This is big business in the States, as you can imagine.
I've no idea how much these things cost, but I bet it isn't peanuts - and there are thousands of them around.
We travelled around California in Winter, and most places were almost full. You would have to book ahead in summer. The only trouble with this is, you don't get to see what a site is like before you get there. While most sites we stayed at were fine, one wasn't. I think it was called The Big Bear park, somewhere near a place called Modesto (where George Lucas comes from) and sounded OK in our guide book. We arrived at night and found a disused theme park in a terrible state of repair, and toilet blocks you would only use in a dire emergency.
This brings me to the other main factor of RVing - cost.
For the 7 of us, it was economical to hire an RV as it provided transport and accommodation for us all, without having to unpack and repack our bags at all.
However, the RV sites are not cheap. They start at $20-30, for two people, but that rises sharply with each person, and we paid around $50 per night which added dramatically to our costs. I had expected maybe $20 in total, as in New Zealand, most sites cost about 10 pounds a night.
Most sites were "OK" - clean and functional, but did not cater well for children.
Something you must also bear in mind when camping in California - or, in fact, any coastal area - is that there is probably going to be a railway nearby, and it will be near your site! This isn't a cynical view. Think about it.
Coastal areas are often mountainous and as such, any railway will have to be by the coast, as it can't go over the hills. So, it will usually be not far from the main highway - as will your campsite, to make it "easy to reach" from the main roads.
Also, the cheapest land to buy to build an RV site on is highly likely to be right near the railway, where nobody else would want to live, right?
This means that virtually every night in a RV in California will be punctuated by the "Ding,Ding,Ding" of the level crossings, as Casey Jones hauls his load to San Francisco!
Don't let this put you off though. Motorhomes in the USA are in a different class and the 7 of us were very comfortable. There are large motorhomes in Europe, but I can't imagine that they are practical on our tiny roads.
America's roads are big but, surprisingly, they spend no money at all on maintenance and were, by far, the worst surfaces in the 16 countries we travelled through - and that includes China, Thailand etc. You can easily appreciate why American cars have always had soft suspension!
WARNING: An unfortunate PostScript to our RV experience was that, at the last RV park, in Las Vegas, we opened the locker where we had stored our (emptied) bags on the first day, to find that 3 out of the 4 had been burned beyond use by either the cooker or the heater. Moturis, the hirers, said it was the fault of the manufacturer but, of course, Winnebago said the opposite! They also revealed that they sell all their RVs to hire companies with absolutely NO WARRANTY whatsoever - thereby cutting off any comeback!! Clever.
So, after several snotty emails, it is in the hands of Moturis's manager, who has been very polite and positive, but I am still waiting for compensation. I pointed out that I am only asking for in the region of $300 to replace the bags, and that if I managed to dissuade even one customer from using their company, they would surely lose much more than that. We shall see...
