We are in Southern California for a month.  We have a site.  It has turned out to be pretty nice.  We spent 3 days away from this site, to visit friends who have a park model in El Centro.  The site we got there wasn't anything to take pictures of, but at least it was quiet and had enough space between the rigs

However, next time we come south, we would like to stay in a place that is just as nice as this one, but elsewhere, so today we did a little reconnoitering, down towards San Diego.  We took the big Woodalls book, and, as we had already seen the Palm Springs version of the Sunland Resorts, we looked at three of their places in the San Diego area, Escondido and El Cajon.  

What a disappointment!  None of them have any space between the rigs, all are right on noisy highways, one looked to be full of rigs right out of Christmas Vacation (remember Eddie: "shitter's full Clark"), a place old rigs go to die.

How am I going to find a place my wife will want to go to if those were the best that San Diego has to offer.  How many other places are worse than SD for selection?

How do you guys find a decent site?

Like many other folks we use http://www.rvparkreviews.com/ for recommendations if we've never been to an area before. We gave up on Woodalls a long time ago; IMHO the reviews there are heavily influenced by the amount of advertising a CG purchases.  Furthermore, most listings in Woodalls are simply based on a checklist, for example, is there a swimming pool? a game room? etc.  In other words, the ratings are based on having specific amenities, not on their quality or the overall quality of the CG.  

It's not that RVParkReviews is perfect; you often have to read between the lines to figure out if a CG got a "1" because someone couldn't get the wifi to work or if there was a real issue.  But we've never been burned by going to a CG with average reviews of ~7 or more.  Nothing beats actually seeing a place before you pay for a site, but that isn't always possible.  Our reservations in Port Aransas this winter are at a CG that we spent two weeks at in the Spring.  It still doesn't mean we'll like it for the winter, but at least we had a chance to explore our options.  I wouldn't say that the CG we chose is ideal, but it was the best compromise we could find in that area and that's where we wanted to spend the winter.

Joel:

Good to see that on the site you suggested, the first reviewer of the Sunland "Vacationer" park "left within the first hour of setting up".  My impressions not that different.  The reviewer of the park we are in seems to be right on as well.

Keith--

IMHO the best reviews on RVParkReviews are those that provide a decent explanation of the reasons for the rating given.  That way I can decide if the "problems noted" are germane to us.  For example, since we don't use CG bathrooms and rarely use the laundry comments about either are largely irrelevant other than as indicators of the overall condition of the CG.  

Also, some folks get so torqued off about little things that they give extremely low scores to places for reasons that strike me as downright silly.  There was one review of a beautiful CG in Grand Teton National Park in which the reviewer was totally incensed that the stupid trees blocked his satellite TV reception and there wasn't any over-the-air reception for his antenna.  In my subsequent review I suggested that IMHO the reason for going to a National Park wasn't to watch TV (although we did get satellite reception there, even though we had to settle for SD rather than HD)  

But, all things considered, it is the most reliable guide to CG's that I have found.  A big plus is that it gives fair treatment to government CG's (federal, state, local) which are virtually ignored by Woodalls (since they don't buy advertising).

Joel

Ask on the Forum helps.
Try Chula Vista RV Resort and San Diego KOA Campground.  We have had rallies in both.

Larry

I have to agree with Joel on RV review.com  I use it all the time and find that, for the most part, it's pretty reliable.  Still, there are times when we use Woodalls also.  If we're just overnighting, then we have a fairly high tolerance for pain but Pat does keep a pretty good log book and we make note on the parks as well as spaces that we like.  If we see and interesting park enroute, Pat make an entry and we look into later.

On the other hand, if we're staying put for awhile than we might "park shop" in the vacintiy and see if we like anything better...after all we are mobile.

http://www.rvparkreviews.com/ works for us

We use RV park reviews. Then we use Google maps and find the RV park. Then use satellite view. You can see what's around the CG, how the CG is laid out, how big the spaces are, where the trees are, etc. Occasionally there is the little man you can move to the street and see a ground view of the CG from the main road. We also call the CG the day before or the day of our arrival to make sure there are spaces.

Usually all of the above works to keep us out of not so nice parks. But sometimes it happens you just get a poor park. You can always just leave and not stay at the CG but then you have to find some where else to stay. Even in some run down parks we have never been hassled or bothered by the management or other campers/seasonals/permanents.

One of our problems is we do genealogy. Some places we want to do research are not destination recreation areas so CGs are limited. We have stayed in some unusual places like local mobile home parks, fairgrounds, Elks/Moose lodges. Again we have never had a problem.

Also for local attractions, etc. I google the city name with the word attraction or restaurants, etc. Many of these towns now have websites as do many restaurants. You can even see the menu of the restaurants which is a great help in deciding where to eat. I also use http://www.tripadvisor.com. They have attractions, restaurants, etc and have users evaluate those things. I find trip advisor a very useful tool.
                  
Connie B.

I would be very suspect of the reviews in RV Parks/review.  If it has any negative comments they won"t post the review.  This happened to me when trying to submit a review on a KOA campground in the Santa Cruz/Watsonville area of CA.  They refused to accept my review, because I mentioned their outrageous rates, the damage done to my paint on both the coach and toad from the drip off from trees/bushes and the kids running around thru others sites and playing in the streets making almost impossible to hitch and unhitch.

I have used RVparkreviews and had very good experience so far.  I also contribute my posts to the site, with accurate information (positive OR negative).   Most of the places we have stayed were very accurately described by others (after removing the obvious flames).

I have not any problems posting a negative rating.  In particular, I recall posting a negative rating for the KOA in Pine Island, FL - which was published without question.  Again, the post provided accuratly supported, non-emotional information that I belive would be valuable to others in making their decision to stay there.

From what I understand, all the reviews are read by the website moderators rather than auto-posted.  Sometimes it takes a few days for the review to appear.  For those that had any problems posting there review, perhaps you could email RVparkreviews and ask what issues they had with the review.

All in all, for a free service, I think they do a very good job.

Jim

We have also had good and poor reviews posted without changes. We do describe problems in detail.

My first "go-to-directory" is Good Sam Directory.  I think it is a better reference and more accurate than any other.  I also consult the Big Rigs Best Bets.  However they are limited in number sites they have inspected.

Leah:

thanks for the suggestions.

As a quick test, I went to both sites, to look at their ratings for the scuzziest site I have seen to date, as described above.
Good Sam gives it a 9.5/9/6.5, which looks to me like a pretty good rating. Big rigs, would have me pay $25 for their book or website access before I could check their accuracy.  
I expect more form Good Sam, and they probably do a better job on a lot of sites, but that, being a sample of one, tells me that GS can't be relied upon for an accurate idea of what to expect at a site.

We find that Good Sam Directory tends to over rate CGs. We do buy it to use along with RV park reviews website, Passport America Guide, Elks Lodge guides, Days End Guide, etc.

We have not had any trouble putting in both positive or negative reviews with RV park reviews. What we like about this site is that sometimes we find a CG that is not listed any where else.

No one site or book has it all. So we use a combination of sources when looking for CGs.

Connie makes a very good point.  There doesn't seem to be any single source that lists all CG's.  We also use several sources, including RVParkreview, Passport, Woodall's, as well as state and federal park guides/websites.  

I'm confident that even with all of these sources, there are still many CG's that are overlooked.

One thing I like about RVparkrevies is that it is collection of acutal camper based reviews and that as such should have no real agenda other than presenting actual experiences.  My thinking is that other sources that accept paid advertising may have a conflict of interest posting negative information about a paid advertiser.

Jim