolumne River:
Clubhouse:
The welcome center in the background, and a bus stop for the park bus; people without a tow vehicle can catch the bus into the park:
Mini golf:
Playground:
Cabins:
