Best Tent Camping near Columbia Falls, MT

Dispersed campground right on the Flathead river. Great to hear the river at night. Only downsides are it’s a busy boat launch with people coming all day long and it can get loud on the weekends. Free camping with 3 day max stay. The road will likely cause need for a front end alignment as you drive from Columbia Falls. About another 10 miles (of terrible roads) on North Fork road and you are at the west entrance to Glacier and close to Apgar / Lake McDonald. We stayed for 3 days and loved it. Nature at its best.

Small and pretty area but there were big deal breakers for us. We spent 2 nights here tent camping as part of a longer motorcycle camping trip.

First and foremost, the store was closed. They have a store on site but it's closed until 2022. It would have been nice because the closest thing to a grocery store is 15 miles away.

Second, there are no defined campsites. It's first come first served around a little pond on the property. It's nicely shaded and quiet, but there are NO picnic tables for tent sites and no dedicated fire rings. So if you show up later in the day, you might be SOL for a fire. The RV sites have picnic tables. I bring this up because it's a really nice thing to have when you're tent camping.  A place to cook, sit, put some of the crap you're hauling (especially if you're like us and on motorcycles with limited storage).

Third, the bathrooms and showers were cleaned up on a regular basis which was really nice but no hot water later on in the day. After a long, hard day of riding I just wanted to wash all the grossness off and was in freezing cold water.

For full disclosure we were compensated for this trip for testing the Dyrt's reservation system.

Our trip to Swan Lake Trading Post & Campground started out by reserving the campground through The Dyrts's new reservation system. Reserving the site was extremely easy and fast to use, way better than other systems we have used before. We had a confirmation from the campground with in a few hours of using the reservation system.

Now for the campground. We were highly impressed by this small campground. The tent camping area was located around a small pond/lake. The site has picnic tables and fire rings as well as plenty of chairs available for siting around the fire or along the little lake. The campground has 8 RV sites, 3 cabins and 3 yurts (the yurts had not been set up for the season during our visit). The trading post has all your basic camping needs and anything you need if you forget something, they even have Ice Cream. If you don't want to cook breakfast the trading post will take care of that for you by cooking up a breakfast sandwich for you. The campground provides clean restrooms and showers. Tent sites were very reasonable at $20, just two more dollars than the Forest Service campground down the road which does not have flush toilets or showers. The camp host are very friendly. We were provided with the camps wifi password, but you do have to be on the trading post back porch to use it. The porch has plenty of table an chairs for sitting at. They also have games you can use to pass the time, we didn't use them but was nice to know they were available. It was nice and quiet at night with very little traffic on the highway, plus the creek running by really muffled any noise from vehicles driving by. This campground will definitely be on our list to stay at the next time we visit the Swan Valley and Swan Lake.

The road was a little rough if you wanted to go all the way to the river. Fantastic site where you can tent camp, car or RV.

This campground offers cabin, rv and tent camping. There is a cafe open for breakfast and lunch. The office has cards and games for use and the hosts are always helpful.

This is a well loved for family owned campground. We stayed in the tent camping area and felt like it gave great privacy vs. the typical rows of RVs. There is tons of shade in the tent camping areas were as the RVs were more in the open but have the opportunity to have gorgeous distant lake views. We would stay here again as the location is perfect for getting into the park while being family owned and responsible priced.

Check out our blog at www.unnamedadventures.com and follow our journey on Facebook and Instagram or on our YouTube Channel at Unnamed Adventures. 

• Facebook

• Instagram

• YouTube

I really want to give this campground 5 stars but the tent sites left something to be desired. The sites with the views that sit on top of a hill are for RVs (even for RVs, they are pretty tight spots). The tent sites sit in a field and like a previous review states, have little privacy. However the sites are flat which is a huge bonus. We were lucky and the tent sites were not very busy so we were not terribly disturbed. Site 68 is decent as there is an opening set back in the trees for your tent. Most of the fire rings and picnic tables are set pretty close together. The bathrooms were nice and there was always plenty of hot water, even when showering during the busy evening times. The restaurant is fantastic and we ate there 3 nights in a row. The night time stars are fantastic and the location is great for east glacier and many glacier (30 minute drive to many glacier). The campground is VERY clean and staff is super friendly.

We tent camped. There are many campsites available, just have to drive on a long gravel road to get there. No running water except a pump from the creek. 2 vault toilets. Deer were roaming the campsites all evening, very cool.

The location of the campground is great, very close to the mountain town of Whitefish Montana and right along Whitefish Lake. The sites are small and the road is narrow but it is beautiful. I would be cautious about bringing any large campers to this area but the tent sites are nice. Be aware of ticks. Some sites are nice and level but others have a heavy slope.

Camp right along Flathead Lake in a campground with modern amenities (running water, showers). The campground is quite large for my taste (I prefer tent camping in solitude), but it is clean and well-maintained with a killer view.

Loved this campground. Great amenities. Loved the pool/hot tub. Nice big site with electric/water. Tent camped and the bathrooms clean and close by. Amazing store and they even delivered pizza right to our site. Pancake breakfast was wonderful.

We camped at Fish Creek Campground during our visit to Glacier National Park - it was a good experience. The only comment we had is how tightly packed the campsites were. Think it was a result of the campers staying in the "tent camping" spots - the tent spots are just smaller so the presence of campers made things feel tighter. Clean and quite during the night - we'd recommend again.