Best Equestrian Camping near Gila Bend, AZ

Recent Equestrian Reviews in Gila Bend

39 Reviews of 6 Gila Bend Campgrounds

• T

  Teresa A.

  Guide

  

  Jan. 15, 2025

  White Tank Mountain Regional Park

  Couple nights while visiting area

  We stayed at the Willow Campground for two nights while visiting family and friends in the Surprise area. Hiked the Waterfall and Black Loop Trail for a little exercise as well. Didn’t do any others as our dog had an encounter with a stray cholla ball. This would be the only concern for those traveling with pets. There are quite a few lose even along trails. Other than that the facilities are clean and well kept. Fresh water and showers are available.

• l

  lisa K.

  Traveler

  

  Nov. 21, 2024

  West Pinal County Park

  I’m the volunteer camp host

  I’m Lisa, the volunteer camp host here from October through Easter. I’m often on-site and happy to help! Here’s what you need to know to enjoy your stay: • About the Park: This is a peaceful, primitive, and clean county-run park. We offer shaded picnic tables, six spotless port-a-jons, and a dumpster for trash (access the side doors, as the lid is locked). Please respect the 10 mph speed limit to minimize dust and maintain the park’s tranquility. Campfires are not allowed on the ground; please use your barbecue or an appropriate fire container. • Reservations: Reserve ahead during winter months as we often fill up. Large RVs should plan carefully as sites are limited. Smaller rigs, please select an appropriately sized site to help us accommodate everyone. For reservations, use the website, not the app (it doesn’t always show specific sites). Need help? Reach me on-site or call the office weekdays at (520) 866-6920. • Amenities in the Park: • A large, fenced area for off-leash dog exercise. • Shaded picnic tables and clean port-a-jons. • Nearby Amenities: • Gas Station/Showers: Less than a mile west at the I-8/84 interchange. • Dump & Fill: Wild West RV Park (4 miles east) offers self-serve for $20. • Stay Limits: Maximum 14-day stay. After that, you must leave for seven days before returning. • Nearby Services: • Stanfield (10 miles east): Dollar store, El Rancho market and restaurant (highly recommended), laundromat, post office, and Circle K. • Maricopa (20 minutes north) or Casa Grande (30 minutes east): Larger stores and provisions. • Local Highlights: • Dwarf Car Museum (5 miles north): Ernie’s handcrafted, ¾-scale classic cars are a must-see. Open daily, 9–4. • Rooster Cogburn’s Ostrich Ranch (Picacho Peak): One of my favorite spots for an inexpensive, fun day! Feed a variety of fascinating animals and enjoy the unique experience.

  Wherever your journey takes you, may you be blessed and happy. 🙏💕✨

• S

  Shawn

  Guide

  

  Nov. 8, 2024

  West Pinal County Park

  A hidden gem

  Pretty, some freeway noise from the 8, great camp host. Hiking trails. Just porta potties and dumpster, but you can dump and get water 4 miles away. Most any sized rig can fit. Dirt roads are in pretty darn good shape.

• 

  Ryan W.

  Legend

  

  Mar. 19, 2024

  White Tank Mountain Regional Park

  Excellent semi-civilized experience

  Pros: 

  • Well spaced campsites with excellent views in all directions (mountains and desert one way, iconic saguaros and city lights in the other).
  • Cleanest flush toilets and showers (free) I've ever seen in a campground.
  • Dish washing station
  • Campsites are level, clean, and include a shade over a concrete table, fire ring, and hammock hooks for three.
  • Trails throughout the camp into the greater park but the campgrounds separated from the more public trailheads. Strategically placed benches scattered along trails for coffee drinking.
  • Wildlife: birds, coyotes, reptiles, etc
  • The camp is close to civilization enabling quick visits to other attractions, and an easy drive to spring training baseball games.
  • Camp hosts were responsive. They live on-site year round and treat the camp like it is a home. Very impressed with the team.
  • Firewood available on-site. $8/bundle. Very dense wood that doesn't light quickly when wet but burns for a long time.

  Cons:

  • Struggling to come up with one. Probably hot in the summer. Busier on the weekends due to location inside the White Tank Regional park.
• 

  Lee D.

  Legend

  

  Dec. 10, 2023

  Skyline Regional Park

  Small campground, very popular day-use park

  General: 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.

• s

  shane S.

  Traveler

  

  Apr. 17, 2023

  White Tank Mountain Regional Park

  Beautiful view

  Very nice campground. Level site. Great view of mountains and cacti. Go slow, road have big dips to allow water runoff.

• 

  Jayden T.

  Traveler

  

  Dec. 16, 2022

  West Pinal County Park

  Beautiful park amazing host

  This park was so beautiful and so well kept the host was amazing and so helpful. She took care of everything we needed and answered all our questions. Also the support through their email was also very helpful and answered all my questions flawlessly. The bathrooms were clean and stocked and were a great amenity I will stay here whenever I need that fix to go camping again :)

• 

  Castaway I.

  Traveler

  

  Dec. 11, 2022

  Skyline Regional Park

  Pros and Cons of Skyline

  All in all, I really enjoyed my stay there, but there are some things of which campers should be aware.

  Pros: *Easy to get a reservation *Very nice desert landscape *This is a very very nice park with very very nice trail system. I think there’s something for all hiking, skill levels. *The sites are in expensive. *convenient to gas, rv dump, hardware, grocery, restaurants.

  Cons: *There is no water. Neither potable or non-potable. *If you use off air antenna for TV, you won’t get any channels here *The campsites need to be better taken care of. For example, there were tall weeds growing up underneath the picnic table and its benches. *If you use Verizon, there is little or no signal most of the time. *From time to time there’s a bit of jet noise (not necessarily a negative) *This park is very very popular with local, hikers and they start before sunrise and finish after sunset. So it’s very busy right next to the campground.

• W

  William W.

  Scout

  

  Jun. 5, 2022

  White Tank Mountain Regional Park

  Great hiking

  Great views, bring water and watch out for the heat🫠

• e

  echo

  Traveler

  

  Jun. 2, 2022

  Skyline Regional Park

  Simple but stunning

  Limited spots so try and reserve but very worth the short drive out of the city.

• 

  Lee D.

  Legend

  

  May. 3, 2022

  White Tank Mountain

  Convenient to Phoenix

  General: Located less than an hour from Phoenix, this campground is an easy getaway. There are two campgrounds: The Family Campground (40 sites) with water and 30/50 amp electric hookups and the more“rustic” Willow Canyon Campground (19 sites) with no hookups. This campground is good for tents, campervans, or small (16 feet or less) trailers. There was a gate attendant when we checked in around 6 pm on a Monday and we were given an information packet with information on the campground, nearby facilities in the town of Surprise, and trails, which was very helpful considering we were not familiar with the area. 

  Site Quality: We stayed in the Family Campground so we could take advantage of the electric hookups. The sites are gravel, a good size, well-maintained, and spaced a decent amount of distance apart. Some are pull-through and some back-in. In addition to the aforementioned water and electric hookups, each site also has a picnic table, bbq grill, and fire pit. Some have covered picnic shelters but not all. Most of these also have space for tents. 

  Bathhouse: Is located in the center of the loop and was clean. Sites on the inside have paths leading to the bathhouse but if you are on the outside of the loop, access is via a path between sites 34 and 36 or sites 11 and 13. Three stalls, one sink, and one shower. One sink is not really adequate for 40 sites, but I did not encounter more than one other person at a time. Soap dispenser, rack, and air dryer. The way the water faucets are is wasteful: once you turn them on, they run for quite some time before turning off. Hot water was appreciated. Did not use the shower so cannot comment on that. 

  Activities: Several hiking trails. The most popular one is the waterfall trail, but you need to drive to the trailhead for this. It is paved for the first half mile (shortly after the petroglypghs) and then it is a rocky, gravel path. The waterfall only runs after heavy rain (I would think this would make access very challenging). There was water in the “pool” and it is scenic so it was worthwhile to go despite no running falls. There are restrooms, a picnic area and a playground near this trailhead. Some of the other trails are used by mountain bikers or horseback riders. The information you receive at check-in details the usage for each trail. 

  This campground was mainly an overnight as we continued to head west but I am glad we took the time to hike the waterfall trail before leaving. If you need groceries or other supplies, the town of Surprise, about 8 miles to the east, would have everything you need. Note there is a nearby air force base and you will hear jets flying by, although this was during daylight hours.

• 

  Mary H.

  Ranger

  

  Jan. 31, 2022

  West Pinal County Park

  County Park with upscale amenities

  We had a wonderful visit at our large site set up for a big group. But it still only costs $10. We had a very large ramada with 3 picnic tables, and built into west wall were 4 bbq grills. #22 is all by itself on the corner of the outside loop. It’s kinda close to 1-8 but it wasn’t bothersome. It gives you something to watch as you soak in the sun. Beautiful desert landscape with nearby mountains and blm land for biking and hiking. The Dwarf Car Museum is nearby and a must see for free. The camp host is a delightful, helpful woman that assisted us to keep our site when we had to extend our stay waiting for a package. Nearby circle K in Stansfield has an Amazon drop box if you need it.

• 

  Greg L.

  Legend

  

  Jan. 17, 2022

  West Pinal County Park

  Remote County RV park

  Close to I8 and the BLM Sonoran National Monument. This is a Pinal County park and there are about 19 sites, most are nice large pull thru sites. Well maintained dirt gravel roads. 14d limit and $10 nite for standard site with a shade cabana, table and bbq grill. Camp host on site. However there is NO potable water, no electric and no RV dump. There are dumpsters and scattered potta-potties for toilets. Cell service is excellent on all carriers. There is a huge cattle feedlot about 6 mi to east and east winds will be smelly. Also the truck traffic on I8 will be noticable at night. No services for fuel, water and food except in Stanfield 10 miles away and that is just a Circle K and a Family Dollar. Three stars due to lack of water, smelly feedlots, interstate truck noise. Note: locals told me they go to Maricopa for groceries and fuel.

• C

  Christopher A.

  Guide

  

  Dec. 20, 2021

  West Pinal County Park

  Great privacy and pavilions

  Stayed closer to highway bc kids make a lot of noise and we didn’t have to worry about bothering anyone. Views are great and sites well maintained.

• 

  jeff B.

  Guide

  

  Dec. 12, 2021

  White Tank Mountain

  Excellent Phoenix area campground

  Super regional campground in the west Phoenix area. Clean hot showers and bathrooms. Solid mtb and hiking trails in the park.

• 

  Becbecandbunny O.

  Ranger

  

  Dec. 5, 2021

  White Tank Mountain Regional Park

  Hidden gem among suburbs

  We picked this campground on a whim based on reviews as a halfway point to our next destination. We're so happy we did.

  We stayed two nights at the Willow walk-in sites (W10). Despite our campsite being close to the bathroom it exceeded our expectations. Campground is well organized with friendly staff. Clean bathrooms and showers. Hiking trails galore!

  Cell phone connection was spotty (TMobile) at our campsite but connection was better in other areas of park.

  Would stay again.

• 

  Abby M.

  Legend

  

  Dec. 2, 2021

  West Pinal County Park

  Gracious host!

  I planned on staying about 5 miles away on some public land but upon arrival, I didn’t have service (remote worker) so I quickly found this place. Arrived in the dark and pulled up the reservation site (all online). It’s $10/night plus a $2 processing fee. Spots were spacious, had a picnic table with an awning over it and a grill. There’s porta potty’s throughout the area if you need them. There’s also a trash bin in the very back. Had excellent cell service and felt very safe. Met the host upon arrival and she was very kind. Amazing stargazing and close to the Highway. If you decide to tent camp, you’ll hear road noise but in my camper van, barely heard it. Definitely would stay again!

• 

  Randall Z.

  Guide

  

  Nov. 19, 2021

  White Tank Mountain Regional Park

  Very nice State Park best during winter months

  Well separated level sites in a desert setting. Good views of the mountains and the Valley of the Sun. Most sites have electric and water. Good Hiking in the mountains during cooler weather.

• M

  Marc

  Guide

  

  Nov. 11, 2021

  White Tank Mountain Regional Park

  Beautiful Sonoran desert

  The park has an excellent nature center, great hiking, archaeology and good water/power hook-ups.

  A bit far from restaurants etc. but that’s good.

• 

  Tony C.

  Guide

  

  Nov. 8, 2021

  White Tank Mountain

  Chollas everywhere, plenty of options

  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).

• 

  Don M.

  Guide

  

  May. 19, 2021

  White Tank Mountain Regional Park

  Nice trails and views just west of Phoenix

  This is my go-to local campground, a quick 20 minute drive, and I’ve been camping here for years! The facilities are always clean, and the other campers are generally quiet and respectful here. The sites are spaced out nicely, and it has never felt crowded to me even during the busy season.

• G

  George K.

  Guide

  

  Jan. 17, 2021

  White Tank Mountain Regional Park

  Busy

  Beautiful area, but it seems that everyone else thinks so too. I waited 15 min in line to get up to the check in booth just to get in the park and when I left the next day the cars were backed up again. This park would be a 5 star plus if it wasn’t for the amount of people and the price for a rv site in a county park. The rv park within was nice, not too close together. The semi developed park is what I was looking for, no electricity or water at the sites, potable water in the area but only allowed 16’ trailer or less so that left me out. The developed sites all had electric and water at each site and one or two had sewer, but at a premium. It cost an additional $8 per night. Their was a dump station at the entrance of the rv park for everyone else.

• 

  Christine S.

  Guide

  

  Jul. 24, 2020

  White Tank Mountain Regional Park

  Exposed sites with no shade but well maintained.

  This is a nice place to visit is the cooler months of the year due to no shade and low elevation. We visited in January which was perfect. There is a nice trail to Waterfall Canyon which is heavily used but worth it. There are a number of petroglyphs from the Hohokam culture that you can see.

• G

  Gary K.

  Guide

  

  Jun. 14, 2020

  West Pinal County Park

  Our go to when visiting family

  Pinal county park and has no amenities so be prepared to dry camp. Price is $10/ day - day use is free. All but 1 or 2 site are pull thru with shade Ramada’s and picnic tables. County does a great job at keeping the gravels roads in the park well maintained, however during the rainy season be prepared for some washouts.

  Sites are quite far apart from each other giving the feel of open space. There are some short hiking trails. Entire park is wedged between AZ 84 and I-8 but yet highway noise is very minimal. Approximately 15 min drive to Stanfield and 30 min to Maricopa or Casa Grande. I- 8 ramp is 1 mile west onAZ 84.

• P

  Patti S.

  Guide

  

  May. 29, 2020

  White Tank Mountain

  Beautiful and close to town

  This 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/

• 

  Lynn C.

  Scout

  

  Mar. 4, 2020

  White Tank Mountain

  Beautiful desert

  Lush desert campground. Quiet and well run. Very clean.

• 

  Sara R.

  Traveler

  

  Feb. 3, 2020

  White Tank Mountain

  Peaceful retreat

  This park is so close to town, but far enough to get some quiet night sky! There are standard campsites and a more primitive camping area. The Willow Canyon site is big enough for a full length Sprinter, though the office says 16’ is the length limit.

  Lots of trails for hiking, biking and horses. Brand new showers, restrooms and a dishwashing area. Dogs allowed too!

  I’m on Verizon and only got a single bar in the park. The library is near the entrance if you need to get your WiFi fix!