Despite decay from its heyday, the Salton Sea still retains a unique charm. The campground is basically a parking lot with hookups, but serves as a great home base to explore the area including other attractions such as Dos Palmas, the San Andreas Oasis, and Painted Canyon. It's sad that the campgrounds and other site improvements are still slated for closure, even with a concerted efforts by dedicated volunteers to save it. We thoroughly enjoyed our 2 week stay and would return were that possible. We camped here in a Fifth Wheel.

I concur with the previous reviews. This is a nice little campground across a parking lot from the Salton Sea. No playground. No pool. I don't know if they had showers as we used the one in our motorhome. You park on asphalt between small trees but, although they provide nice shade, they are not tall enough to block satellite reception. Heavily used RR track across the street - one train every 20 or 30 minutes. The lake smell referred to in other posts was not bad during our stay - reminded me of the smell at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. Great bird watching. This is a nice park if you don't need anything other than a parking pad, hook ups and a great view of the lake. One other thing: They do take reservations if you do it more than 2 days in advance. Otherwise spots are on a space available basis and you have to renew every day. By the way - about 4 miles south on Hwy 111 is another State Park where you can dry camp right on the edge of the lake for $8 a night. No trees, no shade, no services - nothing. It's perfect. We would have stayed there had we known about it before we got settled in. We would stay here again or maybe dry camp. Either way is pleasant. We camped here in a Motorhome.

Simply a line of 15 full hook up sites with shielding palm trees between, along the back of a huge blacktop parking lot, with the Salton Sea across the way. Even though there are frequent trains close by and constant bugs and lake smell, the park has a nice feel to it. There is great birding is only a few feet away. We would return. We camped here in a Fifth Wheel.

This was our maiden voyage in our RV. We stayed overnight and left the campsite before 10 AM to go to the visitor center. The camp hosts and other volunteers were very knowledgeable, friendly and helpful. You could tell that they cared about the sea and the state park. We didn't want to use our restroom so we used the park facilities exclusively. Fortunately for us, the restrooms and showers were clean and neat. Side note: even though there was a recent fish kill, the area does not smell like dead fish. Due to the high salinity, the fish just desiccate. We camped here in a Motorhome.

This campground is 1.5 miles south of Headquarters Camp and is developed (i.e., paved, with picnic tables, fire rings, flush toilets and solar showers) but no hookups. There is a nice 1.5-mile trail to the Visitor's Center. Sites face right onto the lake. We thoroughly enjoyed our 2-night stay. The birds and sunsets were incredible! And the camp hosts very nice and very competent, too, as the restrooms and place in general was very well kept. A few things you should know when visiting this CG (or the few hookup sites at HQ camp, or the primitive camping spots right on the water a few miles further south). You need to be able to tune out the VERY noisy (and frequent) freight trains that pass by right next to the park. Once that's done, you also need to know that the Salton Sea can be quite odoriferous when the algae blooms and there is a fish die off. Pee-yoo! But the stunning setting with the millions of winter migrating birds makes it worthwhile. And $20 is a heckuva bargain in overpriced CA state parks these days. We camped here in a Motorhome.

There are two sections to the Headquarters Campground. The full hookup section consists of 15 sites in a row on asphalt, with a tree between each site. There is a loop with 25 other sites. One of these is occupied by a park host. Three of the remaining 24 sites have water and 30 amp power. The other 21 sites have no hookups, although water faucets are distributed around the campground. Sites in this loop are all big enough for 40' rigs, and some get good afternoon shade from the mature trees. You park parallel with the loop road, adjacent to your ramada, mostly two or three sites in each pullout. Generator hours are very restrictive in this park: 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM. We like this campground as a place to spend a week watching the huge variety of birds here. If the wind is wrong, it can really stink, though, due to fish die-offs and natural organic processes in this man-made sea. There are other campgrounds in the Salton Sea State Recreation Area. Some are beachside undeveloped sites for $7/night. We camped here in a Motorhome.

We were here in October; we practically had the campground to ourselves, which I loved. There were two other campers. It was a very peaceful setting; camping is in the back of the parking lot, and the Salton Sea is in front, accross the lot. Each site has a small tree; the restrooms were being remodeled, so we couldn't use them. The rangers were very pleasant.There is a dump station. We camped here in a Travel Trailer.

This place is not for everyone, and is very hot in the summer. No real shade, pretty windy and not much to do. That being said, do come in the winter when the sea is home to many water birds (herons, pelicans, egrets, etc). Rangers at the visitor's center very nice. There are shade ramadas in the day use section - between your site and the sea is a large asphalt parking lot. I tried fishing in the sea, didn't catch anything. A good place to come and relax and watch the birds, not much else out here. We camped here in a Travel Trailer.