Review Detail

We pulled into this small (no kidding, 6 sites!) park on New Years Day and had only two neighbors. By the end of the week, we had the park all to ourselves. This is one of those hidden gems that would be oversubscribed if it were too perfect. By that, I mean the absence of sewer hookups makes this park just inconvenient enough to keep out the long-term'ers and other less-mobile travelers. For our nimble crew, a few runs down the road to the dump station wasn't so bad... got pretty good at the rapid hookup by the end of the week! Speaking of hookups, I'll echo others' feedback: the hookups are on the wrong side. This seems like a silly design error that could have and still should be quickly remedied, but alas current state is such that the electric/water/cable post is on the side facing away from the road. This means that if you want your door to open onto the scenic views of green pastures and hills you have to run your utilities out and under your rig to the opposite side and incorporate that wired mess into your porch ambiance. We opted instead to face our door to the small roundabout road that makes up the donut-shaped park, made more acceptable by the fact that we also took the one 50A site which abuts the children's playground. Perfect for our small family and our rig that has large roadside windows that we can watch the kiddo play through. Were that not the case or were we more interested in the pasture views, we probably would have done the undercarriage routing. Regarding that 50A service, it worked until it didn't. On day 3, after our first dump run, we plugged back in and found it to be intermittent. After being woken up at 1am by the low battery alarm, we flipped over to 30A and rode out the rest of the trip there. Will report the issue on our way out, but frankly if you're the 50A-or-bust type than his probably isn't the place for you anyway (because you probably need sewer for your dish washer, clothes washer, water feature, lap pool, etc.). Each site is outfitted with a fire pit, picnic tables, and a trash can that's emptied every couple days by the facilities folk. Again, these amenities are on the same side as your utilities pole, so in our case they're on the backside of our trailer and not widely utilized. Still a nice feature, especially that trash can which removes one logistical hurdle in exchange for the lack of sewer. There is also a detached bathroom across the street at the Teen Center / Boys & Girls Club with toilets and sinks; nothing to write home about, but a good backup should you need an extra toilet (or somewhere to dump your liquids from a composting toilet, as is our case). The aforementioned kids playground is also a great feature for families of that age, and in these COVID times we were happy to see that it's sanitized daily by the facilities team. The park is frequented by the local childcare facilities, so our nomadic kiddo had others to play with which was nice. Lastly, some decent trails bring you from the campground around the "lakes" (manmade ponds) and around a small but scenic base. There's a decent coffee shop on base, as well as a pizza joint that we defaulted to one late night. Otherwise you're 15 minutes from Petaluma and all that great town has to offer in terms of dining, services, and entertainment. 20 minutes in the other direction gets you to Tomales and Bodega Bay, beaches and cute beach shops, and some fantastic seafood places. We didn't make it to the wineries, but those are a similar distance to the northeast and make this place a perfect adult getaway. All in all we're very happy we came to TRACEN. It's everything you could want without the crowds!