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What campers say

Santee Lakes Recreation Preserve offers well-maintained, family-friendly camping around several stocked lakes. Campsites are described as spacious with full hookups, clean restrooms and showers, and friendly staff. The property has walking and biking trails, playgrounds, pedal boats, fishing, wildlife viewing, a small store and an on-site grill with weekend bands. Practical tradeoffs include limited shade, crowds and parking constraints on weekends or events (paid lots and some distance to sites), occasional noise that prompts staff enforcement, and reports of unreliable Wi‑Fi for remote work. Overall it suits families and casual anglers seeking a tidy, activity-rich lakeside campground.

Our summary of 1,669 traveler reviews.

✅ Amenities & Features

Back-inBathroomsBeachBig RigBikingCableClubhouseDesertDestinationDirtDogsDump StationElectricLakeFamily FriendlyFirepitsFishingFitness RoomFull-hookupsGrassGroupHikingInternetLaundryLong TermMarinaMountain BikingMountainsOpenPadsParkPartial HookupPavedPetsPlaygroundPondPoolPrimitivePublic ParkPublic ParkingPull-InPull-thruRegional ParkScenicSewerShadeShowersStoreSwimmingTentsTouristTrailsTreesUrbanVideoWalking TrailWaterWi-fi

📖 About This Campground

Santee Lakes Recreation Preserve Campground in Santee California offers 300 full and partial hookup campsites which all have WiFi. Popular and well rated park with well kept facilities. The campground is located in the back of the community park with sites placed around multiple loops and lake front. Many trails, playgrounds a large pool area, shower houses plus the surrounding city make this a popular destination for visiting the area or getting away from the daily grind. Large RVs can fit in many of the spots but the lakefront units are only accessible to smaller RVs.

🎥 Videos (1)

Santee Lakes Recreation Preserve Campground Video
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Santee Lakes Recreation Preserve Campground Video

⭐ 2 Reviews⭐⭐⭐⭐ 3.5

starcrwzr

Stayed here two nights at space #165. Site was dirt but fairly level. Some shade from trees. Picnic table has a covered canopy above it. Would have been a nice site except for three things. One was that it was dirty, lots of cigarette butts around and miscellaneous small bits of trash. Hadn't been raked in a long time. Second thing was right next to the dump portal was a tall pipe, maybe ten feet tall, that I assume was a sewer vent. Due to wind and weather, we had a constant smell of raw sewage around our motor home and inside when we had the windows open. Third thing was the ants. Bring lots of Comet or Ajax to put up barriers around every contact point of your RV. Would have asked for another site but the park was full. Will not be back again.

Legacy Reviews

This is a very nice city owned park. It is a water reclamation facility that they have built a RV park around. It is a string of fishing lakes and the top 3 three loops are for RV's. The ground was kind of sandy. The bathrooms and showers were well taken care of; the only problem I had was with the water temp for the showers...not very hot, but hot enough. Good roadways for walking or bike riding around the lakes.