looky-loo review, los angeles.
For full photos of this RV park, go to our website, www.wanderingairstream.com
Here's the direct link for this review...
http://wanderingairstream.com/eddie/looky-loo-review-tapo-canyon
Tapo Canyon is a Ventura County Park, it is one of several that the county runs, from beach side to valley. We chose this park for its convenient location to see both Los Angeles and the ocean towns of Santa Barbara & Santa Monica.
The park is located in Simi Valley, with the drive into the city ranging from 30-40 miles depending on where you are going.
The drive takes 45 minutes to ?? depending on when you go. On Sunday morning there was little traffic and it went quickly. On a weekday morning, we left at 7, planning an early arrival to see things before it was too crowded, and it took 2 hours. The upside.. we still beat most of the crowds and could take photos of things that by late morning, early afternoon are mobbed.
Once in the city, Santa Monica is just 10-15 minutes away, or straight from Tapo, is right at 40 miles. Santa Barbara is just 65 miles and is a beautiful drive.. see this post to get a great route that includes Ojai.
We found it to be very convenient, and the closest to the city that we could find. If you want to drive in from the coast there are many spots, most are primitive camping however.
Simi Valley is beautiful and lush and full of valleys. We very much enjoyed the scenic aspect of this campground. The scenic part also caused us the main negative…no internet reception at all. Zip. This may be of no concern to you and if so then no doubt you’ll love it.
The two downsides to no internet for us were… Very hard to keep up with 5 blogs, and getting way behind is not first on my list. Second, being that we were visiting a city with lots to do and see, we would have liked to have done more internet research in the evenings… before venturing out and having to do it all in the car on the way in. So do your homework beforehand!
As the photos show, it is a well maintained park with good amenities, a playground, horses welcome, dogs (on a leash), horseshoes, and a separate but public welcome (on Saturdays) archery field.
We felt fortunate that we were there with only one or two other campers. This leads to the only other downfalls. The bathrooms have 2 stalls (which would probably be just fine even when busy), but only one shower per male/female. I could imagine when the park is full the showers having lines. Not ideal.. and the one thing I really, really didn’t like..the company I kept in the showers. Spiders.
Yup. I am n.o.t. a fan and there were many. This is not to say the bathrooms were not kept clean, they absolutely were cleaned, and cleaned well. The issue lies in the design. At the top of the showers, instead of screens it is open. So lots of moths and spiders and without screens, the minute you clean and leave… they’re baaaccckkkk…
Naked + spiders. Not fun.
The host was incredibly nice and always available. She was attentive and dedicated to ensuring we were happy. Nothing but 100% positive on her and the overall upkeep of the park.
We definitely recommend it, giving it a paws up… just be prepared for no internet, and bring some spidey sense with you.
Date of Stay:
April, 2011