Huckleberry Tent Cabins at Big Basin Redwoods

This was my daughter's very first camping trip ever! What an adventure!

Detail of CA State Park map

I have camped at Big Basin Redwoods before, but not in a tent cabin. The last time that I camped here, a huge storm rolled through in the early morning, right before dawn, and we got soaked in our tent. We hustled in the rain to break camp, and we left to go get some breakfast in nearby Boulder Creek so that we could warm up and dry off. It has been a source for good stories since then, but it was not much fun in the moment. That was probably 8-10 years ago, and I hadn't even thought about camping in Basin since then.

Recently, however, I have been hankering to go camping and to be back in the redwoods. My daughter is now two and I wanted to go camping with her this summer, to give her the taste for it. My husband had to go out of town for a work trip, so I thought I would use that as an opportunity to camp mid-week without him feeling too left out or sore. It would be no fun to be stuck at home, working, while your family was off having a camping adventure mid-week! But, hopefully, it didn't sting as much because he had his own adventure going on. This time, I thought I would try the tent cabins, because I am sure that they are better able to keep out the rain than a tent, and I definitely did not want to have to break camp in the cold and rain with a toddler.

Honestly, this was a perfect way to make a maiden voyage into the world of camping with my daughter, especially since I was solo parenting. Although we didn't end up needing one, the cabin had its own wood-burning furnace. And the sites were all super spacious and well screened from each other. Dave Baselt, the writer at redwoodhikes.com, has his own write-up of the campground here, too.

Image from redwoodhikes.com

As he mentions, the campground is quieter than some of the others, because its a little ways off from the park headquarters. This was a boon for me--I was much less worried about traffic than I might have been!

My daughter loved the cabin, and just wanted to go in and out over and over again. She loved having free access to go in and out at her own will, with no one worried about letting out the air conditioning. And the park staff does a really good job of clearing out all the poison oak and stinging nettle. After scoping out the area around the site, I felt completely comfortable letting her do some exploring on her own as long as she was within my line of vision--there were no plants that could cause her harm. She loved both weaving in and out of the strand of redwoods right next to us and looking at little sticks or leaves that she found interesting on the ground next to our cabin.

I would definitely do this again, especially in the hotter/dryer days of late summer and early fall. Big Basin is such a special place, and it makes it much easier to come here with a toddler if you don't try to make it a day trip, driving both to and from the Bay Area. I might be willing to brave tent camping in Big Basin again, but it sure was nice to ease back into it with the tent cabins since I was bringing my daughter along with me.

Good info to know:

• The tent cabins are run by a private concessionaire. Their website is here. The tent cabins are only in Huckleberry Campground. Huckleberry also has the regular, family campground (i.e., drive-in sites), and a walk-in campground. The parts of Huckleberry that are not tent cabins are all run by the State Park. Reservations can be made here.
• The tent cabins come in different packages, and the site is specific to the kind of package. That is, Site 27 is always a "basic" package. You can upgrade your site by adding on more luxuries, but you cannot downgrade your site. If you reserve one of the more deluxe sites with the linens and the towels, etc., then you have to get all of those features whether you want them or not.
• The basic tent-cabin is $99/night (as of 2019).  The more deluxe sites go up in price. The sites run by the state park are $35/night.
• I did not try, but the bed frames, table, and bench do not seem to be moveable. The mattress pad is pretty thin; this was better than sleeping on the ground, but it was a very firm bed.
• Check the weather forecast. Even on nice, warm days, the temperature can really drop down in the pre-dawn hours. Prepare for cold and for sudden, unexpected rain showers. The in-cabin furnaces only burn wood.
  
• The showers are quite nice for a state park! They are coin-operated, so bring your quarters. It's $1.25 for 5 minutes of hot water. 
• I loved our site, but it did have both mosquitoes and yellow jackets. Bug spray is a must.
• Price of your tent-cabin covers your day-use fees for all the days that you are at the park. Check in is 2:00 pm and check out is 12:00 noon.