Most of the desert has off-road vehicle tracks and sordid debris of previous visitors is hard to escape. My best experiences involved
the coast and high country. Try for a grassy hillside overlooking the sea outside Lucia or up canyon from Jade Cove if parking permits.
No fires and keep a low profile by not tenting. Chocolate Mountains
get hot but the rough terrain keeps a lot of 4x4 riff-raff elsewhere. Go
high but this is edge of the envelope territory.