well off the beathen path

California is the most epic place to live for those who love the outdoors and camp often. Terrain can be extreme like the vast deserts and higher elevation mountains. Moderate elevation forest, mountains and rural regions, such as river canyons in the gold country and Northern California. Mild and mellow landscape w/ developed campgrounds along the coast and near the urban centers. The weather is always decent somewhere in the golden state. Deserts are prime areas for wintertime camping, off-roading, old mines and ghost towns, as well as early Spring wildflowers. Wine country camping , farm-stays and recreation reservoirs are abundant all around the Central Valley and areas north of San Francisco. Coastal and beach camping is the most popular and sought-after destinations, so make your reservations if you want a guarantee spot. City camping is primarily offered by State Parks, county parks, regional parks and private RV resorts. California mountains are the place to be in the

Lotsa mid-western transplants typing in Google "Southern California Lakes". Well campers, I hate to break it to ya, but California has mostly reservoirs. Man-made lakes & river dams to supply our cities & crops with valuable water. The few more natural lakes in Southern California - Henshaw , Hemet , Cuyamaca nearly dry up in late summer. California is a dry state, the whole west for that matter. Face it, inland San Diego is almost a desert. It's right next to Baja & Anza Borrego Desert . If you wanna see clear mountain water, with trees, maybe pine forest views & hear bluebirds... with big rivers flowing & decent fishing, then you are gonna need to drive. When the crowds at Big Bear & Arrowhead annoy you, then the plan B is obvious. Drive further. Drive north, about half way up the Golden State Freeway I #5. About 6 hours from the busy hub of SoCal. For recreation lakes, alpine lakes, real lakes in California. The Sierra Nevada mountains

This is the term, the key phrase, the #1 thing campers & RVers type into search engines to find the Total Escape web site, the independent travel site of the back roads and California Wilderness. We used to be the very first listing on Google for the phrase "California Camping", ahead of the State Park system , the National Forests , the KOA's. Why ? Because I was here first, DanaMite on the world wide web, with Total Escape way back in 1996... pre-Y2K, pre-9/11. With modern web marketing, SEO and search algorithms changing we have slipped off this tip top mountain peak, but we still have a big following of outdoor enthusiasts. The web industry calls it 'organic searches' or 'grandfathered into the system'. Yippee! I have the content to prove it, now let's get this mega California A to Z database rollin' baby ! Total Escape was here before digital cameras, before hi-speed, before YouTube, before social media, before the GPS, and bef