Davy Brown Campground
1Heads up1 fire 48 mi away
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- OpenThe agency lists it open
- A night
- $30From, per site
- Sites
- 13All of them booked ahead
- Season
- January 1 – December 31Open January 1 through December 31
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 15 notices
In the agency’s own words
Nestled on beautiful Figueroa Mountain, this charming campground sits alongside the serenely flowing Davy Brown Creek. Close to Santa Barbara, Davy Brown Campground offers some of the most tranquil camping in the Los Padres National Forest. The soothing sounds of the running creek can be heard from all campsites, making this campground a favorite for those planning a peaceful and relaxing get-away. Keep reading
Recreation
On hot summer days, the creek provides relief as visitors splash in the water holes located along the creek. Migrating birds, such as the exquisite western tanager, are often seen from spring to August. There are ample trails to hike, or mountain bike. From mid-August to late September, this campground is very popular with hunters during the annual deer season.
Facilities
Davy Brown Campground has 13 scenic and picturesque campsites. Each campsite is equipped with fire rings, pedestal barbeques and a picnic table. There are two vault bathrooms (wheelchair accessible) spaced strategically throughout the campground. Davy Brown Campground can accommodate RVs up to 25 ft. long; hook-ups are not available. Three dumpsters are located on Figueroa Mountain Road for convenient trash disposal; none are available at this site. There is no drinking water at this site; please bring your own water.
Natural Features
Davy Brown Campground is surrounded and shaded by mountains covered with valley oak, blue oak, live oak, and gray pine. The companion shrub species include manzanita, coffeeberry and redberry. A soothing creek offers diminutive waterfalls and invigorating swimming holes. Birds such as king-fishers, juncos, Stellar jays, white-breasted nuthatches, warblers and many more also make their home here.
Nearby Attractions
Davy Brown Campground is the starting point for several trails, including the spectacular Davy Brown/Fir Canyon Trail. Two miles further are the Lower Manzana and Upper Manzana trailheads, entry points to the majestic San Rafael Wilderness. Los Olivios, Santa Ynez, Solvang and Buelton are within an hour's drive.
What the agency tells you
In order to contact our offices, please use the email: customerservice@pmcparks.com or view our website: CampOne.Com for answers to frequently asked questions.
Camping fee includes 1 vehicle and 1 tent, trailer or RV.
$10 fee for each extra vehicle.
Everything else this campground posts · 12
No drinking water available.
No public showers in the region.
Fireworks are prohibited at all times.
The nearest stores and gas are a 35 minute drive to Los Olivios along Hwy. 154.
No cell service at the campground.
Avoid hiking alone. Tell someone where you plan to go and then stick to your plans.
Avoid unnecessary risk - help for emergencies is miles away.
Carry a first aid kit and other safety gear with you when hiking.
Nights are often cold, even during the summer months; jackets and sweaters are recommended.
Bring gnat/mosquito repellent during spring/summer/fall.
2-night minimum stay on weekends.
3-night minimum stay on holidays.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 13
- Hookups
- None
- Paved pads
- All
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…and a picnic table. There are two vault bathrooms (wheelchair accessible) spaced strategically…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…none are available at this site. There is no drinking water at this site; please bring your own water. Natural…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Waterfall, Creek
- Biking
- Fall color · reported 8 days ago, 12 km away
- No change
Full this Saturdayread 16:44 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedNot reservable
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday, and on the one midweek night after it that the agency has released as well. read 16:44 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 14
What you actually pay
“$10 fee for each extra vehicle.” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own agency notice
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $30 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking, plus the agency’s published $2 weekend rate on Friday and Saturday. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 6
recreation.gov availability, read 16:44 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
13 sites
All 13 sites
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 13 of the 13 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Loop 1 | 001 | standard nonelectric | $30 |
| Loop 1 | 002 | standard nonelectric | $30 |
| Loop 1 | 003 | standard nonelectric | $30 |
| Loop 1 | 004 | standard nonelectric | $30 |
| Loop 2 | 005 | standard nonelectric | $30 |
| Loop 2 | 006 | standard nonelectric | $30 |
| Loop 2 | 007 | standard nonelectric | $30 |
| Loop 2 | 008 | standard nonelectric | $30 |
| Loop 2 | 009 | standard nonelectric | $30 |
| Loop 2 | 010 | standard nonelectric | $30 |
| Loop 2 | 011 | standard nonelectric | $30 |
| Loop 2 | 012 | standard nonelectric | $30 |
| Loop 2 | 013 | standard nonelectric | $30 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Nira CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 1.2 mi
Mt. Figueroa CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 2.5 miBates Canyon CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 14 mi
Fremont CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 17 mi
Paradise CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 17 mi
Los PrietosLos Padres National Forest · 17 miTo get there from Hwy. 154: Take the Armour Ranch Road/Happy Canyon Road 11 miles northeast to Cachuma Saddle, Sunset Valley Road, then 4 miles north.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Los Olivos, CA
Typical weather
Typical October night 43°F, day 78°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 32°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it · a letter you can send
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Davy Brown Campground is in California’s 24th congressional district. Its representative, Salud Carbajal (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A. See every public-lands vote →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneySalud O. CarbajalU.S. Representative · California’s 24th district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationAdam B. SchiffU.S. Senator · California
- Your senator, on the same appropriationAlex PadillaU.S. Senator · California
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Davy Brown Campground, Los Padres National Forest, California
Dear Salud O. Carbajal, I’m a constituent in California’s 24th district. I tried to camp at Davy Brown Campground, Los Padres National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 13 sites at Davy Brown Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Davy Brown Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Davy Brown Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Davy Brown Campground (Los Padres National Forest, California) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Davy Brown Campground, Los Padres National Forest, California
Dear Adam B. Schiff, I’m a constituent in California. I tried to camp at Davy Brown Campground, Los Padres National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 13 sites at Davy Brown Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Davy Brown Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Davy Brown Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Davy Brown Campground (Los Padres National Forest, California) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Davy Brown Campground, Los Padres National Forest, California
Dear Alex Padilla, I’m a constituent in California. I tried to camp at Davy Brown Campground, Los Padres National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 13 sites at Davy Brown Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Davy Brown Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Davy Brown Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Davy Brown Campground (Los Padres National Forest, California) via campanac.com