Best RV Parks & Resorts near Tonto National Forest

This was our first time camping here and we will most definitely be back. You can reserve all odd numbered campsites online. Even numbers are first come first serve. There is a boat ramp located at the front of the campground. Not ideal lake access for fishing or swimming because of steep hills down to lake. Potable water available. Dump station is currently open 24/7. Bathrooms have running water and flush toilets and also showers. Multiple playgrounds. Each spot has covered table and fire ring. Loose gravel pads. Most are fairly level. Some spots aren’t big rig accessible.

I think if you're  looking for a place to winter, this is a good Campground.  

Pros: Very clean, nicely landscaped for AZ, staff friendly, good grocery & dining options nearby. Lots of OTA channels, pool, corn hole, laundry, dog park, activities  etc. 

Cons: pull through was long, but not quite level, WIFI does not reach the pull through sights in the back at all .... and they know it. Couldn't figure out how to hook to their cable. Permit to wash your rig $10 for the season.

Guess that should have been our first clue... they have a season. Sort of winter camp for snowbirds. If that is what you are looking for, it is very nice.

We were in the area to visit friends, dump/pump/resupply after boondocking, and do Taxes. Not having wifi was kind of a big deal for us. Being told we'd have to use the internet in the clubhouse wasn't  going to cut it. Who wants to drag all their personal financial information to a common area?

Normally  it would not have been a big deal, we do have a Hotspot, but at $431 weekly rate, $80 nightly, in this day & age, routers for wifi to the whole park should be a given.

Otherwise we did enjoy our stay here, and met some great people.

8nts, 34` 5th wheel

Almost an urban park just due to it's proximity to the city of Mesa, Usery park offers great tent camping, group campsites, as well as RV Sites with Electric and Water hookups. Dump station on site. 

Usery is a great jumping off point for hiking in the National Forest. There is an extensive trail network both in the park and connected to the Tonto National Forest. One of the most popular is Wind Cave Trail.

There is also a world class Archery Range here. There is a usage fee of about $2 (at time of this writing) on top of your park entry fee, but kids are free.

We were not impressed with this USDA Forest Service operated campground. There are better places to stay in the Tonto National Forest area. I’d only stay here again if everything else was full.

It was toilets. That was about it. No cell service either (T-Mobile). No water or trash. Pack it in, pack it out. There are also some protests going on in the area right now. The land is sacred to Western Apache tribes and it might be opened up to copper mining.

The picnic tables and fire pits are nice. I highly recommend driving along the Gila-Pinal Scenic Route. Breath taking vistas.

For a free site, this place is amazing. We stumbled across this city run campsite after a trip to the Tonto National Forest. I almost didn’t post a review because I wanted to keep this place a secret.

This small campground has a dozen sites that are completely free. Site 2 even has electric hookups and sewage drainage. The other sites are non-electric. Each site had a fire pit and picnic table. It has flush toilets with a sink! There are also fish cleaning areas.

The sites don’t have a water view, but there are day use areas around the lake. Additional flush toilets in the day use area as well. Calling this a lake is also a stretch, it more of a pond. We didn’t have fishing gear with us, but based off some internet research, I don’t think there are any fish in the pond.

This would be a great place to stop for a night, but not stay for an extended period of time. There isn’t much to do in the area besides the pond and a Dollar General. However, free is free and that means something on an extended road trip. Expect 10% gradients along AZ Hwy 177. Excellent cell service (T-Mobile).

Oak Flat is a Forest Service campground in the Tonto National Forest and is about 90 minutes from Phoenix. It's a short distance off a windy mountain highway which means it's easy to get to but traffic can be heard from camp. (Luckily it's not a busy interstate and traffic is pretty infrequent at night.) It's not spectacular location but there are decent views of the oak scrub desert surrounding the camp.

There are a handful of campsites with picnic tables and firepits, plus several flat and open areas for RVs or tent cities. Some sites are open and others have a few shady tree for hammocks, slacklines, and more. There is a bathroom which was clean and well-stocked with toilet paper, despite the campground being quite full when I stayed here for a few nights in April. There is no water, however, so be prepared with as much as you'll need. The elevation is just shy of 4,000' which means nights are typically a few degrees cooler than in the Phoenix area.

There are no hiking trails from the campground but there is a network of dirt roads which take you back into the desert scrub oak forest and through hundreds of bouldering problems of all levels. Just a few miles away, however, the Arizona Trail crosses the highway and heads north into the Superstition Wilderness.

This campsite is pretty basic but is a good place to kill some time, especially given that it's free! It's also a great place to set up your base camp if you want to do some bouldering.