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    Sweetwater Summit Campground

    3.2 (83 reviews)
    Closed 8:00 am - 7:00 pm
    Updated over 3 months ago

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    Recommended Reviews - Sweetwater Summit Campground

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    Our campsite
    Jill H.

    Loved it ...close enough to San Diego and not overpriced , Will be back soon dowish they would open all the broken shower and restrooms

    Sabrina V.

    It's a nice camp ground and very inexpensive. Close to the highway and located right next to the regional park/reservoir. Campsites have new electric outlets, ground is dirt/gravel and you're not allowed to put up hammocks. Other than that, it's decent for a few nights. Especially when you're on a budget. They recently expanded it and built some new loops, which look very good. They even have some educational events happening at the amphitheater.

    $1 for 4 tokens.  2 is plenty if you like longer showers and need to shave 3 tokens.  Hot water isn't an issue
    Kathleen C.

    Have reservations for the 4th and received a call stating we have to move sites or cancel due to renovations. They are redoing the premium sites... removing the 7 premium sites and making 21/27 regular sites

    Brock B.

    Very helpful staff, free day use parking to hike, and access to tons of great trails.

    Robert H.

    Beautiful camp ground overlooking the city of Bonita. And in San Diego Airport's flight path it was awesome watching the planes. We also saw some of the air show at Miramar from out site. Our site (#127) was very level. They rake the dirt at the sites it was very clean. Our spot had a fire pit and a picnic table. Only problem we had with our site was the last person used powdered comet/Ajax as bug deterrent. What a mess! We tried to sweep it up no luck with that. We ended up hosing rear of site down so we didn't track it into our rv's back door. We also didn't want our dog getting into it! In todays times of bug sprays I just don't know why trashing the place with powder is still allowed. This camp ground has clean bathrooms, trails to explore, a day use area with gazebos, picnic tables, a splash pad to play at. Great place!

    Foxtails growing wild everywhere. look how gross this site is! Just weeds. So beautiful...
    McKaela S.

    My boyfriend and I were so excited to camp at Sweetwater. The reviews were relatively okay, and I did an insane amount of research to make sure we had everything we needed. It was one of the last campgrounds that still had sites available at such short notice (one week) so I decided to book it. When we arrived, we were a little underwhelmed by the campground. First, everything is extremely dry (as to be expected for San Diego - but this was even more so) - everything was yellow and dead. There were no pretty mountains, no pretty rolling hills, just view of highways and dead prairie. When you go camping you want to have pretty view, feel like you're away in nature, but this wasn't the case here. Immediately I was a little bummed, but thought we would ride it out and just make it fun regardless. When we got to our site, we got a little more upset. First, the site directly to the left was what we believed to be someone who actually just lived full-time on the campground, which is totally fine but they had not cared for their site and it looked like a straight up salvage yard. There was a car directly off the camp road on the site that was completely totaled, just sitting there. It was the strangest thing. Also, we had a random sewer at our site and on the other side of our site was another person who lived there full time, drunk and scream singing at the top of his lungs. Awesommme. Still, we thought whatever it'd be a funny story. THEN I looked down and saw swarms of ants. Everywhere. Disgusting. It's camping, I know there are going to be bugs, but this campground has a legit problem. They were crawling everywhere and I knew the second we put down food on the picnic table to eat or put a tent down they'd be crawling all over all of our things. Gross. To make matters worse, there were wild Foxtails surrounding the entire site. Growing about 3 feet high. This place was not cared for, it was just full of weeds and bugs. Foxtails are a concern when you have dogs, especially our two English Bulldogs because the foxtails can get burrowed into the skin, throat, ears and mouth and cause an immense amount of pain and even require surgery to remove them. With these blowing around everywhere, we didn't even think another second. We just packed back up our site and left. The cherry on top of the cake was the fact that the rangers didn't seem to care one bit about the disgusting state of the campsite and wouldn't give us a refund for the $34 we paid and refused to apologize. Awesome! Guess you'll just get another horrible review of your awful campground you care nothing about and proof of how terrible it is from someone in marketing who you really should've been a bit nicer to. Hopefully this serves as a warning to any future campers, just don't go here. San Diego has too many beautiful campgrounds to choose from to go here.

    The view
    Jeremiah B.

    Decent showers but you need to get tokens. A little water park for the kids and trails for everyone. Roadrunners, bunnies and squirrels are everywhere out here

    Nadine T.

    We came to Sweetwater Summit Park before to bring our kids to the splash park which they loved, but had never camped yet... until a few days ago, we finally spent the night! We reserved our campsite online. The site seemed a little bit outdated but it was still easy to navigate and make our reservations without any problems. What I loved most about it was that they provided a picture of every single campsite lot for you to preview it. Each lot seemed to have at least 1 tree for enough shade to cover a tent, which is always nice. We arrived at 10am. We were told check-in is only at 2pm, but since our lot was empty they allowed us to go in which we were pretty thankful! Later that day, I returned to the gate to buy some campfire wood. The person told us they'd deliver it to our site. Cool. Fast forward to when we actually wanted to start a fire.. Still no wood. I went back to check what was up. It was a different person, but he apologized and promptly delivered the wood to site. No problem. I slice the bag open. Earwigs. Everywhere. The wood was infested with them. I probably looked pretty silly kicking the wood around, but hey. What's camping without encountering bugs right? .. I guess. (Encountered more while undoing the tent but that's another story). Other than that.. I do want to mention that the bathrooms weren't very clean, to say the least, but I've seen worse. My oldest, 4, potty trained was too scared to use the toilets, but luckily we brought his little portable one just in case. Overall... The park was pretty clean. Great spot to bring the kids, especially first time campers since you're not too far out of the city, which is perfect. It also seems to be one of the cheapest place around (so far) in the area that I've found. (34$ for a tent lot) We'll definitely be coming again!!

    Dani S.

    We love it here. Every time we're in town, we try to stay here. Nice large sites. Affordable. Only draw backs are 21-day limit and the occasional rattlesnake. Full and partial hookup sites. Weekends fill up pretty fast.

    Hall was nice, especially the patio!
    Dan P.

    Nice place for a union mixer. The hall is small but beautiful thanks to the lake views!

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    Page 1 of 3

    Ask the Community - Sweetwater Summit Campground

    Any swimming areas?

    Splash Pad for kids next to playground

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    Review Highlights - Sweetwater Summit Campground

    cs. You can also rent out the pavilion, which is near the amphitheater and in the upper lo

    Mentioned in 3 reviews

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    Sweetwater Summit Regional Park - View from our camp spot

    Sweetwater Summit Regional Park

    3.9(54 reviews)
    0.1 mi

    Coming to this location for a family hike was a great decision. We have had a very trial ridden…read morepast three weeks and we needed some time to get away for a special hike. When you approach this area, you can easily be misdirected to the county regional park. To avoid this before you go up the hill to the entrance of the county regional park make a right into the driveway that shows the Sweetwater Reservoir. Once you get in there, you will go along a long dirt road to a parking lot that is eventually located next to the Reservoir fishing area. It is a beautiful trail and it's wonderful to be able to walk around the water and see ducks and birds and other wildlife as well as beautiful plants like Manzanita and chaparral. It is a wonderful trail hike, with beautiful and refreshing wind and sunshine. They have Porta potties that are super clean and well-maintained. I would say the porta potties are about a half a mile apart. They also have a bench with an overlook platform along the trail, and everything that we encountered seem to be very clean and well maintained. We will definitely visit this place again and it is definitely a wonderful place to hike. We were able to get out and started to explore the trail and after about 15 minutes, we realized that there was a Ranger honking at us with his siren coming around the bend. He made his way up to us in his truck and indicated that he would be closing the gate to the park in the next five minutes. We told him that we were told by the Park Ranger at the SD County Park check in booth that this trail closes at 8 PM tonight. He then said that we were not the only family to tell him that but that the Sweetwater Reservoir Trail Park actually closes at 5 PM because it's not a part of the SD County Regional Parks; they close at 8p. We rushed back to our vehicle, which was about a mile and a half away and we were able to get in and leave. We were very lucky that this Park Ranger decided to wait for us because we would've been locked into four or five gates and not able to actually get out of the park, even to get an Uber. This was great to understand and know so that when we go next time, we'll go a lot earlier before 5 PM.

    I was in the Bonita community earlier this summer and wanted to do a medium length hike, A search…read moreresult came back with this trail at the Sweetwater Summit Regional Park. The staff member at the guard station indicated that I could use the day lot to park my vehicle since I was only hiking and not camping on the grounds. The path was pretty well maintained, but it also doubled as a horseback riding trail so occasionally one would have to dodge the mounds of dung left behind. Sweetwater Reservoir was off to the north of the trail. That body of water gave a nice scenic backdrop. The trek was up and down the foothills before looping back towards the start for a total of just over five miles. I expected to see more mountain bikers because the contours and breaks were conducive for that type of cycling without being too strenuous. There was no shade except for a hut at the peak of the hike. Sunscreen, sunglasses, a hat, and plenty of water were a must during the daytime. I would rate this hike as moderate because there were a couple of spots where the ascent did make one breathe much harder than usual. My overall rating for this trek was between three and four stars.

    Photos
    Sweetwater Summit Regional Park - Beautiful

    Beautiful

    Sweetwater Summit Regional Park - Sunset at my safe haven.

    Sunset at my safe haven.

    Sweetwater Summit Regional Park

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    Explorer Park

    Explorer Park

    4.1(17 reviews)
    3.3 mi

    Nice open park, with two playgrounds. One is for older kids with lots of things to climb on and two…read moreswings. The tot playground is still decent for younger kids. Ample room to run around, play soccer or basketball on the court. There is. A nice track/sidewalk that goes around the loop. Only downside, no bathrooms.

    7/19/23 First time here, looking for a place to walk my dog that is cool and shady amidst this…read morepending heatwave! Here are my first impressions... Pros: *YES!!! Lots of shade and cool at around 5p in July! *Not terribly crowded when we walked here...hidden gem! *Good sized grassy area to set up sports practice, have a picnic, or rest awhile...when I was here there was a kids soccer camp with just 2 groups of kiddos CONS: *Cobwebs in the drinking fountain near the playground...bring your own water! (See picture) *Cobwebs in the doggie poo bag dispenser....please remember to bring your own bags and pick up after your pup! (See picture) NOTES: *Yelp map does not take you to the park....it takes you about 0.5 miles past to a random intersection. (See pictures) After posting this review, I will let Yelp know. Use directions from the CV Parks & Rec website instead (https://www.chulavistaca.gov/departments/public-works/parks/locations-features-amenities-photos/explorer-park) *I didn't see a parking lot...I parked on the street as did others. Parking was not a problem when I was here. Can't say for sure on holidays.

    Photos
    Explorer Park
    Explorer Park
    Explorer Park

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    Sweetwater Summit Campground - parks - Updated September 2026

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