An overnight on the east side of Pinnacles National Park comes with California condors circling the rock spires above your campsite. The campground spreads across an oak-dotted flat below the spires, and the loops have regular traffic of their own, wild turkeys in the morning and deer along the edges. Park a motorhome here for a week and the kids will be keeping count of all three by the second day.
Spring is the park's peak, when the hills around the campground go green, wildflowers line the trails and half the Bay Area wants the same weekend. Summer is hot on that flat. Fall and winter are quieter, with the same spires and fewer people on the trails.
From San Jose the drive runs south to CA-25 and in at the east entrance, and that's the side the rig stays on. There's no road connecting the east and west entrances, so the west side is its own trip by its own road. A week here means parking once, spending mornings on foot up among the spires and getting back to camp before the afternoon heat.
Pinnacles Campground on the east side
The whole trip hangs on one campground, so book the campsite first and the rig second. Pinnacles Campground is open year-round with electric RV sites, and the electric site is the one worth having. It runs the air conditioner through the hottest part of the afternoon, when the trails are best left alone, and the evening walk starts once the rock cools.
The hookup is electric only, so water is the thing to plan around. Leave San Jose with a full fresh tank and empty holding tanks, then use the dump station for registered guests on your last morning. If you're stretching the trip, Mount Madonna's water-and-electric loop is the reset on the drive back north.
Mount Madonna's redwoods, between the valley and Monterey Bay
Mount Madonna County Park puts the rig on a ridge under redwoods, with the Santa Clara Valley below on one side and Monterey Bay on the other. It's a weekend habit for plenty of San Jose families, and an easy first night when you leave for Pinnacles late on a Friday. It also works as a parked week of its own, with the days spent on the redwood trails and the views off the ridge.
The Valley View RV loop has water and electric hookups, a dump station and crushed-rock pads. There are no gates to beat, so a late departure from town works as long as you pull in by 10 pm.
Two more county parks have RV loops of their own. Sanborn County Park, up in the Santa Cruz Mountains above Saratoga, has paved sites and gates that close at sunset, so time the drive for daylight. Coyote Lake - Harvey Bear Ranch, at the south end of the valley, has paved sites and a dump station.
All three county loops take rigs up to 30 feet long, so if yours runs longer, or the trip is just the two of you, the San Jose campervan page covers the smaller-rig trips out of the city, including Henry W. Coe State Park and a beach night at New Brighton.