Best Tent Camping near Ronan, MT

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.

The Missoula KOA appears to be the only game in town.  I guess that is why they can charge a premium price and leave you with two choices, take it or leave it.  Only problem is we could not find another place so we "took it".

This is a big and busy campground.  Lots of good things about it.  For example, for a premium price, you can get a site with your own private dog run.  Two older but OKay hot tubs and a heated swimming pool.  Bicycle and other stuff rental.  Everything from tent sites, cabins, small full hook-up sites to large spacious premium sites.  Despite some of the bad reviews, the staff was very friendly to us and, because of no parking for our Tesla, they were able to move us to a better site.  WARNING:  You are not allowed to plug in any electric car.  We were warned that if we plugged in our Tesla, we would be fined and asked to leave the park immediately.  The Tesla supercharger was less than two miles away so no problem for us.  Wifi was great.  34 mbs.  AT&T was 2 bars 5G.

The BAD:  Very busy.  Many days in summer they are 100 per cent booked.  Make reservations early and be specific what you need.  Be ready to pay a premium price, even for tent camping.  Camp is old but well kept.  Bathrooms are clean but very old style and shower stalls are very small and not handicapped friendly.  Surrounded by lots of older double-wide's.  Some well kept and some not so well kept.  Not friendly to electric cars (see warning above).  Several times during our stay they paused their golf cart in front of our Tesla,  I assume making sure we did not plug in.

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.

Beautiful spot with great views of Flathead Lake. The RV sites were nice and spacious and level with their own patio and chairs. They also offer cabins and tent sites. Some tent sites have water and electric. I was car camping and I had a strange campsite by the cabins for a tent but I couldn't park at the site. There was a small lot close by so that was fine but it also seemed pretty far from the bathrooms. The bathroom was very clean and I loved the private showers. The laundry area was spacious and clean. They also had several brochures on local activities. The wifi didn't seem to reach the tent sites though.