Beals Point is the first night. It sits on Folsom Lake where the valley starts to climb into the foothills, close enough to town that a late arrival still works, and it stays open all year. Sites go through ReserveCalifornia on a rolling six-month window that opens at 8 a.m. Pacific, which is why you book the site before you book the van.
In the morning the trip goes up the American River canyon to Coloma, where the South Fork runs green through an oak trench and the raft outfitters put in below the gold-rush towns. That is a day out, not a place to land tired. The state sites up the canyon are primitive and hard to reach in the dark, so they belong to a later night once you know the roads.
Coloma is where James Marshall found gold in 1848, and Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park keeps the mill race and a replica sawmill on Highway 49 between Placerville and Auburn. There is no camping in the park, so treat it as a day stop, 10 dollars to park, and sleep on the river or back at Folsom. Panning is hands-and-pan only, in the marked stretch of river.
Auburn State Recreation Area runs the whitewater end of the gold country, with more than 30 licensed outfitters on runs from Class II to Class V. Most of the South Fork trips launch out of Coloma and Lotus, which is why the private riverside campgrounds there stay busy all summer. Fill the van's water tank before you drop into the canyon, because the park has no potable water.
Beals Point on Folsom Lake
Folsom Lake is the close foothill reservoir, 18,000 acres in the Sierra foothills off I-80 or Highway 50, and Beals Point is the developed campground on it. There are flush toilets and piped drinking water, and both the standard loop and the hookup loop take vans, so it is a good night to arrive with empty tanks and pull out full. Lake use runs highest from April through September and summer weekends fill, which is what the six-month window is for.
Ice House and the Crystal Basin
When the valley sits in the 90s, the cool overnight is uphill. Ice House Reservoir in the Crystal Basin is up US-50 past Pollock Pines and north on Ice House Road, granite behind the far shore, around 5,500 feet in ponderosa and cedar with no hookups, with a dump station and potable water on site. The season runs roughly from Memorial weekend to mid-October depending on the snow. As of August 2026, Eldorado National Forest is under forest-wide fire restrictions: fires only in the provided rings at developed sites with a host, and a propane stove needs a California campfire permit.
Tahoe, Yosemite, and the wine country
Tahoe and Donner are the other way to beat the valley heat, up over the Sierra crest from the capital, and that trip and its campgrounds live on the Truckee campervan page. Yosemite is a longer run south, and the valley campgrounds are covered on the Yosemite campervan page. West, the Napa and Sonoma wine country makes a day loop with its own overnights on the Sonoma campervan page.
A campervan sleeps two comfortably. If the group needs more berths, the same American River and Folsom trips work in a larger rig, and RV rentals across California cover the bigger classes.