Looking for an adventure where you can explore Buckeye and then fall asleep in your tent? The Dyrt helps you find campsites near Buckeye with tent camping. From remote to easy-to-reach, these Buckeye campsites are perfect for tent campers.
Margies Cove West Campround includes day-use parking for ten vehicles, three campsites with picnic tables and steel fire rings, a vault toilet, and informational signage. The campground is adjacent to Margies Cove West Trailhead.
THIS PARK IS CLOSED INDEFINITELY AS OF 1/21/2018 As of 1-21-2018, camping is not offered at Buckeye Hills Regional Park. The park will be undergoing a 'master plan' in the future review with camping options being included as an option.
Guide
I've been trail riding in the Wickenburg area since I was a kid, and the rodeo grounds across the street from Constellation Park is a gathering site for just about everyone who heads out into the desert on their 4-legged transportation. On my most recent visit to Constellation Park, the park and rodeo grounds were empty, but this place fills up fast whenever there are events scheduled, and the sites are first come, first served with NO reservations system, so plan ahead!
There are 35 dry camp sites along a dirt road north of the rodeo grounds on Constellation Road in Wickenburg - they are primitive dry sites with no tents allowed - all camping must be self contained. Site fees are $8 per night, or $12 per night to have a horse corral included. Yes, I'm confused too - horses are ok, but tents are not? I'm not sure what the logic for self contained camping is for these sites, as they would make excellent car camping/tenting sites, but I'm not the one who makes the rules.
The park opens onto state and BLM land, which you can ride or backpack into with a permit -
https://land.az.gov/recreational-permit-portal
Wickenburg is already a relatively quiet town with not much traffic outside the US 60 / US 93 interchange for people traveling from Phoenix to Las Vegas, so it's nice and quiet up here. The road undulates up over small rises, so unless there's a late night at the rodeo arena, there are no lights to compete with the star gazing show either. Again, tent camping would make so much sense here. . .
I'd give the park 5 stars for the pretty desert views, quiet location and big skies if you were allowed to enjoy them outside of an RV. Oh well, we don't get everything we want, right?
Legend
No tent camping. RV camping only. That being said, this is a giant parkinglot for RV "camping" that is popular with Snowbirds being it is close to groceries, store fronts and I10. There is a swimming pool, "The Barn", a salon, and a horseshoe pit.
LegendNo tent camping. Self contained RVs only. Constellation park campground hosts horse events and rodeos that draw crowds from everywhere and of all ages. Campground is directly across the street from all horse and rodeo activities so this is very convenient if you are in the area for horsemanship.
Guide
My wife and I took a two day trip upto Lake Pleasant with our Coleman Camper and Bayliner Boat. It's just a 50 min drive from Buckeye, so it's very close and convenient for us to getaway and still have city amenities near by 15 min drive. The campgrounds are very well taken care of and the restrooms are clean. Unfortunately there was a Fire Ban when we stayed, but that didn't stop us from enjoying the nightlife of the stars and mingling with fellow campers. During the day the lake was so relaxing and refreshing during the heat of the desert. Took the boat as far north to explore the lake and the secluded coves this lake offers. The website makes it easy to pick your site based on availability, however during the week you probably can just pull in and grab a site.
Guide
This park is quite large and has many camping options: day passes, tent camping, semi-developed sites, and fully-developed sites with awnings for big rigs.
There are many hiking trails too, for every level of difficulty.
The nature is splendid, with hummingbirds, chipmunks, and plenty of chollas and prickly pear cactai.
The ambience is quite festive, much more than what I am used to (although the noise may be due to the fact I went on NASCAR weekend).
GuideThis park is so close to town, but far enough that you feel like you are way out. There are standard campsites (water and electric) as well as tent camping area. The sites can fit good sized rigs. There is a ton of trails for hiking, biking, and horses. Brand new showers, restrooms, and a dishwashing area. Dogs are allowed, but please keep them on a leash and pick up after them so we don't lose the privilege!
Here is a link to the Maricopa parks with maps: https://www.maricopacountyparks.net/maps/
Traveler
Love this Saddle Mtn Campsite! The pin location is accurate but it looks there are multiple different access routes. We really enjoyed it here because you can pull up within 50-100 yards from Saddle mountain and camp right below it. So cool.
We tent camped for about 5 days here, the crowd was minimal, felt very safe. Plenty of trails to walk, can explore the mountain and there are petroglyphs here. We only found a couple, but didn’t look too hard.
Overall loved this place, easy access, safe, fun and some cool views!
Guide
Camped 5 nights at the desert tortoise campground in my NoBo travel trailer. Semi developed so no hook ups. Bathrooms were clean and the area was well kept. The spot includes a ramada with picnic table. There is also a fire ring pit w/ grill which you’ll need to bring firewood for. I fished off the shoreline which was only a few hundred feet from my spot. The spots are relatively close to each other and tent camping is also allowed. Water is clear and very nice. Wild donkeys from old miners back in the day still roam around. They are very accustomed to humans so won’t hesitate to steal food. Definitely something to watch pets around as well.
Guide
Moved to Buckeye in Oct of 2018, when exiting off Watson road off I-10 always seen the signs of the Skyline Regional Park. Spent a few months pushing it off from visiting, until I decided to go take the drive up and realized how this hidden jewel was in Buckeye. Well maintained and marked trails with unbelievable views. Restrooms at the parking lot very clean. Overnight campsites which are primitive. However a wonderful and peaceful place to visit to clear your mind or soak up the views.
RangerLeaf Verde is in Buckeye, AZ which is only 30 minutes from Phoenix. The pool is refreshing and if you aren’t into swimming there is a pool table, dog park and shuffle board to keep you busy. The sites are gravel and close together but nice.
GuideWe needed a place in or near Buckeye and located this place. Nice bathrooms, hot showers. We were in a Class B close to the entrance so didn’t have any issues with size of sites. Didn’t try any amenities beyond our hookups which worked well, which is why I’m going with 4 rather than 5 stars. -I just can’t rate them.
Legend
Next to the Floss shooting range and the Sheriff's training range is a gem of a recreation park with great views of Buckeye and the Phoenix valley. Only one vault toilet, no water or electric, but no signs stating camping not allowed either. Although almost every sight has a grill or fire ring of some sort, but since May no fires of any type are allowed, probably due to wild fire hazards. This would be a superb star gazing adventure site for primitive camping. You just need to pack in/out all essentials like water and food.
LegendGeneral: Very small (7-site) campground. One site is ADA-accessible and paved (the rest are gravel) but there are no hookups at any site.
Site Quality: Generous-sized gravel driveways; Site D sloped uphill slightly. A concrete picnic table, BBQ grill, and fire pit complete the site. I was a little surprised that the picnic tables did not have shelters as it gets quite hot in Arizona (the day-use pavilions were covered).
Restroom: Two-stall, one-sink restroom. No showers. This restroom is also used by the day-use area so by the end of the day, it looks like it has been well-used. It was cleaned at night. It looked like the sink was clogged, but it was just slow draining.
Activities: Hiking! There are several hiking trails directly accessible from the campground and all the trails are well-marked. There is a short (.6 mile) ADA-accessible trail. Horseback riding and mountain biking are also activities although we saw neither in our two days at this park. There was also a wildly popular star-gazing event while we were there.
Final thoughts: IMO, the best sites are B, C, and D. Site D especially has no visible neighbors on either side. Kudos to the city of Buckeye – they could have easily crammed a half-dozen more campsites in this area, but I am glad they did not! As I mentioned, this is a popular day-use area and by 7 am on a weekend in early April, the day-use parking lot was completely full. Despite this, we did not see too many people on the trails.
TravelerThis was one of my favorite free longterm camping spots of all time. Desert flowers were blooming while I was there in January/Feb. Nice enough scenery.
Lots of RVs around. I was able to find a spot by toilets for my tent and then move into a more private spot after an RV left.
Fairly busy. Serviced (BLM?), very clean. Feels safe. Next to air force base which is loud and pretty cool, and sheriffs training facility /shooting range which actually is better than a lot of other free Arizona spots because gunshots aren't going off all night and bullets whizzing by from responsible gun owners...
Was not hassled at all.
Dry toilets and garbages. But pack out. Garbage piles up. Many options for RV and tents and car campers. Seems they don't ask anyone to move or anything unless they have to.
Ranger
This is my second stay here in the last couple months. Currently it's mid February 2022. Just left Quartzsite where there was just way too much congestion and price gouging. The Walmart in Buckeye is right off of I 10, and then 4 miles back west to Highway 85 will bring you down to Woods Avenue at that intersection there is a crossover and you can get into the BLM land clearly marked with a very small post that says Margies Cove Trail. I believe there is a campground somewhere back there but I have never been able to find it. First time I stayed here under the powerlines all by myself with one other camper in view was very quiet except for the crackling of the powerlines overhead. This time I chose to grab a spot just across the cattleguard and not too close to the powerlines. The highway is still visible and audible from here but it was easy. I have seen maybe five or six vehicles in any 24 hour period coming into the camping area. Some flies to deal with probably because of the dairy farm not too far away. Best part is that you can distance yourself as far as you want from any human being and just piss out the back door.
GuideSkyline Regional Park, Buckeye AZ
www.skylineregionalpark.com and camping page www.skylineregionalpark.com/camping/
This is a brand new park in the city of Buckeye, AZ at the south end of the White Tank Mountains and is located about 20 miles from White Tanks Regional Park in the Maricopa County Parks district (see my review). The park itself is very pretty, all of the amenities are new and fresh, and several of the trails are under active construction.
This is a very popular and BUSY park for mountain bikers - I was surprised to see the trailhead parking lot nearly full (almost 2 dozen cars) on a Thursday late afternoon/evening, and as people came back to the lot to leave nearly all of them were mountain bikers, with a few hikers mixed in.
The good -
It’s neat and clean, nice new restrooms with flush toilets and sinks that also have motion lights to conserve energy - they stay dark at night, so there are fewer bugs swarming around the entrances, although the restrooms are marked with bee warnings.
The campsites are level, evenly spaced away from each other on a long loop, and have big sturdy concrete picnic tables along with a fire ring and standing grill. The parking spaces are easy to back into and help to block the view of some of the campsite from the road.
I stayed in site D, which is at the top of the low hill that composes a loop of 7 sites (A-G) but sites E and F would be my choice next time, as they are terraced into the hill as it comes down from the peak sites of C and D - each of the sites E and F have an erosion wall that makes nice seating (see photo)
Site G is currently under construction, and was not available for reservation as of my stay in the middle of October, but will be the site closest to the restroom and trail head when it’s available. Not a big issue, as each site is only a few dozen yards from each other.
The trail head has a nice map of the available trails, covered ramadas with recycle containers along with trash receptacles, and even a shaded horse hitching post area with an automatic horse waterer. There is no potable water for people to drink in this park.
The sites are cleared of brush/cacti and have a nice wide gravel path to the restroom - I carried a UV light but didn’t see any scorpions anywhere near the road or my camp, which is certainly not the case just up the road in White Tanks Regional part, where the campsites are more desert/less groomed (but have water&electric).
The less than good -
It’s pretty boring. There are 7 sites that are basically identical with the same view of the trailhead parking lot - it’s nice that the restroom is close, but there’s not much privacy for any of the sites. No trees of any significant size, so none of the sites have appreciable shade available.
I’m not sure who these sites were designed for - they are deep enough for RVs to back in, but there is no electric or water, and they recommend driving 5 miles away to a truck stop as the closest RV dump site and pay showers, so that can’t be very convenient for non-tent campers.
The campsites have a nice flat area for a tent, but it’s next to the “driveway” rather than at the back of the site so your tent has NO privacy from the road/trailhead parking lot, and the entire camping loop is located on a very uninteresting section of terrain.
The park is far enough from the freeway (2 miles) that it’s quiet, and tucked into the foothills enough to block the city lights from Phoenix, so stargazing is quite nice. However, it’s under a flight path from Phoenix to San Diego/Los Angeles, so every few minutes a jet blinks through your sky space. It’s also apparently under a flight path for Luke Air Force Base, and I had several noisy jets pass overhead just as I was settling in for the night. I live in the area so those jets are a constant background noise in my life and they were no big deal to me, but might be unsettling for someone who was really looking for a “peace and quiet” camping experience.
There was a fire ban in effect during my stay and they don’t announce them on their website - you have to remember to call and ask before you get there. However, even during a fire ban you can use your fire pit and grill, so it’s really not a big deal unless you were planning to set up camp way out in the desert somewhere.
My least favorite -
The mountain bikers take these trails seriously and are out on the trails with head lamps and bike lights until LATE at night, and their voices carry all over the park so this is NOT a quiet place to camp.
The signage all says that the trails are open from sunup until sundown, and that the park gates close at 10pm. The reality is that the hikers and mountain bikers wear lights and stay out on the trails until far after sundown because even though my campsite reservation said I would need to use a gate code to leave the park after 10pm, that is not the case. The gate leaving the park has an auto-opening feature, so you can drive up to it in the middle of the night and it will be triggered to open and let you out. Day-use park visitors can and do stay until very late, as there is no consequence for being in the park after the trails “close” or even after 10pm, since they don’t risk being locked in. I didn’t see any park employees driving around to enforce the park closing time, and I did become a little concerned (as I was the only camper that night, and alone with my dogs) when someone drove up to use the restroom at the trailhead at 11:30pm (car headlights shining directly into my camp of course) - again, not much privacy.
All in all - I’d come back to this park to hike any day of the week. The trails are wide and new and well maintained, and it’s a new area to explore. As far as camping goes, there are plenty of nice parks not far from here, so I’d probably recommend driving an extra half hour to one of the Maricopa county parks at Estrella Mountain or White Tanks to take advantage of the same or better mountain views with more amenities.
Ranger
There are several different RV/Camping options at Pleasant Harbor Marina / RV Resort.
In the resort with Full Hookups
Out on the "flat" with just water and power (dump station on site)
Out on the "flat" with no hookups. (can also tent / car camp)
As compared to the Maricopa County Parks side, this has a little bit more party atmosphere, is less secluded, but you can almost always get at least a boondocking spot without a reservation. They also have large events here as well so check their calendar for the weekend you are wanting to go!
We keep a boat at Lake Pleasant and are part of the Arizona Yacht Club so we are up here all the time.
Legend
Our RV GPS and Waze took us right to this very nice campground(CG). Check-in was quick, and we were escorted to back-in site 503 with FHUs. The sites here are long and wide enough for our 40’ fifth wheel and F450 truck. The sites in our area were also decently spaced for a private CG. There was also room for an OHV if we’d brought one. The guest WiFi works pretty well with a download of 6.73 and an upload of.92. Water pressure was good at 50 psi, and we got 4 bars on Verizon. There are a few trees in the CG, but we had a clear shot of the northern sky for Starlink. They also have cable, but we didn’t use it. They had a very nice 4000 sq ft, sectioned-off dog park with two of the areas/corrals having grass. Behind the show/laundry/pool facility is where you drop off your propane tank for fills. They do not have a propane service that comes to the site. We were also impressed with their PETHouse sites where you have a private dog run. Their laundry facility was larger than most CGs of this size and it was very clean. There’s also a wash pad where you can wash your OHV or truck. Gilla Bend has a Family Dollar and a couple of small grocery stores plus eating establishments. You’re about 30 minutes from major amenities in Buckeye and an hour from Phoenix. We stayed here with friends for 4 nights and enjoyed ourselves.
TravelerStayed at the base of Saddle Mountain. Turned left on the dirt road around mile marker 13--as other reviewers stated, the dirt roads closer to you when coming from the east are very rocky--I had to take it VERY slow just driving my high-clearance truck. The dirt road I turned down while towing my 36 ft. 5th wheel was much smoother and allows you to get very close to the base of the mountain. The views are pretty and the mountain is right next to you.
Any indicators of good cell service is deceptive--yes, you have "a lot of bars," but bars are not necessarily a good determiner of signal strength. I use both ATT and T-Mobile sim cards in an LTE router/modem combo. The cell towers closest to the campsites are to the NW, right on I-10, and they have VERY high latency. Even if you have good download/upload speeds, you can't do any streaming/video calls with latency in the 300+ millisecond range and Jitter in the 2k millisecond range. Unless you have a high dB LTE directional antenna to point toward a better tower to the NE (which I do, thankfully), closer to Buckeye/Phoenix, you will be out of luck if you need reliable LTE internet for remote work.
This is the only reason I didn't give the site 5 stars, since cell phones, tablets, and omni-directional antennas will always gravitate to the tower with the strongest signal, which is the one with high latency, in this case. If you don't need reliable internet to work on the road, this might not mean much to you, but if you do, keep this in mind.
TravelerWe have camped many times with my family. Many people have RVs in our group and some have tents and truck tents! All are welcome and easy to navigate. Great for individuals and groups. Cheap, just 8$! It is clean, quiet and beautiful views. Close to town and close to fun attractions such as the rodeo or box canyon wash!
TravelerAwesome in spring or fall in a tent! Moonless night.
TravelerVery short drive from civilization. Semi developed sites are a good way to break someone in to tent/car camping. Full restrooms and showers nearby. Usually clean.
You can even hit one of the restaurants at the lake.
Primitive camping on the shoreline is cool and still not too far from facilities.
Guide
We arrived late at night to a site full of off roading vehicles and other ATVs. Obviously a meet.
The ground is very compact and straight dirt, multiple rvs had generators running so the night was loud. We ended up leaving.
I'm sure its a sweet spot for off roading and to rv camp but not so much for tents.
Legend
Rough sloped area at crest by cell tower. There is another better quality road slightly south of this rough upper area that I include in this camping area. This is AZ Trust Land so a $15 online permit is needed to be legit. Cell signal is very good. No toilets, no water, no tables, no dumpsters. Only a few miles into town and a grocery store.
Only 2 stars as the area is no scenic and had beat down vegetation and general vibe is sketchy with some crapped out tents and campers. .
GuideWe stayed in Road Runner 41. While the rest of the campground was nice, this site was horrible! We expected rain but their is only one spot to put a tent on this campsite and the water from the road all drains into this spot. Basically our campsite turned into a mini river and was washed away. Other campsites didn't seem to have this issue. The campground wouldn't issue us a refund.
The views from the campsite were very pretty and it would have been a nice place if it wasn't for the bad river and worst campsite ever.
LegendLocated at about 203rd Avenue, on the westside of Phoenix, in Waddell Arizona is a tiny little Campground with phenomenal views. There is also a large group campground and a very primitive "camp ground" available, but primitive desert camping requires a LOT of preparation and packing in/out. There are numerous horseback, hiking and biking trails. Family campground has electric and water hookups with a very clean centrally located restroom, that hosts a shower and flushing toilets.
Views are amazing. Maricopa county operates the campground and has made significant improvements with ramada, gathering areas, grills, fire rings, monthly hikes, educational presentations, a huge public library...every bit in caliber with state and federal campgrounds.
Scout
Been going here over 6 years and I always look forward to my visits there in the Summer. They have 2 pools (one is heated), volleyball, darts, horseshoe, pool tables, hot tub, sauna, nature trails, a cafe open in the weekend, events and tons of other things going on. Most of the people there are permanent or semipermanent residents. It is a comfortable, family friendly community, although you it is rare you see children there. I highly recommend and will continue to bring guests to enjoy some Arizona sunbathing!
Tent camping near Buckeye, Arizona offers a unique blend of natural beauty and outdoor adventure, perfect for those looking to escape the hustle and bustle of city life.
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