Best Glamping near Mono Hot Springs, CA

Before my trip here, I was worried about the lack of reviews. It was the first time my in-laws were going to be out in the wild!

However, I enjoyed this campground. It was a perfect place for stargazing! Reservations for the sites are non-specific. I'm thankful my big family got a double site (#14). It was huge. My family and I were in awe of the view the entire drive there. Bring dramamine and roll your windows down if you get motion sickness. I loved how spaced out each site was from each other. A lot of bats love to fly around at night. No cell service for some providers, but AT&T had service. Bring plenty of water for drinking, cooking, washing, etc.

This campground is about 1.5-2 hours from Shaver Lake, about 15 minutes from Edison Lake, 20 minutes from Mono Hot Springs(they have a store with ice), a short walk to the small creek. I'm not sure if you can swim in the creek--I wouldn't--but I saw an employee adding nets of fish inside. 

FYI: A bear cub even walked through the campground searching for food one afternoon. Throw your trash away and don't leave food out. When dumping your trash, please lift the entire lid. During my stay here, the front half was stuffed and the back half was empty.

aka Curry Village

My daughters and I have now stayed in both the canvas tent/cabin and a hard-sided cabin. Both provide comfortable beds with sheets and a warm blanket on each. (If you like fluffy pillows, bring one from home.) 

We stayed in the heated tent/cabin during a major snowfall and stayed toasty-warm. I’d give this place an extra star if we were able to boil water in the tents, so we could make our own warm food and coffee, but it’s not allowed. There are bear boxes to lock up any food you do bring. There are places in the valley to buy warm meals, but they really weren’t very good, especially for the price. 

The showers are warm and have good water pressure. They always had clean towels available, too.

However, Curry Village is packed with wall-to-wall people. Despite quiet hours, there seems to always be That One Guy who gets drunk, loud and obnoxious. On our last trip, That One Guy decided to yell obscenities in my daughters’ faces when they asked him politely to keep the noise down. It was 15min before quiet hours and it was obvious that most of the other guests (many with small kids) had gone to bed. Other than calling the front desk, there really wasn’t another option for “crowd control.” 

When I camp, I do prefer remote, quiet places away from crowds, but I did appreciate the convenience of Curry Village’s location. We really were in the heart of the valley with great access to the best hikes. All in all, we enjoyed our stays.

Overall, the proximity to being in The Valley outweighed the negatives of our stay. 

While pricey for what it is, it IS at the far east end of Yosemite Valley with easy access to the Mist Trail. The tent-cabins are close to each other (3-8 feet), and we were woken by our neighbors our first morning (they were checking out early, and while quiet hours were 'officially' over, it was still 0730...and since it was during the heat wave, we hadn't gotten to sleep til well after midnight).

That said...we were expecting foam rubber mattresses on wooden plywood shelves for beds, but the bed frame, mattresses, pillows and Rumpl blankets were a nice surprise (the website stated there would be wool blankets). The towels and sheets were in need of some fabric softener though.

 It was HOT. Having camped in tent-cabins before (not Curry Village), we brought fans with us that helped cool things down in the evenings, but having fans [battery operated/ rechargeable (we had Ryobi rechargeable fans)] helped us out.

We couldn't figure out how to make the tent-cabin canvas window 'shades' to stay open- which was necessary because we needed the ventilation - we had brought along some binder clips that we were able to jury-rig to keep the canvas flaps over the screens open,  though. 

Showers and restrooms were adequately clean, and showers were hot…but nothing to write home about. 

We were surprised by the trash on the grounds near the cabins (where our nearest showerhouse was)-  in fact, a zip-lock baggie sat on the ground in the same spot for the three days we were there, before I picked it up on our way out. Additionally, on the grounds of the tent-cabins, we found several nails and other hardware on the ground.

 We were also surprised by the size of Curry Village, which isn't really discussed on the website. We were in tent-cabin 749 on the far east end, which was great until we had to walk to Camp Curry and/or the parking lot. We brought a wagon to carry our gear from the car to the tent-cabin, but once again, we've done this before, and we felt really bad for the folks lugging all their stuff without the benefit of a cart. Next time we'd bring bikes to help with the longish walk (400 meters? Maybe longer?) 

The food options were great! The pizza is fantastic, and it was nice having the ability to grab pizza/tacos/burgers as an option at the end of the day (cooking is not allowed in the camp, but we 'tailgated' with backpacking stoves and meals a couple of the days).

***I start off by saying that the staff I did interact with were all very nice and it have a great mountaineering school with excellent staff and a nice camp store.

Also, this campground is definitely in a great location within the valley. However, for the cost you'd think they could do a lot more maintenance to these "tents". Similarly, not sure why they aren't all heated as they include a simple cheap heater that they could easily put in all of them.

When the campground is making about ~70K per night on the weekend you'd think they could easily afford to maintain the grounds. The tents are filthy, the bathrooms have graffiti in the stalls and there's no area for picnicking, fires, seating, etc. (things that you always get included at a standard campsite). My personal tent is way cleaner than these "tents" as it appears that they haven't cleaned out the dirt in quite some time...They simply (hopefully) just come in and change the sheets in between people and that seems to be about it.

Also, I can understand not having people cook/eat in their tents, but they should then provide a picnic area so you don't have to bus/drive to a different area of the park or eat all your meals in the restaurant (Another way they're making money) if you'd like to bring in some of your own food or sit around a fire and have a S'more. They do have a lounge with a fire place, so why can't they have an outdoor fire pit so you can actually be closer to nature? 

Stayed October 11-14th 2018 like another reviewer and couldn't believe how disrespectful so many of the other "campers" were during the quiet hours. People (not just the kids) were not only running through and disrespecting people personal space/belonging but they were up and extremely loud late into the night (at least 3am). Although isn't part of the reason to come to this incredible National park to get up early and explore the park? May people seemed to treat this "campground" as a party spot. People in true campgrounds are much more respectful of the others around them.

While, I'll definitely be back to Yosemite, I won't be staying here again.

The Tuolumne Meadows Lodge isn't the kind of lodge you think of when you think of a lodge.  It consists of a main building where there is a small store and an assigned-by-time food service, plus a bunch of platform tent cabins, each with its own stove for heat.  (Nights get cold up here, even in the summer!)

The large parking lot is lined on one side with bear boxes where you can store food, if you prefer to bring some cereal for breakfast and sandwich fixings for lunch.  (There are not many food options up this way. You have the lodge, plus a grill down the way, but that's about it.)

Free firewood is provided for guests, along with a communal campfire in the evenings.  The tents have cot beds and bedding.  Towels are also provided.  (There are bear boxes by the showers to hold your showering stuff.)

If you can get a cell signal, you are lucky.  I'm told that if you walk to the top of the nearby waterfall/river that runs by camp, there sometimes is service there.  I was able to make a phone call out, but no data available.

Lots of great hiking around.  This place reminded me of summer camp, but a bit more pricey!

We stayed here March 2022.  We booked a heated tent cabin for 4 nights.  It had 1 double bed and 2 singles, a storage tower, 1 central electric light, and 1 electrical outlet - this is not advertised, but if you tell them you have a CPAP or other medical device needing an outlet, they will let you know that there is one in the heated cabins.  It was enough to power a power strip, charge our phones, and run said CPAP (LOL).  The beds were comfy and the linens were great.  We requested additional blankets as the comforter on the bed was nylon on both sides and kept sliding off the beds.  We were given old school wool blankets and they were great!  We did adjust the heat often as it would actually get too warm.  

As we visited in the off season, not all of the amenities were available (pool, restaurants), but it didn't bother us at all.  The guest lounge was often crowded and we only spent one evening in there.  Showers and toilets were very clean.  It was still fully booked when we went, but the grounds are quiet are people were very respectful of the park rules.  

This was a great central location to do Yosemite.  We woke up under Half Dome every morning, did the Mist Trail, Vernal Falls trail, and Lower Yosemite Falls trail.  Doing it in the off season was awesome as the number of additional people not actually staying in the park was very small.

Reservations are hard to come by...we reserved in January for March of the same year and got lucky.  Book through the NPS as other sites charge additional, unnecessary fees.  We also recommend packing in food.  There are bear lockers to store it.  Dining in the park is provided by Aramark and is average at best.  We took a trip outside the park to dine in a nearby city and had a wonderful dinner. 

Overall, we would definitely stay here again and again!  It was very peaceful and comfortable.