Really nice place, quiet and well maintained and a beautiful situation, on the side of a high hill overlooking a huge, arid valley. Wildlife refuges right down the hill.
All through the 90's and 00's this was my favorite getaway - old resort in the hills, a very hot pool, a just-right pool, a cold plunge, a lap pool that rocks on hot summer days, a cozy lodge, breakfast in the morning, expensive espresso drinks all day, world music dance every Tues and Thurs night. That whole vibe got vaporized in the fire. But the wonderful hot water is still coming out of the ground and the tubs (and beautiful ironwork railings) are still here! Last few visits before the cleansing fire I thought they were getting a little too taken with themselves. A Harbin parking ticket?! Give me a break. Then came the fire that consumed all the beautiful old wooden buildings. Everything that wasn't stone or metal was gone. On the way to rebuilding came COVID, now they're back!
A few short miles up the canyon from lovely Logan UT. The next campground up, Spring Hollow sounded nicer, but was FULL on Labor Day Friday. My modest little campground is NOT reservable, so there were still two of the ten sites available. I feel lucky.
Heading north out of Moab, take a left before the Colorado River and head upstream. There are a string of BLM campgrounds along the river. This is the third one, about six miles out. It is three sections, the pay station is in the middle. A campsite consists of a picnic table and a fire pit close to a busy road, that's it. But you are on the Colorado River!
Old, charmingly decrepit place on the Snake River south of Boise. The hot springs is basically a spring-fed indoor swimming pool. It's a nice temperature, especially after you find the 3-4 spots where the hot water comes in. There's a basketball hoop and 20-30 little beachballs floating around, so one can pass the time shooting hoops.
Sites sprinkled around giant rocks. Nice little 1.7 mile loop trail. Beautiful, restful place, even when crowded.
It's actually free, but there's a suggested donation of $5. Climb >4,000' of narrow curvy road out of Bishop to get to the Bristlecone Pine Forest, and your bonus is this sweet little campground. There are no numbered sites, it's all kind of freeform in a nice way. Short walks get you spectacular views west to the Sierras across the Owens valley, and east into the interior of Nevada.
Elevation 9,500. Weather is very gloomy, so I'm not seeing it at it's best. Site 22 is very nice, level, large, with an excellent vista looking over the wide, green valley with the busy highway on the other side. The camp host says she saw moose tracks at the next campsite!
A really nice spot, a fisherman's dream I imagine. This a tailwater campground, that is to say build below the dam on the river. Most of the campsites are right on the river, so folks were fishing right out of the back of their campsites.
A great find! Very nice BLM campground right off US 93 between Phoenix and Kingman
bad: right next to a dusty, gravel road good: right next to a happily burbling brook I am here because the campground a mile away is closed for the season, so my hope is there won't be much traffic on this road tonight.
A remote, slightly shabby historical park with campground in the hills of Alabama. Nice folks running it. Along with the Ironworks, there's also an historical church and a baseball field.
Set up as a horse camp, but regular horse-less citizens can camp here also. Plenty of horse shit around, so it appears that horse people do use it!
Odd place. Separate bathhouses for men and women, nudity required. Camping is available in glorified parking lot across the road overlooking the settlement pond. No potable water, must drive a couple of miles for that. Really interesting salt flats area at the edge of town. In the last couple of years a pair of restaurants have opened. And breweries!
One more in the string of handy, heavily used campgrounds up the Colorado River on Utah 128 from Moab. This one is past Drinks Canyon CG, and right before Big Bend CG. It's very small, 7 sites. So named I think, because sites 6 and 7 re hidden away in a little grove of scrub oak.
The is the campground of the North Unit of the TRNP. It's quite pleasant.
The campground is quite nice by western National Park standards. It isn't very exciting per se, but the greater CCC-built Big Meadows complex and Skyline Drive is awesome! The lodge, the trails, the trail signs all have that 1930's feel to them. I love it.
Beautiful location high on the bluffs above the mighty Mississippi. Nice set of trails with awesome vistas on the river bluffs
Nearest gas is > 80 miles in any direction. An unexpected valley full of reedy marshes in the middle of endless high country desert. There's little warm pool and bathhouse with two showers that run always forever. The whole thing is quite unexpected!
The springs at Grover gurgle out of the hillside into a beautiful U-shaped alpine meadow. So it should be a groovy, enchanted place, but sadly it is managed by the State Parks system, who do their darnedest to make it prosaic and institutional. The pools are a couple of rectangular concrete tubs - a big one with lukewarm water, and a shallow (3 feet) one, maybe 40x20 which they keep at a pleasantly toasty 104°. You can look over the fence on the uphill side and see the water burble out of the ground and down a sluice to you. There are showers and cubbyholes to store your stuff. There is a campground, which I have never used since it's CA State Parks expensive and there is boondocking three miles down the road.