Best Dog-Friendly Camping near Tucson, AZ

This is a great place to camp near Tucson with great views and lots of hiking. If you plan to climb Picacho bring lots of water and gloves. There are parts of the climb you must use cables to pull yourself up. They have electrical hookups, but no water due to a water shortage. There is also a dump station to “unload” prior to departure from the campgrounds. I believe there is also WiFi available for a fee if you need it. Personally speaking, we go camping to unplug so we try not to use cellular or Wi-Fi connections.

I was traveling from Tucson to Sonoita and had myself a nice overnight. I saw one other camper here, but never heard them. Pulled down the road then through the gate and went about a mile. Beautiful secluded space, bugs weren't too bad. LOTS of nature sounds, heard a pack of dogs, plenty of cows and (?) And the birds are everywhere! It's super awesome! I'm camping in my car, so I didn't find a normal site, just pulled off the road and set up my chair to kick back and enjoy a local craft beer before bed.

Even if you don’t want to camp here the caves are worth the drive from Tucson for the tours and to hike around the grounds (gift shop is good too). The trails are not long but have some good views and give a good sense of cactus country without long grueling hikes. The campgrounds are a short distance to the caves and museum. The campsites have sparse shrubs and nice views, not huge sites but not awful, lots of water. Birding is great certains times of year.

Spencer Canyon Campground is a nice campground approx. 20 miles from Tucson up the General Hitchcock Highway(often called the Catalina Highway or Mt. Lemmon Highway). It is located approximately 3 miles past the Palisades Visitor Center and the entrance is marked well by a big brown sign as you approach. Phill and Denise, the friendly campsite managers will give you advice and suggestions about campsites that suite your needs. The photos attached to this review are from campsite#6, which is close to the Phill& Denise’s camper location and the highway- yes, we did hear road noise. Most campers chose locations deeper in the campground, but we were there on a busy weekend so most of those“deeper” campsites were occupied. All sites have a large bear box, concrete picnic table, charcoal grill and an iron fire pit. The picnic area of the site is level but the whole campsite is NOT so pick your location carefully if you want to pitch your tent on a flat, level plot. We did find some firewood left over from prior campers but recommend bringing your own, dry wood if you have room in your rig. In my observation, there is a rather nice, vessel toilet house strategically located to serve 6- 7 campsites. There is also a water faucet to be shared by 6- 7 campsites. Campsite#6 has its own faucet so others might also. There are 60+ campsites throughout Spencer Canyon and I would suggest that those“deeper” in the campground are more desirable. It should be noted that most of the campsites are close together, that is, about 50-75 feet apart, hence, my“... if you don’t mind company” comment. It should also be noted that Phill& Denise are really nice and helpful, the campsites are well maintained and clean, it is only 22 miles from Tucson and less than 6 miles from the mountaintop hamlet of Summerhaven, and is situated at approximately 7,900 fee of elevation. Thus, Spencer Canyon Campground is a great getaway from the Arizona heat and close enough to Tucson for a 1- 2 night weekend.

Wow, what an awesome AZ State Park! If you live in Arizona and haven’t camped here you are doing something wrong! It’s a quick weekend getaway from Tucson or even Phoenix. The camp hosts are friendly and stopped by to say hello, leave us maps, and give us the run down on a few rules. Kartchner is a designated Dark Sky park, so they do a great job of making sure everyone keeps the lights off after 8pm so you can enjoy the stars. It really is an awesome perk of the park! The campgrounds are immaculate. Like the cleanest and most well taken care of sites I have ever seen. Everything was perfectly raked and swept prior to our arrival. *We didn’t use the restrooms, showers, or dish washing stations due to covid, so we can’t report on those. We did notice family restrooms, which is always welcomed with little ones! We walked around the loops, like we always do when camping, to make note of the best ones for future trips. There were too many to count! All the sites looked spacious (for state park standards), clean, and had plenty of mesquite trees (perfect for learning how to climb trees for the first time!) The hiking trails are aplenty and dog friendly. The caverns are a quick 5 min walk from the campsites. We didn’t visit due to covid, but in the future plan to visit the caves, discovery center, and cafe. Although the campsite seemed to be most occupied by snowbirds, it really is the perfect destination for families too! We can’t wait to go back!

Met some friends here. We had a fire in the fire pit and hiked around. Dog park was nice and the bath house had clean showers and facilities. WiFi was free and good. Site was clean, level and pull through.

Fabulous views and the campground is very well maintained. Each site looked to be very spacious with plenty of room between neighbors. The hosts were friendly and helpful. While we were the fire restrictions had been lifted so we used the fire pit to enjoy at night. The only negative that we found was they didn’t have a dog park but I’m assuming that’s because there are so many hiking options the dogs get plenty of exercise. There are bathrooms and showers available and cute little casitas if you don’t have an RV. Electric and water hookups but no sewer although the do have a dump station so it made it easy. Overall I highly recommend this campground

We spent 4 months here over the winter months. Big spacious pull thru spots and very clean and well maintained. Clubhouse and pool were closed due to Covid over reaction, and the price was still the same without those amenities.

Park is out away from civilization, with a lot of hiking /biking trails. Laundry was acceptable but not exceptional. Several machines were out of order at any given time. At the end of the winter the work campers that did such a great job all left to go north and the services all but disappeared. The park almost completely emptied out by the 1st of May.

There was a nice little dog park that that actually had some nice grass that our dog definitely enjoyed.

The water pressure on the West end of the park was terrible at times but over all a great place to spend the winter.

When spending time on the road many times you will find campsite after campsite that is welcoming but not quite like home away from home. But when you drive through Tucson, there is a mecca filled with winter bird campers and long term campers which create a home away from home.

With only tent sites available on the facility, we were fortunate to find a site, however when we arrived we were so excited by the facilities we extended our stay by a day.

Office staff immediately greeted us and let us know about the facilities, which happened to feature a mini golf course, an indoor events facility, 2 swimming pools and hot tubs, an indoor recreation area and multiple on camp fire chinineas. In addition there was a fishing pond and dog park area.

Each of the 4 campsites were considered to be regular campsites instead of upgrade sites but when we arrived it was the most delux sites we had encountered along the way.

Pad sites were large and the first to actually accommodate our large tent and the ground was u like any we had seen before at a site. The soft mulch was similar to that of a modern day playground and made for a much more comfortable sleep over the two days we were there.

In addition to the standard picnic table of most facilities, this campground offered a kitchen facility at each campsite including a large copper sink and food storage as well as electricity and overhead lighting in the pergola designed to allow shade from the harsh Arizona sun.

It was the closest thing to glamping we had encountered by far!

Then as an added bonus, fresh fruit trees abounded ready for the picking. The front desk informed us of the allowance to pick what you want as everything was in season! An amazing treat on the road!

We spent many hours at the pool facility, enjoyed amazing neighbors, used the wifi and even did a load of laundry while in Tucson. The facility really was like a home away from home on the road.

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If the scale went higher we would rank it more Bunnies. There were no real areas we could see for improvement. Staff was very accommodating, long term and short term residents of the facility were amazing and this was a desert oasis like no other!

Most of Rincon Country West RV Resort is really for folks who are living them permanently or seasonally in their park model homes. Only in the far back corner is there really parking for JUST RVs.(Although even that"back corner" is probably home to well over 100 spaces.) So it feels like driving through a miniature suburban subdivision. It's location is in the heart of Tucson, so there's NO feeling of"getting away from it all" by staying here. In fact, your hear planes, helicopters& traffic. It's a city. But for us, spending 5 days exploring the area, it was a fairly central jumping off point for our explorations.

We had a"deluxe" pull-through site, which got us a nice patch of grass, a charcoal grill, a picnic table, good water pressure, clean electricity and a site with two different dump spots. There was cable TV available and wifi, but we just used my Verizon hotspot for streaming some Netflix and that worked great. We were close to our neighbors, but not TOO close. The more "normal" spaces near us would have put you in much closer proximity to your neighbors. For us, it was worth the extra$5 or so per day. (Having said that, the place really is pretty pricey.$70 per day is near the top of what we've paid.) 

The place has many amenities, none of which we availed ourselves of. We were really only there in the evenings and for sleeping. But pools, sports courts of all kinds, several nice dog parks, rec center, auditorium, etc. etc. I would think someone longterm would find lots to do. The security here is pretty stringent, which is nice. We'd certainly stay here again.

Patagonia Lake State Park Has a great camping site spots with power and water in great views for really reasonably priced. They have a little sand beach that the kids can play on with showers to rinse off before you head back to your little camp. Campsites are a couple minutes away from the mini sand beach. There is fishing. The little Marina also rents kayaks and paddle boats and houseboats. A wonderful gram campground highly recommended for those who have children and pets. Dogs are required to be leashed at all times.