Searching for a tent camping spot in Montana? You can find tent campsites at RV parks and campgrounds, and even places to boondock for free. Each spot offers quick access to one or more of Montana's most popular destinations.
Bowman Lake campground is located in the North Fork area of Glacier National Park approximately 32.5 miles from the west entrance and 30 miles from the Canadian border. The drive to Bowman Lake is a very slow, dusty, and bumpy ride on dirt roads. Trailers are not permitted. The campground is located close to the shore of Bowman Lake and camp sites are within trees for shade and some privacy. Tent campers looking for peace and quiet will enjoy Bowman Lake for its serenity and remote location.
Weather Dependent Primitive Fall Season
October 9–October 31
Bowman Lake Campground's typical summer season is from mid-May to early September. If weather permits, a primitive camping season can extend into the fall between early September and late October.
$10 - $15 / night
“Dispersed camping” is the term used for camping anywhere outside of a developed campground, including in some campgrounds with minimal development. Dispersed camping is free, and permitted almost everywhere on the Flathead National Forest. Camping in undeveloped areas requires you to help keep the sites in good condition. Rules for dispersed camping Groups over 75 people are not allowed. Dispersed camping is NOT allowed near developed recreation areas including campgrounds, trailheads and day-use areas. Water, restrooms, and trash cans are not provided. Pack out all your trash. There is a 16-day stay limit at any site. After that you must move 5-miles away, and you can not return to your original campsite for 7 days. Use existing fire rings. Avoid creating new fire rings. Your fire must be attended at all times and be dead out before leaving. Contact a local office about possible campfire restrictions before you go. Be bear aware and know the food storage regulations before camping. These regulations are strictly enforced. Additional rules or regulations may apply to the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex and Flathead Wild and Scenic River corridor.
Kintla Lake campground is Glacier National Park's most remote frontcountry and car camping campground. It is located in the uppermost northwest section of the park known as the North Fork, approximately 40 miles from the west entrance. Access is via a rough dirt road. Trailers not permitted. Due to its remote location, the campground is very quiet and rarely fills, offering tent campers a sense of solitude. The campground sits on Kintla Lake.
Kintla's summer season is typically early June to early September. Weather dependent, there is a primitive camping season from early September to the end of October. Note: In 2023, this campground will be closed for the fall due to construction beginning on September 6.
$10 - $15 / night
Located in the scenic Little Rockies near the small town of Landusky, the Montana Gulch Campground offers a quiet, stream-side setting with lots of shade. It lies within a 30-minute drive of the Camp Creek Recreation Area and several small bass and trout fisheries. T here are no amenities in Landusky.
10 camping units, restroom, tables and fire-rings, garbage collection, day-use picnic area
No fees for day use and parking, $8/night for camping, no reservations. All campground fees are used to supplement the maintenance costs for the site.
This campground does not use a reservation system, it is managed on a first-come, first-served basis. Be aware the campground may fill up on weekends & holidays during the summer months and you should arrive in the early afternoon to ensure there is a space available for the night. Accessible - yes (toilet as well)
M-K is a free campground located 2.6 miles up the Main Fork Rock Creek Road #2421, not far from the Beartooth Highway. Mount Maurice Trail (#6) Corral Creek Trail (#9), Beartrack Trail (#8), Lake Fork Trail (#2), Parkside National Recreation Trail (#103), Hellroaring Plateau Trail (#11), Glacier Lake Trail (#3), Sheridan Campground, Rattin Campground, Parkside Campground, Limber Pine Campground and Greenough Lake Campground are also located in the Man Fork Rock Creek drainage.Camp sites: 10Max Trailer Length: 20ftHost: NoAccessible Facilities: Vault ToiletsTrash Pickup: NoFirewood: No. Don't move firewood to other areas or bring in outside firewood. Prevent the spread of tree-killing insects by obtaining firewood near your destination and burning it there.Reservations:No Reservations: This campground does not use a reservation system, it is managed on a first-come, first-served basis. Be aware the campground may fill up on weekends & holidays during the summer months and you should arrive in the early afternoon to ensure there is a space available for the night. There is a 16 day stay limit. Some sites have bear resistant food storage lockers.M-K Campground remains open year-round. In the off-season there are no services, the campground is not maintained, and roads are not plowed. If you visit outside the peak fee season, please bring your own water, toilet paper (outhouse will remain open), and please pack out your trash.Directions from district office:Drive south on US Hwy 212 towards Cooke City for 10.9 miles. Turn right onto the Main Fork Rock Creek Rd (FR #2421). Drive 0.9 miles past Parkside, Greenough and Limberpine Campgrounds. Turn leftjust have to Limberpine Campground to continue on the Main Fork Rock Creek Rd. Drive 2.6 miles to the campground.*Please be advised the Main Fork Rd. is bumpy and rocky, especially beyond M-K campground. High clearance vehicles are recommended.Information:Beartooth Ranger District6811 Hwy 212Red Lodge, MT 59068(406) 446-2103
Traveler
We stayed for one night and camped in a tent. The river access was nice, as were the campsites. However, there were not many marked tent sites and there was dog poop everywhere. Other than that, it was very nice! They have 2 vault toilets.
Scout
Came in late in the rain…they had cabins available for not much more than a tent site. That was a blessing for us since we have been tent camping. Staff is very helpful and friendly!
Guide
Between the free coffee, breakfast, & hot spring access our stay was worth it. Tent sites were small, no privacy. I wish we would have had our RV. Not an ideal place to tent camp in my opinion. Near a busy (noisy) highway. Clean facilities. Staff were all friendly & helpful.
Legend
While this is a typical RV park in many ways, the tent sites are given a FRONT ROW location along the river. The host did say they weren’t going to have tent camping for at least until August of 2020 due to a lack of COVID supply availability. Still, there’s a lot of fantastic space to explore, lots of tall trees AND... hot air balloons take off from here. I kid you not. What could be better than being in a balloon floating over Montana during the summer?
Guide
This is your average family campground with RV park and grass closely packed tent campground (like literally right on top of one another split by single pine trees). Very much like a KOA (pool, shop, WiFi, showers, laundry etc.) but half the price ($26/night for basic tent site). No fire pits, there is a picnic table for each site.
Traveler
We tent camped ( primitive). Tent camping is somewhat grouped together, some open sites, some wooded. Bathrooms/showers are in need of updating. Showers are token operated( you get 1 token per night/per person that allows a six minute shower). There is a small store, and a restaurant on property. St. Mary’s entrance to Glacier NP is 1 mile away. Most tent sites are grass, you drive and park right up to site. We stayed 3 nights, 2 of the 3 nights were a little noisey up to midnight including LOUD music until 2:00 A.M. the last night. Personally, we would probably not stay there again unless updates were made. Not much of any view from campsite either.
Traveler
Very clean RV/tent campground just outside of Billings with full hookups and a lovely area for tent camping. Laundry facilities, showers. We have stayed here a few times while visiting our daughter and the owners have been very kind to us. There is noise from the interstate, train, cows, etc but if you travel you should be used to that. Great stop on the way to Yellowstone, Red Lodge or another fun places nearby.
Legend
This review is specific to tent camping which I don’t think is the focus of KOA locations.
For the good, the facilities we super clean and there were personal shower/bathroom rooms for use. The shower was great after a week of car camping.
The camp store had the basic and was convenient.
The location was very close to West Yellowstone and the west part of the park.
However, the tent camping left something to be desired. Our loop was around the back of the campground, with the basics of a fire ring and picnic table, it there was no tent pad and the ground was generally pretty sloped.
The tent sites overall were sort of fit into extra spaces and had little privacy.
Traveler
Tent camped here. Definitely bring bear spray as this is a remote campground in the woods.
Had great availability last minute. $34 for the night. Sites 1-13 are pretty grassy and good for the tent! Site 14 was tent friendly, but it was harder to find a flat surface with no tree roots. A 2 person tent was used at site 14 and we made it work. If you have a bigger tent I would definitely go for sites 1-13 first. Each campsite had a bear locker to put food in!
Traveler
This site is technically just a walk to your tent site. There are places to park, so if you have a van you can go stealth and park and sleep here. There area 6 parking spots and 1 handy capped spot. Of these really only the one right next to the ADA spot is level enough for van sleeping. (This is where we parked.). There was one other person sleeping in the lot near us. The other people were tent camping at the designated tent spots. There are 3 tent spots.
Legend
While you have great views of the lake from just about any site, you also lack any shade or hammock trees here. It looks like the campground is still in long slow recovery from fire mode here. There are lots of little (5’ or less) trees growing on the slope and a few in the center of the two loops, but that’s about it. But the wildflowers are nice. The campground is fairly quiet and very friendly. Clean vault toilets. Rv and tent sites are all together, with loop A being reservable.look at sites carefully if you are tent camping as not all sites have a spot for a tent. Also, I only saw 2 or 3 bear boxes for the whole campground to share.
Scout
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.
Traveler
This camp spot is a dream come true for a family visiting Glacier. They have a family pool and an adults only pool in a separate enclosed. They have many different options as far as tent sites, hookup sites, camping cabins, luxury cabins, etc etc. Very cute ice cream shop and a wonderful little cafe that has dinners and espressos and coffee in the morning.
One of my favorite things about this KOA is they have a beautiful and private tent camping area away from all the RV people. Also the bbq at the little restaurant is amazing and I think it’s the owner out there on a grill and he’s a lovely talkative dude who wants to ensure everyone is enjoying themselves. The facilities are all well maintained and lovely. Can’t speak highly enough about this place.
Scout
I went just overnight to go watch the metor shower. I camped in a tent. Deer wandered into the campground throughout the night and morning. You can hear logging creek moving from no matter where you are. The road was a lil rough with the washed out gullies in the road with the cattle guards. But I overall loved it.
Guide
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.
Scout
If you like waterslides or golfing this will be hard to beat. Nice and clean areas with a great little store. I want to judge a park by the cost of ice “2.00” seems fair. $29.00 to tent camp. Power, picnic table, 4g phone service with Verizon, they offer wi-fi, bbq in every site. Each site has a raised level gravel spot for setting up camp with grass all around. I appreciate that they planted trees that block out the hot sun during the entire day (Sept 1st). Showers and bathroom are 100ft away. The shower and toilets are immaculate and secure with secure code door locks. At check-in, I was offered a day pass to the golf course and water park at no cost for the day. It was A nice bonus and justified the extra cost for the tent site. The water park has a nice restaurant and bar inside as well as a poolside bar with mixed drinks. I had dinner at Donivan's about 10 miles away in Anaconda. Great place to eat very nice. Had a great steak potato and beer for $27 it was delicious. This is my second trip out here this summer from Washington state to Fairmont. I genuinely enjoy spending time here. I'm just a big kid traveling by myself, but it's really an excellent place for the little ones and a place for mom and dad to get some time together. I see a lot of retired people here living it up golfing and swimming. Being right off, I90 makes it a huge bonus. I can see the cars on the highway just barely and no noise. Must be 3ish miles from 90. Happy ⛺!
LegendFor 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.
Guide
Currently rooftop tent camping all over Montana had stopped here for the night ran into a guy and was told this was the Last river that does not have dams and that the locals are fighting to keep it that way
Scout
The host here is great, and the local area is great. But if you are tent camping, beware. There is not really a good tent camping spot, as the sprinkler system will start every few hours and basically ruin your stay.
Traveler
Very well kept. Not just a group use area. Nice trailer or tent sites. Clean restrooms and fresh water. Wonderful camp hosts. Beautiful spot on Blackfoot river. Only 6 miles to Lincoln, Montana if you need anything.
Guide
Great tent camping away from the crowded Yellowstone sites.
Ranger
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.
Scout
We just returned from a stay at Madison Arm resort on Hebgen and I was very impressed. They had showers, a small store, fish cleaning station and plenty of bear proof garbages. They offer cabin, RV rentals, Rv and tent sites. We enjoyed our stay and the view from our tent site.
Guide
$14/night tent camping. Spent two nights. Thursday night was great. Plenty of site for everybody to spread out. Friday night was much more crowded. Sites are all nice and flat and level for tent camping. Vault toilets are very clean. There is a playground if you have kids. Decent hiking, unfortunately the caves themselves were closed during our stay. Easy access from I-90. Would stay again mid-week or off season, but during prime time I'd prefer a bit more seclusion.
TravelerAs mentioned in other reviews, trains were loud. There was also a child messing with our tent early in the morning and being super noisy. Tent camping is crowded and unorganized, but neighbors were super respectful. Something to mention with tent camping: you will NOT get a view like the plug in sites do. Nice showers and bathrooms. There is a pool that isn’t super crowded. Price was about $40/night which was high for a site with no view, and no privacy, but I understand the appeal of the pool and showers!
GuideNice camping close to Bozeman - which is home to Montana State and a couple good microbreweries. Really liked this campground - but didn’t get enough sleep. Tent camping is nice here, some trees for wind cover and flat ground with picnic benches. But the trains roll through the entire evening, with horns sounding their arrival. Made it pretty tough to sleep. Nice amenities with a pool, showers, water, etc.
Legend
Nice small campground is the launch point for starting at river mile zero for floating the 149 mile Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument. Has 25 tent sites and 7 RV sites with hook-ups. Showers are available in the fairgrounds for those staying at the campground. Jointly run by Chouteau County and the BLM. Tent sites $10, RV's $22, full hookups $22.
Tent camping in Montana offers a unique opportunity to immerse yourself in stunning natural landscapes while enjoying a variety of outdoor activities. With numerous campgrounds featuring essential amenities, you'll find the perfect spot to set up your tent and unwind.
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