Portola Redwoods State Park Campground

This was a wonderful state park and campground. Beautiful forest, creeks, waterfall. Perfect weather for end of July - not too hot and not too cold. I am giving it 4 stars for 3 reasons. 1) The road to the park is very narrow and curvy, but they do warn you about that ahead of time. 2) The park is very hilly. Our campsite (#40) was uphill from the restroom and a lot of the trails are hilly. But we still enjoyed the hiking and got our exercise! 3) Because of the location and curvy road, there aren't really things to do nearby except hiking in the park and wading in the creeks. It looks close to the coast, but no easy access. The creeks are really small and shallow and good for wading, but not swimming. We were there for 3 nights. We enjoyed the hikes, especially to the waterfall

Campsite #44. The campsite is shaded, somewhat secluded, but not much space although enough for two people. Other sites we have seen have more room some are the same. The park itself is beautiful, peaceful with nice visitor center/museum/gift shop. We hiked to the waterfall, which was our highlight of the trip. Check out an old tree trail as well then head to the waterfall. All together is 3 miles long. Minus 1 star for people who can’t keep it quite after 10pm quite hour. Please respect the rules and know that in wilderness places the sound is much more pronounced than in bustling cities where noise level is already high.

This is the best park in the bay, imho. More old growth ecosystems than anywhere else except maybe big basin and no one is here.

Don't forget to pre-plan and reserve your site in advance. Loved this campground. Hiked to the waterfall was beautiful with many banana slugs roaming around.

Kid friendly hikes, 6 and almost 3 year old loved the small hike down to the creeks. Flowing with plenty of rainfall water. You can spot small fish swimming through the creek.