Searching for the best camping near Wickenburg, AZ? Aside from great camping spots, you'll find hiking and many more outdoor experiences. Thinking of traveling with kids? You're in luck—Wickenburg is surrounded by family-friendly activities. You're sure to find the perfect spot for your Arizona camping adventure.
"If you dont mind occasional off road vehicles driving through during the day, its a good spot with plenty of room."
"Nobody else on Friday night, plenty of space
The typical rumble strip dirt road to this point but easily doable.
Service: 1 bar Verizon"
"(There’s also a much more difficult trail from lake pleasant that requires very experienced off-roading 4x4). Great food and drinks(alcohol) at the crown king saloon and Mimi’s Cafe."
"The Hazlitt Hollow campground and Horse Thief Basin Lake are ~7 miles from the main city of Crown King and definitely require a high clearance vehicle (4x4 highly recommended)."
"Lots of shade but area of sun to charge my batteries. Minimal cell service, but I'm from Colorado and I have Xfinity. I'm pretty sure they use Verizon towers."
"It’s not super level but decent space to maneuver to find your favorite orientation. Our problem was that we operate with Verizon and TMobile."
"We drove to the end and then came back and took a left up a hill next to another campsite! It was a great site and clean. We were presently surprised!"
"Nice trees and trails. Verizon is doable even with the tall pines. Quiet considering the closeness of the campsites"
"Quiet, surrounded by trees, trail’s nearby. You need a little clearance to get into camp 7 but nice to be away from the road."
"I'm still new to this and I only have Quartzsite and Yuma as reference points, but Prescott isn't nearly as user friendly. One of the places I went to didn't exist."
$150 / night
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.
LegendNext 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.
LegendEagle Ridge Group Campground is located within walking distance of Lynx Lake Recreation Area. At the lake, there is no swimming, but you may fish and use water craft. North Shore and South Shore areas each require a $5 per vehicle day use fee, but it is free to walk in.
There are two group sites: Osprey can accommodate 25-75 people; Peregrine can accommodate 15-25. There are covered picnic table areas, fire rings, areas for tents, vault restrooms, water on taps. Be sure to make a reservation for one or both sites, depending on your group's size.
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.
GuideCamped 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.
GuideThis review is for the Desert Tortoise Campground. Overall, I enjoyed my stay here. Campsites are decent but a couple of shortcomings.
PROS Campsites have covered pavilions with a picnic table, fire ring, and gravel drives. Bathrooms are dated but clean and in good working order. Portable water is available at the rest rooms. Dumpsters are available.
CONS No hot water in bathrooms. No showers. Other campgrounds within the park had showers that you could use, but there was only one functioning bathhouse. No dishwashing station available. Boat noise on the lake is sometimes a disturbance.
LegendThis is such a great campground for a big group! They have level gravel pads for tons of tents, and a covered pavilion with huge stone picnic tables that could seat dozens.
My loss of star comes from the vault toilets. They are stinky and have lots of flies and bugs living in there. Wishing they had flush toilets at this campsite.
I also really love the huge fire pit they have set up for the groups.
TravelerWe stayed at white spar the first weekend of October 2020. Very nice and clean sites. We stayed at site 32. The site was well maintained and clean. We were able to easily set up a 10 person tent and still had plenty of room. The bathrooms are vault toilets and can start to smell pretty bad when we used them. We also had some bees around, but only when we were cooking dinner. We ended up just starting a fired in the fire ring and they went away. Overall it was a good site.
TravelerGreat site with fire ring, picnic table, and vaulted restrooms nearby
Wickenburg, Arizona, offers a variety of tent camping options for outdoor enthusiasts looking to immerse themselves in nature. With stunning landscapes and unique amenities, campers can find the perfect spot to set up their tents.
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