Originally Posted by
RichardInSF
10,000 people may have lived there at one time, but when I visited, there were 10,000 RV's in the campground. OK, a slight exaggeration for dramatic effect, but one of the nice things about real ghost towns is, well, hardly anyone is there.
Bodie would be fine if not crowded but as a State Park, it gets a lot of publicity relative to the places where the decay is not so arrested.
Still would be worth a visit if you haven't seen a ghost town before. Rhyolite near Death Valley is similar in concept.
The last time I was in Bodie was in mid-October, and it wasn't crowded, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be when OP visits. I've been to some very uncrowded ghost towns, but many are either hard to get to (e.g., requiring 4WD) and/or are unprotected by rangers or police so buildings, etc. get carted off by souvenir hunters. I've been to Rhyolite several times. Fewer buildings and, overall, less interesting than Bodie IMHO, but worth a stop if one's in the area. My late father did research on the Death Valley 49ers and took me to many ghost towns. One of the best was Rawhide, Nevada, but I heard nothing is left now. One he visited on his own was Aurora, several miles from Bodie. Mark Twain worked there are one point. I don't think a passenger car could get there, and by now I doubt there's much, if anything, left.