The 3 Best Things about Pio Pico Thousand Trails

We’ve spent a good bit of time at this campground over the past few years, and to us, three perks really stand out.

It’s not the facilities

To be fair, they were working on an upgrade one of the times we were there:

It’s not the staff and their attitudes

Kinda funny that their web site specifically mentions that “all members enjoy the hospitality of the staff.” This is actually the biggest negative about the park, in my personal opinion (and with a little tact we usually get along just fine with even the grouchiest, most arrogant people). 😁

It’s not the pollution in the streams

It’s not seeing kids being snatched from the campground and carried away by Border Patrol

And it’s not the RV sites with no sewer hookups. 💩

The drama and stress 😰 surrounding the whole process of the temporary overnight parking on the north side to sniping a real site on the south side is at best unnecessary, and at times almost unbelievable. It’s in stark contrast to the generally light-hearted hassle of scoring a full hookup site at other places where the supply is limited (like Peace River Thousand Trails).

When looking for a full hookup site, you also do have to watch out for clues that an empty site may be a “leased” site (which are off limits). In most areas of the park, these are somewhat randomly interspersed with all the other sites, and it’s worth double checking to avoid having to pack up and move as soon as they catch you (and they WILL catch you).

Our favorite Pio Pico perks are:

• 🗺️ Location
• 💰 Price
• 🚵 The hill

Location

Pio Pico is so close to so much. You can- in theory- take a strenuous hike to the US/Mexico border 🥵 (6 miles as the crow flies, but not recommended- these hills are crawling and under heavy surveillance).

SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets are visible crossing the sky from here after launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base.

The first time we saw one, we didn’t know what it was, and were honestly a little creeped out. 😬 Pretty awesome after we found out what it actually was (22 new Starlink satellites to improve our coverage, not chemical/biological warfare or whatever). Yes, we’ve watched too many sci-fi movies lately. 😂

It’s a quick and easy 22 miles from Pio Pico to the Pacific Ocean 🏄; 8 miles to the Olympic Training Center 🏋️; 15 miles to Build-a-Bear 🧸 (which our kids love, even though we live in a camper); and just a couple of hours from Al Houghton Stadium if you’re like us and always looking ahead to try to catch some great Little League ⚾ action.

Also sorta related to the location is the beautiful weather- it can get extremely hot and dry in the summer, but it has a fantastic winter/spring/fall climate.

And if you do happen to be there in the infernal months, the pool is pretty nice- the kids can swim while you get some reading in or work done under the comfy poolside canopies.

Price

Gotta be honest- Thousand Trails is very much a mixed bag. But when money IS a factor in your travels, TT is one very handy item in your fulltiming toolbox. 🧰

Before paying off our membership, we thought of it sort of like cheap rent. $150/month came to about $5/night, and covered water, sewer, and unlimited electric. This was really hard to beat, especially when extreme temps rolled around each year. 🥵🥶

After paying off our membership a while back, our dues have been steadily rising 💸, so there’s gotta be a point at which it’s no longer worth it. It still feels like that’s a long way off, though.

The dues cap when you get old. Could we maybe change that to when you FEEL old? 🙏😂

Pio Pico staff (in our experience- which seems to match others’) does try to tag you with fees wherever possible. On our first visit, they tried to say we hadn’t brought the paper slip with our site number back across the road before nightfall. 🤔 Handing the slip back to them was required for them to consider us “properly” checked in, and they charged us $32 for it.

Fortunately at that point in our travels we did tend to document things pretty well (because we were dirt poor). Since we could tell them exactly which staff member had been in the ranger station when we brought the paper slip back, they eventually conceded and glumly reversed the charge.

But in general, if you’re a Thousand Trails member, you can’t beat the price at Pio Pico. 😁

The Hill

We made so many memories on this hill. 😊

It used to be a common place to find people going for cell service (since there’s precious little at Pio Pico without a WeBoost 📵). Since Starlink has become more popular, we don’t really see as many people up here asking “Can you hear me now?” these days.

It’s also a great place to go if you want a nice flyover from a border patrol helicopter. 🚁

But a couple of our favorite activities on the hill are:

Long talks on the rock ledge

…and mountain bike rides down the hill.

This ride/skid/slide experience is such an epic thrill. 🌪️🚵 Starts slow and finishes fast, but check out the tumbles at the end- gotta respect a kiddo that sticks with it, limping and aching, determined to finish strong. 💪🤕🩹♥️

When I was a kid growing up in east Tennessee, we had a hill we called “Thrill Hill”, but I think it’s been dethroned. The video can’t begin to capture the amount of skidding and sliding that takes place in the 2 minutes down.

One thing to keep in mind though- hiking up the hill, even without a bike, is extremely strenuous. 😵💦 So if you have hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) like two of us do, the job of pushing the bike up the hill prior to riding back down will likely push your sugar levels off a cliff…be sure to account for this and take something(s) with you to keep yourself ok. ♥️

Honorable Mention

Gigantic Lizards

I think these are alligator lizards, but they’re much larger than they’re supposed to be (some of these are almost a full 2 feet long).

Sunsets

The sunsets here are often fiery red and orange, so much drama…. 😂

So these were our favorite things about Pio Pico Thousand Trails.

Have you camped here? What was your favorite (or least favorite) thing about this one?