Check-Ins

there are some restaurants at the end of the beach, saw the sign of tortugueros in the highway and stopped here. super beautiful sunset, bought a couple 9f expensive beers only.
wanted do camp in the van but there was so many mosquitoes and sand flies we ended up setting the tent.
a bit of trash in the trees
good cellphone signal

Gate locked. Not sure if that’s normal, no lock & could have opened it but wasn’t sure if I should so I kept moving along.

Arrived late in the evening, but found this wonderful site next to the river.

[Update: 0-1 STABLE bars of TMobile, no AT&T, no idea about others. You'll be fine for signal her3 and superb if you have a cell booster]
Amazing site on the creek! at least 2 of the 5 spots are on the active creek and it's very loud!
There is a single outhouse with toilet paper. No trash service of any kind. There are metal fire pits. The dirt road to get here was full of potholes and will likely become horrible after a rain but the site had no one here on a Tuesday at 9:30pm and was amazing.
Is technically an official campsite run by the National Forest but they are very clear that it is a dispersed site.
Took 15ish minutes to get here from the highway but we love it here!
HOWEVER, This IS bear country and you must have a hard sided car (metal) to store everything in or take appropriate bear resistant measures. All trash brought in must be packed out.
From the national forest website: "5 dispersed camping sites with fire rings are available for small RVs or tent camping, with nearby fishing, hiking, mushroom and berry picking.
Pack it in/Pack it out"
https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/lolo/recarea/?recid=83459

When we phoned ahead, they gave permission to park in rear of building. With the forest closing around us nearly every parking space is taken. Grassy area to walk the dog. Verizon 4G lte - 5 bars. ATandT 4G-lte - 1 bar . zero chance of quiet. Interstate 40 to South. One of the busiest train tracks to North. But Free, no dirt between my toes parking lot camping, with plans for biscuits and gravy for breakfast sittin on the front porch in rockin chairs! 4 out of 5 stars. Ive got ear buds and meditation music. ❤

Perfect place to be Overnight. Lot of RV‘s was here.

Lots of space out here. Stayed one night when passing through. We got there just before sunset on a Monday night and left around 8am. We saw 2 rvs in varied states of disrepair near the main road and a car/tent camper in an established pullout on way in. The road/s heading up hill after turning off gravel access road was pretty rutted out, had no issues w a lift and 4wd towing an off road lifted teardrop camp trailer. I used 4h just to be safe, a 2wd vehicle with a lift or extra clearance would be fine with a bit of scouting and strategy. The area we stayed had a great 360 view with a sliver of street lights looking west toward Madras and the rest was open desert forest. Really beautiful, quiet, and safe. Scattered cattle roaming, some cow bones, lots of birds. We saw one decent size Coyote on main gravel road on way in.

We didn’t scout much, but seemed that mostly the road conditions are keeping a lot of people and bigger rigs from getting up the various roads leading up into the rolling hills. With 4wd we felt isolated and secluded.

Worth noting majority of established spots closer to main road had standard trash problems including abandoned tires, ammo casings, broken glass, etc. but once we got just a few minutes further from main road there were plenty of level nooks and crannies suitable for our fairly maneuverable shorter rig.

We had both Verizon and AT&T, gps did struggle a tad on Verizon, but got stronger as we got a little higher up from main road.

Same as everyone has described, except for methheads (as of yet). But big thing to mention for this time of year is the dang mayflies, they are swarming us haha. If you fly fish send it.

showers located in the public restrooms on the marina. I did not use them but did use the facility and they looked functional.

San Juan island has a few established campgrounds but has a policy of no camping anywhere on the island outside the campsites. We chose to stay here at this hotel for a couple days. This is a great hotel with everything you need close. We planned to camp and travel each island but enjoyed just staying here. This hotel offers bikes to guests free of charge. Do go ride around, it's so beautiful.

Open from 8 to 4 with delicious goodies, drinks, etc. In the parking area of the gas station. Good truck style service.

Nice camp ground with clean and renovated toilets 18€ without power 4€ for power.

Definitely worth a stop! We had a fantastic meal (180 TL for four)

There are a lot of positives about this campsite, there is a lot of space to camp on the grass with lots of shade right on the beach, the ablutions are some of the best we have had with a dokey for hot water.
Having said that, we were very disappointed in the fact that it felt like this was the community bathing area for the village and had to look at naked people all afternoon. There were also people in and around the campsite all night even with a night watchman around. What really saddened us about this place was watching one of the staff members throw his empty can in the bushes and drop plastic merely centimeters from a dustbin which I proceeded to confront the man and throw the litter in the bin for him.

Paid $6 to park overnight, expires at 5:59am but you can get up and just pay an extra few dollars to stay a few more hours. $1 for up to another hour, $2 for 2-3 hours and so on. Literally right next to the park so I was able to spend a few hours before bed walking the park and enjoying the sun set. Was absolutely lovely. Just the normal traffic sounds but wasn’t too bad once it passed about 11pm. If you’re a light sleeper definitely park closer to the end of parking lot farther from the road and it helps a lot more than you’d think. The park has restrooms open from 7am-11pm, they’re about a 1 minute walk from this parking lot. Overall has a good experience here and would definitely use this location again.

Signs posted that say parking while shopping only. Called store they said no overnight parking

Good quit place really near the lake with ICE cold water. There is a sign with "Parking 6-20". We stayed for one night with no Problem, but not controlled.

Truck stop. Well lighted parking. Clean.

Tuesday night came in around 8 pm. Only one other person here. Awesome views. Site 1 has some highway noise but not bad and the best views. Good ATT signal.

This place is no longer available. Overnight stays at the gate are no longer allowed. Instead, we were referred to the Kasanka Conservation Center, which is 2 km from the gate, but not yet in the National Park. Access also possible for BigRig.

The "Kasanka Conservation Center" is 2 km away from the national park gate at the main road and can be reached for BigRigs too on a narrow but good gravel road. It is still outside of the national park, therefore no entry fee. The conservation center lies in the forest and is very quiet day and night and is a different organisation. US $ 10 ppn for camping. Seat toilets with water spooling, cold showers, on demand even warm showers. Water from a tank. A kitchen can be used. There are chalets with two simple double rooms, sharing a toilet and shower, as well as dorms. A pretty dining room is also available.
The whole thing is not up to dates standard but neat and clean. The employees are very committed and friendly.
After all, one stays cheaper here than in the national park itself and it is also a nice stopover.
No Mobile connection (MTN)

Great spot! About 30 minutes away from Palo Duro Canyon State Park. Very well lit, bathrooms are 24-hour and very clean, and there’s plenty of room to walk your dog. Pretty quiet despite being right off I-40 and felt very safe!

it's a 15 mile detour if you are westbound. the the rest area can only be accessed from the eastbound Lanes.

The cleanest dump station that I have see. there are no signs about paying a fee. I just pulled up and dumped.

the drinkable water is still accessible :)

We didn’t stay here overnight. We stopped along our route to jump into some water. The water didn’t look clean enough to jump into so we just hung out and enjoyed the beautiful views. There were very few people when we showed up, so it was extremely peaceful and quiet.

Better directions were suggested so... If you are heading north, you will see two signs on the left side of the road just before the bridge. This is where you turn off and then follow the road which goes under the bridge and around to the large open spot by the river.

Small pull off on the forest service road. large enough for 1 vehicle. Not a lot of open space around it for recreating. It would be good to just sleep at.

Small pull off large enough for two vehicles. There's an aggressive bump getting in, would recommend a vehicle with at least some clearance. It's 100 ft from the river which is super nice.

Sweet spot! Definitely enough room for a couple cars.

This spot has a large clearing for ability to set up multiple tents. One fire ring. Bear Box. Creek running in background. Bugs were a little bad but not as bad as the rest of the road up. Pit toilets are further back down the road prior to the softer sand.