Townsend is an ideal place for camping adventures of all kinds. Townsend is an adventure-filled destination for those who love the outdoorsy camper lifestyle. But it's also great for those who prefer to spend time near the city, exploring and sightseeing. Find the best campgrounds near Townsend, MT. Read reviews from campers like you and find your perfect campsite.
Formerly Camp Three Forks: Perfect place to base camp while you visit Yellowstone National Park, Virginia City, Bozeman or fly fish one of the outstanding blueribbon trout fisheries that converge as the three forks of the Missouri. Hundreds of miles of bike trails, including the mountain terrain of Copper City BLM trails, are just minutes from the KOA. Welcome to Three Forks!
$58 - $70 / night
Beautiful Canyon Ferry Lake is the most used and enjoyed water playground in Montana. Summer recreation includes swimming, boating and some of the best walleye and trout fishing in the state (home of the Canyon Ferry Walleye Festival and Perch Ice Fishing Derby). Winter activities include hunting, ice fishing and ice sailing! This KOA offers 57 Pull-Thru RV Sites with both full hookups and water/electric. It has Camping Cabins, Tent Sites, showers and restroom facilities, and is close to the Canyon Ferry Lake Boat ramp and docks! Amenities include Wi-Fi and complete laundry facilities. You'll also find storage facilities for your boats, trailers and campers. What? You forgot your beer and marshmallows? The convenience store offers almost anything you may need for a pleasurable camping experience. Enjoy horseshoes, volleyball, a kids' playground and more! If you are out on the lake too late, the KOA store has Heat and Eat meals to choose from, or the Silo Bar and Grill is open most days year round. Our staff is friendly and well-informed on everything about fishing, boating, RVing, and storytelling!
The Silos is a concessionaire run marina and campground that is owned by the Bureau of Reclamation under the administration of the Broadwater County Commisioners.
$12 - $30 / night
Rillway Cabin is located 14 miles east of Townsend, Montana along scenic Deep Creek in Helena National Forest. Its history can be traced to Dr. A.C. Kelly, a physician who arrived in Townsend in 1915 and served as mayor from 1920-1924. In 1918, Dr. Kelly obtained a term permit from the Forest Service for the cabin site. The cabin was built between 1918 and 1922, then sold to Nellie Hale Averill and her son-in-law, Floyd L. Hollaway. By 1924, the cabin was known as "Rillway," a combination of the Averill and Hollaway family names. Today the cabin is a comfortable, rustic getaway for guests seeking relaxation and recreation in west-central Montana. It offers the easiest access of any cabins on the Helena National Forest, being accessible by vehicle year-round. Several amenities are offered, but guests will need to bring some of their own supplies.
The cabin offers nearby access to a number of trails and roads. A cross-country ski trail is just up the highway and snowmobiling areas are close by as well. Deep Creek flows adjacent to the cabin, providing anglers with a scenic backdrop for fishing. The creek provides habitat for a variety of trout.
The cabin offers nearby access to a number of trails and roads. A cross-country ski trail is just up the highway and snowmobiling areas are close by as well. Deep Creek flows adjacent to the cabin, providing anglers with a scenic backdrop for fishing. The creek provides habitat for a variety of trout.
The cabin is tucked back near a moss-covered canyon wall with Deep Creek splashing through the backyard. The area around the cabin offers a variety of landscapes, from river banks to subalpine terrain. Valley bottoms, dense forests, meadows and barren ridges are mixed with streams, rivers and lakes. Wildlife in the area abounds, including the more common elk, mule and white- tailed deer, squirrel, black bear, moose and a variety of birds. The more elusive badger, wolverine, mountain lion and lynx find habitat here as well.
$45 / night
Vigilante Campground is located approximately 24 miles northeast of Helena in the Big Belt Mountains. To access the campground travel northeast of Helena on Highway #280, across the Missouri River to the small community of York. At York continue driving straight on Road #4 to the campground. This 7 acre campground provides access to the Hanging Valley National Recreation Trail and the scenic Trout Creek Canyon Trail.
This is a typical KOA. First the good:
Friendly helpful staff until their gone at closing time. Little mini store with a few essentials.
Clean bathrooms and showers and clean laundry room with several washers/dryers. $2.00 per load to wash. Can't remember how much to dry. Very cool pinball machine that costs 25 cents per game. Fun fun fun! Another bathroom/shower in middle of park but I never looked inside that one.
65 sites that most have full hook-up and pull-through. A few cool tent sites with gas BBQs. Some cool looking cabins but I never looked inside one. I'm here on 8/24/2024 and RV park is sold out except 3 pull-through sites. All tent sites were full. I don't know about the cabins.
Cool playground for kids and large mostly gravel dog run.
Edit added: AT&T has 5G and three bars. KOA has wifi but slow slow slow I got 3MPS so instead of KOA wifi I used my iPhone Personal Hotspot that worked great.
THE BAD (and reason for only 3 stars):
All gravel roads and sites throughout the park. Very close together. Some sites have a very narrow strip of grass. Some of the picknick tables need to be re-painted. Unfortunately while eating breakfast you could be 2 feet away from the next RV dumping their sewer. P.U. The luxury sites don't have that problem. They are at the end of each row and only have a neighbor on the drivers side. I think well worth the extra 17 bucks.
Not ADA friendly. Very hard for someone with a walker to get around because of gravel roads/sites. Someone with a wheel chair near impossible. Has a nice handicap shower in main office building. Only problem is that once I take my walker in with me it's very tight and no room to move around.
Not EV car friendly. There is a $250 fine and eviction if you plug in your car. The person at the front desk told me the $250 fine and eviction is because EVs overload the outdated system and cause a fire. This KOA is an older one and was wired before EVs. Each individual site has its own 30 amp and 50 amp circuit breaker.
Some trees but few and far between. No pool or hot tub.
Final thoughts: Make reservations well in advance if you can. This KOA is the best game in town and is mostly sold out in summer. I think (sorry I don't know for sure) there is only one other RV park in town and from what I can tell, it is a much older one. I would proceed with caution before I booked it. Good traveling. See you on the road.
It is now day use only. 5am-10pm
Was able to snag a primitive spot for one night. This campground isnt too far off I90 near 3 Forks, MT. No cell service (ATT) at the campground but 5g at the caverns. Hosts were super friendly and nice. I was in A7 which had a nice shade tree. Did not use the facilities so can’t speak to that. They had a guest speaker that night share about the bat population in MT. Very interesting!! Be sure to unhook and get to the caverns early in the morning to get a reservation to tour. We did the Paradise tour as my son is in a wheelchair. The classic tour looked super cool though!
Maybe one acceptable loop, perhaps mostly for boaters. But there are 3 other loops: nothing is labeled, so good luck in finding your spot. The Manager site is not labeled either, and she was of no help. Dry, hard ground, no trees, nothing that might make a visit enjoyable. No drinking water; arid, depressing; i kept waiting for the undead to come over the horizon.
Pretty Lake, though.
Only spent one night, but level sites, full hook ups, showers and laundry clean. An area to play games and we didn’t have our dogs this time but the dog zone looked good and clean.
The Paradise tour was really easy and it was spectacular!
Carter Lake south shore. NIce pull through sites with electric. Dump station with easy access. Many sites on the lake and more with lake view. Many shaded sites. Boats allowed. Very pleasant experience.
Great hosts, clean and well maintained. They do have drop in non reservation sites, but recommend getting reservations as well as cave tour reservations on line In Advance. Walk in for the cave tours without reservations best between 9 and 11 am. Beware, it's a 2mi hike uphill from the campground of you don't want to drive your rv up the caves! Deer visited camp at night! Check weather report, strong winds and we had thunderstorms. Warm showers $3. (Cave tours not included in camp fee, dump is $5 also). Some hiking in area, but .. bears!
Was able to get a spot right on the water late on a Saturday night. Quiet, fire rings tables and restrooms. Not much to complain about.
Beautiful facilities and friendly helpful staff. Lots of trees, minimal road noise
Cleanest and nicest bathrooms I’ve seen in a long time!! We stayed in tent spaces which they were working to update with water and electricity, both of which worked for us! A storm came through and it was windy for a bit, but besides that beautiful skies and great weather. Respectful campers, and right by water access!
Campsite 1 was probably not the best choice but we loved the view… so did our wild life friends
For sure there is 1 grizzly that’s pretty big. He checked out our truck tent.
Mountain Goats will come in your camp and they will do what goats do and want to check you out. They are not scared
The restrooms are shutdown in the camp but the lake access restroom down the hill does work
1 bear box for the whole camp ground so be prepared to store food in car or tree
Called in last minute for a 1 night stay because my 1st option didn’t pan out. When they were escorting me to the campsite, they graciously upgraded me to a gravel pull through because it had been raining. I offered to pay extra but they said no worries. Bathrooms and shower house were very clean and private which was nice. Would highly recommend, especially with the Lewis and Clark caverns so close!
The staff were very friendly and as helpful as possible. The restrooms and showers were nice and clean. Small store, nice pavilion area and a huge dog area. I did not see a playground area. The sites are very small and very crowded. A small fire ring and picnic table at each site however to sit on our picnic table one of us would have to sit directly beside our neighbors sewer dump. At our site two lengths of sewer hose wouldn’t reach from our tank to the sewer dump, so even though we paid for full hookups we were only able to utilize water and electric. The roads in the park are also very tight and in my opinion not very big rig friendly.
Super easy to book a spot here through the KOA website. Found the store stocked with some pretty good food that rotates weekly. Clean and well maintained bathrooms and campsite
Quiet in the off season
A bit hard to find but go past the Helicopter and keep going down the dirt road for a mile or two. All the campsites sit along a rocky canyon and a stream runs parallel to the road. All sites have a picnic table and fire pit. One of my fav camping spots I’ve visited
No lake in August/September. Dry. Lots of ATV use. Dusty. Hot. Miserable.
We booked a pavilion spot with 50A service. Other pavilions have 20A or 30A. Non group sites are dry camping only. There is a water spigot nearby for filling tanks. Road coming in is a bit rough, but overall a great place to stay.
Small sites. Very rough road going in. Vault toilets. Beautiful little creek running through the campground.
Clean area, typical KOA restrooms. Not much shade. Pretty mount and lake views. Playground and store. $5 for showers if you are not staying.
Did not visit. Passing along info that camp website is gone. Park is now a KOA Park.
What a nice, quiet little spot. Not much shade, but lots of space between campsites. Plenty of wildlife (rabbits, snakes, deer).
The hosts, Larry &Linda, are two of the nicest people. Would've been perfect if not for the methed up neighbor. Close to nice trails and fishing, clean bathrooms and fire pits. No water or power.
Plenty of space and clean pit toilets!
Spent 2 nights reorganizing after 5 nights of dry camping. Showers, laundry, restocking the fridge, and letting the dogs run. Perfect spot on our journey
While traveling through MT, we came across this park. The drive in was beautiful & we were lucky enough to find a spot that was first come for the night. It was starting to get warm in June & what a relief to have electric hook ups for ac. The sites were very spacious & the camp host was wonderful. We did not have time for a cavern tour, but the campground was very accommodating. Great place to unwind & relax.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is the most popular glamping campsite near Townsend, MT?
According to TheDyrt.com, the most popular glamping campground near Townsend, MT is Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park — Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park with a 4.2-star rating from 31 reviews.
What is the best site to find glamping camping near Townsend, MT?
TheDyrt.com has all 20 glamping camping locations near Townsend, MT, with real photos and reviews from campers.
