Lime Saddle is the night you can actually lock in. It's the Chico-side campground on Lake Oroville, it takes reservations through ReserveCalifornia, and it has full hookups, which is what you want when the valley is over 100 and the air conditioning has to run until morning. Book the site first and the van second, because the site is the part that sells out.
Then comes the drive people actually come here for. CA-32 climbs northeast out of town into the Lassen forest, and two creek camps sit along it: Potato Patch on Deer Creek and Butte Meadows on Butte Creek, up in the hamlet of the same name. Both are first-come, with no reservations and no hookups, so they only work as the heat escape if you can get up there before midday. Potato Patch is the one locals name first and the creek sites go early on a hot Friday. Miss that window and you're back down at Oroville for the night.
Lassen Volcanic is a day out of those creek camps in summer, CA-32 to CA-36 to the southwest entrance at Kohm Yah-mah-nee, where the cross-park highway closes roughly November through June. For Lassen as the overnight instead of the day trip, the closer base is Redding.
Lake Oroville SRA
From Chico it's CA-99 to CA-149 and CA-70, then Pentz Road out to the Lime Saddle arm, which has 16 RV sites with full hookups and a dump station at the entrance. The water behind it sits under the tallest dam in the country, and the foothill shoreline is where Chico goes to swim and run boats through the summer.
Bidwell Canyon is the larger loop on the south shore, 75 sites, all with full hookups, and the better bet for a big rig or a holiday weekend once Lime Saddle is gone. If you'd rather trade the van for the room and the bathroom of a motorhome on a lake weekend, compare RV rentals in California.
North Table Mountain in spring
North Table Mountain is a morning, not a night. The basalt mesa on the Oroville side fills with lupine and poppy in late March and early April, and seasonal falls drop off the lava cap while the creeks are still running. It's day use only, sunrise to sunset, with no camping, and everyone 16 and up needs a CA Lands Pass, $5.97 for the day or $33.48 a year as of August 2026. The Cherokee Road lot fills during the bloom, so go early.
Chico is one stop on a bigger Northern California loop; for other cities to start from, see campervan rentals across California.