What are most beautiful campsites in northern California, besides Yosemite?

Lake Tahoe is around 3 and a half to 4 hours from the Bay Area and has some great camping. One of my favorites is Emerald Bay State Park. It's very forested with granite boulders and on the lake. It's gorgeous! For more info: http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=506

One of my favorites is Samuel P. Taylor state park in Marin county. Lots of redwoods and not too far from anything. I also love Lassen National park. It is not visited all that much compared to Yosemite, but it has a beautiful swimming lake and lots of cool history and is not too crowded. Then there is Fowler creek campground with a view of Mt Shasta and has it's own waterfall. So I just gave you 3 to check out.

It's not exactly hours from San Francisco, but one beautiful place I love to camp is Big Basin State Park. Here is a link so that you can see it's beauty for yourself.

http://www.bigbasin.org/

There are several state run campgrounds along the coast north and south of San Francisco that are awesome. One of our favorites is Sunset Beach just south of Santa Cruz, near Watsonville. Plus it is a great park for kite flying -stunt and fixed kites.