Best Tent Camping near Salmon, ID

This place has it ALLLLL. Tent sites, RV sites w/electric and water, dry sites; boat ramp; playground, volleyball net, clothes lines, hot springs pools(2!); showers; camp store with ice; WiFi; wildlife(two mountain goats lead me in on the road); walking trail; shade trees(no hammocks allowed). And it is next to the Snake river. Seriously?? Ok, so the tent sites are really close to the RV sites, but with electric there aren’t any generators running. And the pools close at 9pm, which seems kinda early when the sun doesn’t set until almost 9:30. But I get it. And you are close to the town of Challis with two grocery stores and two gas stations and a Family Dollar. If you can’t find what you need, you probably don’t need it. Besides, you are going to spend all of your time in the water or playing land games. The bathrooms and showers are open 24hrs a day so you don’t even have to use the porta potties scattered around the property if you don’t want to.

This is a nice smaller forest service campground adjacent to grasshopper creek. A great spot to stay if exploring the Pioneer Mountains.

There are 7-8 spaces, most suitable for a trailer or van. We were tent camping as were others. There are vault toilets and the ubiquitous forest service green potable water pumps/drinking fountains.

There are no dumpsters so have to pack trash out. There are campground hosts but they don’t have firewood for sale, so either need to bring or be prepared to do quite a bit of hunting for wood. The area around the campground is picked pretty clean of good firewood.

This is bear country and there are food storage boxes located throughout the campground for shared use. I expect the presence of bears is also why they don’t have any dumpsters on site.

The campground sits at approximately 7000 feet and by late summer gets near freezing temps overnight. Bring your fall/winter sleeping bag if tent camping here in late August or late Spring!

Just a few minutes up the road from the campground is Elkhorn Hot Springs where you can pay a few bucks to use the rustic pool and hot springs.

Extra 5$ over other local campgrounds because there is water available and trash. Not especially nice or terrible. Very small sites, most with no room for a normal size tent, sites packed on top of each other. Even the few meant for small rvs have little room. Host on site in a nice beautiful and well maintained site, the public sites are not well maintained. Overgrown with weeds, very disappointing. Hosts don’t do much and are unhelpful. Suggest looking for any other CG in the area, there are several

Details: Toilet and trash on site Tight road, don’t tow anything to big On site managers are unhelpful Minimal room for even the average size tent One car per site at mist of them, nowhere else to park Long but easy drive to Darby, minimal amenities. Hamilton only 15 more minutes

Stayed two nights at this campground in August. There was a camp host setup, but we didn’t see him at all while we stayed. He did not seem to be staying here. The toilets ran out of tp and many people could not get their questions answered. It’s also only about 20 feet from the highway, so expect a lot of traffic noise at all hours. There is a boat loading dock located here as well, so many people were driving in and out all day. Cell service was good if we needed it but there are several more remote areas only about 20 minutes in to the forest that actually feel like camping (Cougar Point and William’s Lake). Overall it’s decent but I recommend it more as a pit stop if you need to crash for a night. The tent sites are well maintained and running water was a plus.

This is a cozy little campground about 20 minutes outside Salmon, ID. It's located directly on the Salmon River. It's a well-run site, is clean and has full hookups, laundry, a store, etc... If you're traveling north along the Salmon River, it's a good place to spend the night before heading up over the pass towards Lolo and Missoula, MT. No cell service, but serviceable WiFi, and its location on the river is excellent for anglers and those looking to enjoy the river. Spaces are a little tight, and there are definitely other boondocking sites along the river in this area, Wagonhammer provides a nice spot for those looking for the comforts of home while nestled in the wilderness. It's a quiet, calm, and safe place for travelers staying in everything from tents to enormous RV's.

This private Hotsprings has two pools - ine about 97 degrees ( large and inviting), the second is smaller and hotter at 107!

located about 7 miles from Challis it has great lawn areas for tents, and shaded RV sites along the Salmon River. Playground. Showers.

bring your mountain bike or running shoes for a relaxing ride or run on the country access roads.

Shoup Bridge  Campground is a small Campground surrounding cottonwood trees along the banks of the Salmon River. It is also right along the Highway.  We found this a pleasant campground to stay in, plenty of flat ground for our tents and only $5 a night.  A few sites are quite small, but still room for a tent. This was our Scouts jumping off point for a backpacking trip the next day.  While next to the highway we expected a lot of noise during the night, but that was not our experience, the only real road noise we had was in the early morning with worked out as it helped wake us up.  Each site has a picnic table and metal fire ring.  Water is available and the area has a vault toilet and trash cans.  Campground has a boat launch.

This small campground is right along the highway so it has easy access... and some highway noise. It is small, but we were there by ourselves 2 of the 3 nights we stayed. Camp sites are well spaced with their own fire pits and picnic tables. The roads and campsites are paved. However, they had just cut the grass and weeds, which we appreciated, but they left all their clippings around the campsites, so we used our rake and broom to clean it up. The parking area for the small boat launch is nearby, so there were people around most mornings and evenings. This is right on the Salmon River so a good place to camp if fishing the Salmon. No cell phone reception for Verizon. There was an osprey nest right by our campsite which had some babies and parents which were interesting to watch.

Simple campground along Salmon River--beautiful setting, with maybe 5 spaces, not all of which are marked well but do have picnic tables to indicate. Also a vault toilet at loop campground. Buggy, even with river flowing and slight wind. Free, which is nice. Can hear US93 traffic, but not bad considering neighbor ran generator which drowned out some noise.

So close to a five star campground if it were not for the swarming mosquitoes anywhere in the shade. Grounds were well taken care of, owners so very nice and helpful, showers and restrooms spotless and free, great little laundry room, and cute gift shop. Lots of boat launches up and down river for kayaking.very peaceful. One down side was the lack of nice swimming area in the campground. Spots were side by side so little in the way of privacy. Wi-Fi was weak but worked. No cell service for Verizon. Nearest town with groceries etc. is in Salmon so stock up before you go.

Only one real site with a metal fire pit and an additional site with a rock fire pit, this site sits below the toad next to the Salmon River. Because you are so far below the road and right next to a beautiful stretch of river, you don’t really hear the road. You do hear the neighbors target shooting(kinda crazy during an extreme drought). No services here, not even a pit toilet. However, go a couple hundred yards north and cross the river on the one lane bridge to come back down river to check out Duggout Dick’s hermit house and orchard. I don’t k is if the orchard bears fruit, but you can see the interpretive signs about Duggout Duck and his interesting life and you can peer in some Windows of one of his hand build houses.

If you want complete solitude from the internet and TV this is the place for you to reconnect with nature. (see video)

Being new RV'ers we didn't do our due diligence before booking, we went by pictures and the park did their part.  They said poor internet and poor cell service we just didn't believe them.  There was internet at the office but it was 56k speed.  

Having to run our company from the road, traveling with three kids under 5, 3 dogs and a cat, all over 5 we need to be able to work. 

Here's what we loved:

• Beautiful and clean
• Quiet and close to the river
• Incredible dog area
• Level parking
• Staff was incredible

We weren't fond of:

• No cell service (AT&T & Sprint)
• Poor WiFi

We gave this a 4-star review because it's exactly what it said it was and the staff was very kind.

If you are a digital nomad and stay here then go to Salmon (30-minute drive), turn left, and a few blocks down on your left is the public library.  It's the best wifi you'll find and you can access it from the street.

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It is a very off the beaten path, tucked away in the woods, true getaway from the busy city life. Travel south on 278 from Wisdom, MT and take the chance on an 18 mile gravel road to find a place only you see in pictures and read about in magazines. Drive through open cattle ranges and find a beautiful campground nestled up to 2 small lakes connected by a shallow channel. Clear water to see the bottom where it's shallow enough. No motorized boats allowed, so bring your own kayak or canoe and a fishing pole or two to enjoy the refreshing waters at the bottom of the mountains. Even in July, you can see snow atop the mountains on the Montana-Idaho border.

• Large, open water front spaces to set up "shop"
• Site 10 had room for 3 tents, 3 SUVs, 1 picnic table + extra side table, fire ring/grill, canoe, chairs around fire and shoreline, laundry lines
• Not crowded (maybe 5 sites taken when we were there)
• Bathrooms are clean (but no locks or hand sanitzer...at least the one I used)
• Water available
• One bear storage container at front entrance
• Must pack up and take out your own trash (no bear proof trash cans)
• Fire rings with grills available

We stopped here to sleep on our way to Glacier NP. It was easy to find but off the main road and quiet. Very clean campsites with fire pits and trash cans. We drove around the campsite before we left, all the sites were camper trailer friendly and had grassy areas for tents. All for $5