It’s the divid­ing line between youth and age. It was about 63 degrees at the beach where we camped at a near­by Pis­mo Beach RV park. A sharp wind made me wish I could retract my head into my body like a tur­tle. At the same time, my boys, 10 and 12, jumped through crash­ing waves, chal­leng­ing each oth­er to bel­ly flops into the ocean. No wet­suits. I remem­bered doing that when I was their age and it made me smile to see them so care­free. It was­n’t just that I had become more attached to the warmth of my body, it was also that the world had changed.

Gone are the days of sip­ping Mai Tais on warm sand drip­ping into the blue water of the Pacif­ic Ocean. Wait­ers, who would hov­er near­by, ready to refresh liba­tions at your posh beach­front resort. Hope­ful­ly, we can do that soon again, but in the mean­time, fam­i­lies can still have their beach adven­ture through safe fam­i­ly RV road trips up the Cal­i­for­nia Coast.  And lucky us! Since the coast of Cal­i­for­nia only has one sea­son, with tem­per­a­tures that fluc­tu­ate about 20 degrees through the months, a week­end away any­time is just as good as a week at the Pis­mo Beach camp­ing site, Pis­mo Coast Vil­lage RV Resort.

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The Video

Set in-between San Diego and San Fran­cis­co, Pis­mo Coast Vil­lage RV Resort is per­fect for a Los Ange­les week­end beach trip. Immac­u­late­ly cared for by staff, the camp­sites pro­vide those essen­tial full hook-ups to make any glamp­ing trip com­fort­able. The Pis­mo Coast Vil­lage RV Resort is walk­ing dis­tance to a long sand beach, crash­ing waves, and a pier filled with laid-back restau­rants, bars, and small-town shops.

What a View © Rina Nehdar

Our fam­i­ly took our very first RV road trip, in the trav­el trail­er we bought and fig­ured out how to use, to Pis­mo Coast Vil­lage RV Resort, which host­ed our stay. A big thank you to them and to GoRVing.com who made the arrange­ments. GoRVing.com has tons of tips to buy, rent or plan your fam­i­ly RV trip.

The Campsites

We arrived at our site in the dark. That was­n’t part of the plan but we had to be flex­i­ble with the day, just like we’ve had to accept the unex­pect­ed since March. Still, we made it and that lit­tle thrill went a long way. 

Our camp­site, #10, faced a lagoon where we heard birds call­ing to each oth­er from what seemed like the Late Juras­sic era into our cur­rent Holocene era. Fes­tive bush­es threw their leaves into the air and green abound­ed on the water’s edge. 

Pale­on­tol­o­gists or beach bums? © Rina Nehdar

The lagoon is per­fect for young explor­ers to spot those giant migrat­ing birds and an assort­ment of crit­ters. Each camp­site has a pic­nic table and a fire pit and, as I men­tioned before, full-hook ups. Full hook-ups means you could pow­er all the elec­tri­cal things in your RV with­out wor­ry­ing about drain­ing the bat­tery. You could also take long, hot show­ers and use your toi­let to your heart’s con­tent. Full hook-ups means you could drain the grey water (show­er, dish­wa­ter) and the black water (toi­let) from the hold­ing tanks of your RV with­out leav­ing your camp­site. It takes just a few min­utes to com­plete the process. You also con­nect your RV to their fresh­wa­ter sup­ply so you have ample, clean water at all times for that show­er. Though you prob­a­bly want a good water fil­ter if you’re going to drink it because it’s still tap water. 

City Kid: Have Walkie Talkie Will Camp © Rina Nehdar

Each site also comes with com­pli­men­ta­ry WiFi and cable. We did­n’t use the cable because we sat by the camp­fire at night and played games but we did post to social media because, OMG, we’re final­ly at the beach!

That water is chilly! © Howard Nehdar

We had bought a big mat to col­lect the dirt we antic­i­pat­ed would make its way from our site into our trav­el trail­er but it was rocks that cov­ered the camp­site ground so that min­i­mized the amount of par­ti­cles that made their way inside. 

Still worked © Rina Nehdar

The camp­ground has three access points to the beach and all the camp­sites are a short walk from any. When you make your reser­va­tion, you’ll tell them how big your vehi­cle is and they’ll put you where you fit. Here’s a Pis­mo Coast Vil­lage map of the camp­ground so you could angle for the best loca­tion but real­ly, you can’t go wrong. 

Our favorite path © Rina Nehdar

Our site was close to a gaze­bo and small grassy area. Per­fect for a mom to stretch her body, or do some yoga, before tak­ing on the needs of every­one else in the family.

Mom­my Zen © Rina Nehdar

Also, because of the COVID sit­u­a­tion, they are offer­ing online check-ins so you can min­i­mize your inter­ac­tion with oth­er peo­ple and breeze right in.

The Campground

When they bill them­selves as a resort, they’re not kid­ding. They have a restau­rant that serves Hap­py Hour and also deliv­ers to your camp­site. The Pis­mo Coast Vil­lage Grill is open for out­door din­ing dur­ing this pan­dem­ic and the fresh ocean air is won­der­ful­ly punc­tu­at­ed by the smell of cook­ing meat waft­ing from their large out­door grill.

There is a Recre­ation Cen­ter that orga­nizes games and con­tests for the kids. They have a cos­tume con­test for pets! There is mini-golf and a bas­ket­ball court and a heat­ed swim­ming pool! There’s a horse­shoe court. There is a bike rental ser­vice where you can rent one of those fun sur­reys too. 

Sur­rey for That!

There is an arcade but I did­n’t want to break the boys’ hearts by telling them because it was closed due to COVID. Most of the ameni­ties are closed right now because of COVID but the swim­ming pool is still open, you just have to bring your own lounge chairs. We did­n’t get the memo and just sat on the ground. 

Wing­ing It © Rina Nehdar

It was fine. The boys played in the water. There was a group of kids play­ing games togeth­er like kids do.

A pool day is a good day © Rina Nehdar

There is also a laun­dry facil­i­ty (still open) and a gen­er­al store (open) that has a sur­pris­ing amount of things you’d nev­er expect in a small camp­ground store. Like all those things you for­got to buy before your trip in your RV.

There is a time­share option for this camp­ground which seems like a pret­ty good idea if you like beach camp­ing since the sec­ond we told friends how awe­some the loca­tion is, they tried to book a reser­va­tion for the next month and could­n’t because it was already sold out.

Check the Pis­mo Coast Vil­lage RV Resort Face­book page for the most cur­rent updates on COVID restrictions.

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Our Experience

Please remem­ber we are new to RV camp­ing so don’t laugh when I tell you how I kept set­ting off the smoke alarm in our trav­el trail­er the first time I made break­fast. Not once, but many times. An ear-split­ting sick­ly wail cut­ting through the morn­ing calm. We final­ly just pulled the intru­sive alarm off the ceil­ing. Yes, we opened the win­dows and turned on the stove vent. It did­n’t help. I kept look­ing out the win­dow at our neigh­bors’ sites to see if they could hear us and call­ing in the fire depart­ment. I was so embarrassed.

Break­fast out of the way, we start­ed every day with a walk to the beach. Before we head­ed out, the boys biked around the camp­grounds like a pack of wild kids. This is one of my favorite things about camp­ing. Because of the sit­u­a­tion world­wide, they did­n’t meet oth­er kids as eas­i­ly as they typ­i­cal­ly would. On vaca­tions in gen­er­al, kids meet their best friends in an after­noon but on camp­ing trips, they also get to have adven­tures like the kind kids have in movies. Climb­ing trees, raid­ing oth­er kid’s club­hous­es, get­ting dirty. 

Our Dai­ly Trek © Rina Nehdar

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We brought our walkie-talkies and I taught the boys how to say “over” when they were done speak­ing into them. I felt like a girl scout. They loved the sense of free­dom they sud­den­ly got. They rode their bikes every­where. They ran errands to the gen­er­al store. They found a baby rat near the gaze­bo and ached about res­cu­ing it since its moth­er was­n’t around. These are not my chil­dren. My chil­dren are scared of flies and spi­ders. They would nev­er come near an ail­ing rat. Yet, here they were.

The best part was the beach. Get­ting such easy access, we went mul­ti­ple times each of the three days we spent there. The boys chal­lenged each oth­er to take the short­cut across the lagoon. 

Pio­neer­ing © Rina Nehdar

Kaleb and Howard surfed one day while Knox and I raid­ed a can­dy store on the near­by pier for a snack. We pranked Kaleb by buy­ing him a lol­lipop with a crick­et trapped inside.

Under the Pier Hap­py Dance! © Rina Nehdar

Sad­ly, the sand dunes at Pis­mo Beach are closed now due to COVID but read  Pis­mo Beach: Fam­i­ly Fun! about the thrill you can have when they reopen!

We’d eat din­ner out­side every night and make s’ mores after­ward. I baked cook­ies in the oven to get that cozy smell. Howard and I talked late into the night and slept sound­ly with the sound of crash­ing waves. Peo­ple were unusu­al­ly qui­et for a camp­ground in the morn­ing there (except for those that set off their smoke alarms), so we slept in a cou­ple times. After endur­ing so much of 2020, we real­ly need­ed it. For a few days, we got to dis­con­nect from the mad­ness and find com­fort in the most sim­ple of things. Each other. 

(And the beach).

When You Go

Pis­mo Beach is about a three-hour dri­ve from Los Ange­les on the US 101‑N. Easy.

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