Best Cabin Camping near Indian Wells, CA

Visited the last 2 weeks of August. Great place for family and kids. Affordable. Campsite #295. You can fit two 10' x10' canopies to cover the bench table, and fit 2 individual tents (4-6 person) OR a bigger 12p tent however you decide to position it. It has its own Fire pit. Different campgrounds for all chosen methods (Tent, RV, Glamping, etc..) There's restrooms you can use. There's showers you can pay per use. The swim zone isn't too far from this campsite, 5-10 min walk w/ no accessories. If you have little ones, you can take them with a wagon but I'd recommend just driving your car with a few items to the zone. Bring your own shade for this campsite, your own water too. The marketplace is near the entrance BUT they only sell individual waters (No 48 pack types). You'll definitely hear your neighbors snore at night after a long day LOL.. quiet hours are from 10pm - 8am. Overall, this is a great spot. If you're lucky to snag other spots with trees covering you then great but this is still a good campsite. Happy camping! ... Oh yeah, T-Mobile no service up there (apparently Verizon, AT&T do)

There are no bathrooms or water here, but you have cell service and a convenience store very close by. This is a great spot to find a free camping site and still be somewhat in your own seclusion. The sky is really nice here at night. You can see the freeway a bit of a distance out from this location and it takes about 45mins or so get back into Joshua tree National park from here. The fire pits are in the ground so you might have to rebuild the walls above ground if they’ve been knocked down. Overall a very cool spot to check out that’s right outside of Joshua tree National park with beautiful sunset views. This is BLM land

Tamarisk Grove Campground is about 20 minutes south of Borrego Springs. It sits next to the highway but there’s minimal traffic so it isn’t terribly loud. There are tent sites as well as primitive cabins. Each site has a fire ring and table. There are also flush toilets and paid showers. There is no potable water at this campground - be sure to bring your own. The cabins are simple structures with platforms for sleeping. There are no amenities in the cabins - no electric, no water, no mattress, no linens, etc.

The campground is across the street from both the Cactus Loop and Yaqui Well trail heads. We recommend the short Cactus Loop hike over the Yaqui Well hike. Go at sunset to catch the cholla cacti backlit by the sunset.

We tent camped 3 days 2 nights during Memorial weekend with 3 other families. We really enjoyed the drive up Idylwild, beautiful scenery. I think the sites are a bit too close to each other, I would prefer more space between sites. But it's a quiet campground, everyone goes to sleep early around 10pm. A downside during our visit, is the restroom/bathroom; the resort closed down couple restroom/bathroom for renovation, so we had. to walk far to shower/potty. Maybe they were short staffed, the restroom/bathroom were dirty, toilet flushing issue and trash bin overflow. Overall we had a good time, also be aware of coyotes they come out at night.

Pros:

easy to get to, nice amenities

right next to Julian (perfect for day trips into town)

there are a few campsites where you can create some privacy (much more so than many other San Diego park campgrounds)

cool, easy trails to hike nearby

Cons:

most campsites are right on top of each other, many don't provide shade. One occasion, a family with a giant RV parked in the middle of the tent campground area, their generator/other RV components were extremely loud, and they brought two power wheel cars that their young children promptly began to drive around (adding to the sounds of other battery-powered crap) at 6am. My solace came when the batteries finally died.

rangers are constantly patrolling and there are A TON of rules for the campground ("quiet hours", no ropes or anything else tied to the trees)

the area is ridden with flies at certain times of the year- i believe it was late summer

Near and clean campground with clean restrooms requiring a key code to enter. Two laundry rooms. One large pool and three spas (hot tubs to folks not from So Cal) all heated with naturally heated mineral water. Secure. Park staff drive around at night to keep an eye on things. Most camps are close to the neighbors but most folks are quiet. Pay extra foe larger or premium campsites. Play area for the kids by the office. Put-put golf. Not much shade but many hedges. Gravel parking. Separate are for tents, communal sinks. Few trees around. Each camp has a sturdy picnic table. Propane fires only. And probably the same for BBQs. Great AT&T 5G cellular. Wi-Fi is weak, but it’s free.RV spot had fill hookups (water, 30 or 50 amp power, sewer, but no cable TV.

Well run and friendly, responsive staff. Understand that Desert Hot Springs is sometimes WINDY!! And that can mean dust storms, but that goes for the entire Cochella Valley. Not close to anything out here. A convenience store about 1/3 mile away. You won’t be running for coffee here. The the management sometimes hosts events and a weekend breakfast can be purchased.

All rigs are in good repair and I’ve seen nothing sketchy here at all. Been here 3 weeks with 3 more to go.

Bottom line: I would definitely stay here again, but it is a drive to get into DHS or Palm Springs. And it is windy/dusty.

This was our first time here. 

We made it clear, at the time we reserved, that we needed a 50 Amp hookup. It turns out that our reservation was for a 30 Amp site (#21). We again made it clear at the time of check-in that we needed a 50 Amp site, we were moved from #21 to #31 (the only 50 Amp site left in the park). It is a lakeside parallel parking site that is beautiful. The lake has a fountain in the middle that gets illuminated at night, very nice indeed. 

Now for the bad, although there was clearly a gate at the front entrance, we never saw it closed. The park provides security until 10 pm, after that, it seems that ANYONE can come and go. We heard from others that thefts had become common-place. 

The tiny store at the entrance closes at 5 pm every day. Luckily there are several stores only a couple of blocks away. 

Showers are not included in the price of your site rental, an average shower will cost between $1 and $2. You must purchase shower/laundry tokens from the tiny store. When we went to the store to purchase our tokens, we were told that they had to go empty the machines so that they had more tokens to sell. The laundry room was actually closed for the first 2 days we were there. 

The dump station in the park was locked (no sewer hookups). You had to wait until someone from the tiny store was able to get free long enough to open the locked dump station. 

The WiFi situation is horrendously bad, especially after about 9:20 pm. Apparently that is when their metering software kicks in. We went from watching our shows (NetFlix, etc) to the point that we couldn't even play a complete song over the connection. Still unhappy about the WiFi, an ominous warning came across my devices stating that there was suspicious/hacking activity on the WiFi network, disconnect immediately. 

**OMSB: When are RV parks going to learn that in today's world, good, safe, WiFi is essential, and should not be an afterthought? TO ALL RV PARKS: Upgrade your WiFi now, I (and probably many others) would happily pay another $5 to $10 per day for great WiFi service. **

There seemed to be an inordinate amount of trash around the entire place. There were multiple empty beer cans on our site when we arrived. The nice green lawn area that we walked our dogs on was littered with waste from other inconsiderate pet owners (please pick up after your pet). 

The place is a little pricey for what you actually get, Everything seems to cost more, as long as you get it before 5 pm. 

We have gotten much more, for much less. Overall the place was beautiful until you looked more closely. Unfortunately, it looks like people have stopped caring about maintaining this park.

Camped for two nights at sites 67 and 68. Site 68 was our favorite, with lots of shade and LOTS of room to spread out. 

Originally, we'd booked the adjoining campsite 99, but the morning we were leaving, a ranger called to tell us it had been double booked and that people were already in our second site and could we take site 67 across the way, instead? That was fine, though not ideal. 67 is very exposed for camping. Very little shade in that one, but great if you want to do star gazing.

Our initial experience entering the park was not a good one. The entrance has a sign that says if you have a reservation, then proceed to your site. So we started to do that, but then got chewed out by a ranger who clearly did not enjoy her job that we were supposed to check in with her first. We were like, "But the sign said…" She snapped at us that the sign was for after hours. Yet, the sign did not SAY this. 

When we finally got to the point to check in, we said we were the site who'd been called this morning because the park had double-booked the site. The ranger snapped back, "WE didn't overbook your site. The BOOKING SYSTEM did." Um, is the booking system that makes park reservations ON the park website not part of the park?? Why does this matter to this ranger? Was SHE the one bumped from her reserved site?

Her unprofessional attitude soured our first exposure to this park. (Seriously, if you don't want to work there, don't. But don't take it out on the campers.)

The ranger continued to give us a lecture on how we may not have more than 2 tents per site and went into a mathematical breakdown of this. "You may have two tents in 67 and one tent in 68 or two tents in 68 and one tent in 67, but you cannot have three tents in 67 or three tents in 68," as though we were complete morons.

After all of this, our observation is the sites have plenty of room for three tents. We had four solo people. I don't quite understand this two-tent-per site rule. Makes zero sense when there is room and you are well below the 6-person maximum per site.

Also, there are no swimming pools at the sites. She also told us this, in case you are planning on somehow bringing a pool camping.

Once we got to the sites, it was great. Lots of flat areas for pitching tents well away from the fire pit. Trees and bushes between sites for privacy. 68 had the area water spigots (one on each side of a fat post), so we did get to say hello to visitors getting water now and then. Parking is a few steps away from the sites.

67 and 68 are a bit of a slightly uphill trek to the bathrooms, where there are clean toilets and clean showers. It was $1.25 in quarters for 10 minutes of shower time. Only complaint from our group was you could not control the heat of the shower. I heard some people complaining about moths in the bathrooms at night, but to me, this is totally normal for a campground bathroom. There was no mirror at the sink though. (There was a power outlet by the bathroom sink, should you need to use a hair dryer after you shower. There was also a park bench right outside the showers.

Watch for snakes. We didn't see any, but fire officials came one night to remove an injured rattlesnake, so they are around. (Walk with heavy feet and most of the time, they'll just move out of your way if you do spot one and watch if you step into the bushes to let someone by on the hiking trails. Also watch for poison oak on trails.)

Thursday night was nice and quiet. Friday night, not so much, but MOST people piped down by around 11pm or 11:30pm.

A couple of trail loops start at the campground. The one toward the end of the campground has a few options, including a shorter and flatter nature trail. We took the steeper, longer loop from that same spot up to Glens Lookout, where on a clear day, you can see from the Salton Sea over to Escondido along the coast. The trail was a bit rocky, but fine if you are used to hiking. Another trail series started from closer to the checkin kiosk. We did find a mountain lion print on our hike, which was kind of cool.

There are horseshoe pits in the campground, if you want to bring horseshoes. Julian is an easy 10 minutes or less away, if you have a hankering for shops or pie. All of us, with different cell phone carriers, had decent reception at the campground.

I'd read a review that said to steer clear from camping near the trash bins. I'd second this because people do tend to slam the lids on those, which could be jarring if you are camped right by them.

Overall, this is a great campground, minus a star for some of the staff. (Other staff members were lovely and gave a completely different experience.)