Nira Campground
1Heads up1 fire 47 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
- 12All of them booked ahead
- Season
- January 1 – December 31Open January 1 through December 31
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 16 notices
In the agency’s own words
Nira Campground is a beautiful site covered in oak trees and located along Manzana Creek. Whether you come to cast a line in the river, camp and relax, ride horses, mountain bike or hike, Nira offers a scenic location with a variety of recreation activities. Keep reading
Recreation
Along with hiking, mountain biking, fishing and swimming, Nira Campground is a great starting point for backpacking and deer hunting expeditions into the San Rafael Wilderness. Located on Manzana Creek just upstream from the mouth of Davy Brown Creek, a trailhead provides access for various trails up and down Manzana Creek that enter the San Rafael Wilderness.
Facilities
While tent camping is best enjoyed in this cozy campground, there is room for small RVs under 20 feet. Nira has 12 campsites, each site includes a picnic table, barbecue grill and/or a fire ring. Sites 1-3 are tent and car camping sites only (no RVs due to size restrictions). There is a vault toilet in the campground. There is no drinking water at this site.
Natural Features
Nira Campground is surrounded and shaded by oak tree- covered mountains. Whether you're a beginner in the art of birdwatching, or an experienced birder, Nira will not disappoint. A bounty of birds such as king-fishers, juncos, Stellar jays, white-breasted nuthatches, warblers and many more flourish in this section of the Los Padres National Forest.
Nearby Attractions
The Manzana River runs through the campground where swimming and fishing are favorite activities. The trailhead for San Rafael Wilderness is easily accessible. Los Olivios, Santa Ynez, Solvang and Buelton are all within a one 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.
No drinking water is available.
Everything else this campground posts · 13
No public showers in the region.
Fireworks are not permitted.
The nearest stores and gas are a 25 minute drive to Los Olivios along Hwy 154.
No cell service can be found in the campground.
Don't hike alone. Tell someone where you plan to go and then stick to your plans.
Don't take unnecessary chances - help for emergencies is miles away.
Make sure you have a first aid kit and other safety gear with you when hiking.
Bring your gnat/mosquito repellent in Spring/Summer/Fall
2 night minimum stay on weekends.
3 night minimum stay on holidays.
Campfires are normally permitted year-round without a California Campfire Use Permit. Under some conditions, wood fires and barbecues may be prohibited in all areas of the national forest. Fires at Campground are only permitted in fire rings provided by the Forest Service. Please check local for local fire restrictions prior to your arrival.
Click here for more information on Los Padres National Forest
Don't Move Firewood: Protect California's forests from tree-killing pests by buying your firewood locally and burning it on-site. For more information visit firewood.ca.gov.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 12
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 24 ft
- Paved pads
- All
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…due to size restrictions). There is a vault toilet in the campground. There is no drinking water at…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…is a vault toilet in the campground. There is no drinking water at this site. Natural Features Nira Campground is…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- River, Creek
- Biking
- Night sky · 672nd darkest of 1,201 in CA
- Bortle 3
- Fall color · reported 8 days ago, 14 km away
- No change
Full this Saturdayread 16:54 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedNot reservable
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 16:54 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
12 sites
All 12 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. 12 of the 12 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 | 01 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | $30 |
| Loop 1 | 02 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | $30 |
| Loop 1 | 03 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | $30 |
| Loop 1 | 04 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | $30 |
| Loop 2 | 05 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | $30 |
| Loop 2 | 06 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | $30 |
| Loop 2 | 07 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | $30 |
| Loop 2 | 08 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | $30 |
| Loop 2 | 09 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | $30 |
| Loop 2 | 10 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | $30 |
| Loop 2 | 11 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | $30 |
| Loop 2 | 12 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | $30 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Davy Brown CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 1.2 mi
Mt. Figueroa CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 3.7 miBates Canyon CampgroundLos Padres National Forest · 13 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: Armour Ranch Rd./ Happy Canyon Rd. 11 miles northeast to Cachuma Saddle, Sunset Valley Rd. 6 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
Nira 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 Nira Campground, Los Padres National Forest, California
Dear Salud O. Carbajal, I’m a constituent in California’s 24th district. I tried to camp at Nira Campground, Los Padres National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 12 sites at Nira 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Nira Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Nira 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 Nira 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 Nira Campground, Los Padres National Forest, California
Dear Adam B. Schiff, I’m a constituent in California. I tried to camp at Nira Campground, Los Padres National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 12 sites at Nira 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Nira Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Nira 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 Nira 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 Nira Campground, Los Padres National Forest, California
Dear Alex Padilla, I’m a constituent in California. I tried to camp at Nira Campground, Los Padres National Forest, California, and couldn’t. All 12 sites at Nira 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Nira Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Nira 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 Nira Campground (Los Padres National Forest, California) via campanac.com