Glamping & Camping in Santa Cruz, California

Santa Cruz, California has 7 outdoor stays in our index right now, spanning primitive sites, cabins, restored Airstreams, and RV sites. The rated stays average 4.8★ across 536 guest reviews. Happy Valley Haven currently leads on rating — a solid first look.

What Santa Cruz guests reward most in their reviews: location, being family-friendly, and the hosts. It's a useful lens — the properties that nail these tend to be the ones people rebook.

On the ground, the Santa Cruz mix skews toward primitive sites (3 spots), with cabins, restored Airstreams, and RV sites filling out the rest. That's worth knowing before you search: the format shapes the trip more than the town does — a dome is a stargazing stay, a cabin is a basecamp, an RV site is a road-trip anchor. Pick the format first, then the property.

Set in the West Coast, Santa Cruz works as a base for big sur coastal camping, sierra backpacking, and joshua tree bouldering. Plan around the season: Year-round depending on elevation — coastal summer, Sierra fall, desert winter. California's national parks (Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon) make good day-trip anchors from here. Below you can filter by stay type or jump to a specific format — every listing links straight to the operator's own site, never a middleman, so the prices and dates you see are the real ones.