Best Tent Camping near Salem, NM

We parked our cargo van in the tent camping spot since we dont need water or electric hookups. The tent sites are up in the rocks and they are very cool. The bath house is new (located at the visitors center) and has clean showers and toilets. We really enjoyed staying here for the night.

It really is beautiful here. Southeast New Mexico has mountains believe it or not. The camp is nestled up against one. It’s Memorial Day weekend and not too crowded. Highly recommend for the price (basically free). If you are tent camping and low maintenance this place rocks. If you have a huge rig I’m not even sure I would want to make the drive up the road to the camp site. Spots are small, so you would need to find the best spot if you have an RV or Trailer.

Stayed at the Appaloosa Campground. Was surprised when we should up that we had water. Electric works great. Ground is pretty hard and rocky so wouldn’t be good for tent camping.

I've been on a nationwide roadtrip for a few months that now and I have tent camped alone in many sites from Florida to Arkansas to, now, New Mexico. I chose Aguirra because of its close proximity to White Sands National Park. It is a First Come First Serve site and you must pay in cash. I was lucky to find a site in the afternoon. There are many sites. Over 40. I lucked out with 43 because it is huge! It's a jilly Rocky site with no one around me and several stone fire pits, a BBQ grill, and animal proof garbage can. There are Porta John's in close proximity. I have not found any water yet. Not sure. No RV hookups. But what do you expect for 7 bucks a night. I was here over Easter weekend so it got noisy with Fiesta music and someone throwing up across from my site at midnight! Whole families come here, jam their music etc. It's Easter so whatever. There is a covered picnic table and lots of tree cover to deal with the intense NM sun. I love how this place is at the end of an ascending, remote, windy road though. It's large enough that no rangers come and bug you for trivialities.

This campground is right off the highway, but not too much traffic. The small creek bed has nice water depending on the time of year. Too hot in the summer. Gets cold I. The winter, but it is a nice place when the weather is too cold to go further up the mountains to other campgrounds in the Gila. Vault toilet is clean. Only a couple of camp spots. We tent camp, but I think you'd be able to park a small camper or trailer.

Caballo Lake State Park has several campgrounds that aren’t represented on the Dyrt app map. We tent camped at the Riverside campground below the dam over Easter 2014. See my screenshot of the park map. Google map has 100s of reviews of this campground. It was ok. Kind of crowded and the Rio Grande flowed shallow and muddy (unlike in Del Rio, Texas, from where we had recently moved, where the river is beautiful, above and below Amistad Dam). Alas, at least it was nice to be outdoors.

We tent camped at Aguirre Spring campground over Father’s Day weekend in June 2022. I don’t know. Maybe it was too hot or I was too tired, or a combination of both with a causal connection. I love the outdoors but I can’t really think of anything good or bad to write about this campground.

It seemed like a nice place and the vault toilet bathroom was clean and extremely stocked with TP. There is a great trail called pine tree loop from which you can actually see real pine trees on the mountainside above the barren desert basin. We fell victim to the one-way road that other campers bemoaned too. The camp host’s phone is 575-644-9143 (as announced on the BLM’s voicemail greeting) and he was helpful when I called ahead and told me the campground was open (as of 6/22/2022, the Dyrt has an alert that the campground is closed for the season), that there was plenty of space, and that there was a fire ban.

We pitched our tent without the rain fly. Right when we layed down for the night, it started raining, so we scrambled to overlay the rain fly and then the rain stops. In the middle of a desert drought, if such a thing is a thing. The tent pad barely accommodated our 6-person tent and it seemed like all the sites suffered the same fate. We scouted the whole campground, mainly searching for shade and settled on a decent site with a giant boulder on the western side for some evening shade. The campground was maybe 1/3 full. Overall it was good to get outdoors for father’s day despite the fatigue.

After about 308 miles on the road today we were tired. The desolate stretches of highway between Tucson and Las Cruces had paid their toll and we were very happy to at last see the Las Cruces KOA Campground sign.  

We had called in advance and were insured that tent camping was not yet full and we could come and make ourselves at home. Unknowing if we would make it before the office closed between 6:00 and 6:30 we were delighted to see the friendly face of Anne when we arrived. 

She assisted us with not only a great campsite but also providing a map with items potentially of interest and some knowledge about our next days activity. 

Our campsite was near the bathrooms and on a grassy area with plenty of shade. We were provided with a grill station and picnic table as well as water at the site and parking just in front along the slight fence line. 

The campground facilities provided a half basketball court and play area as well as a gazebo for looking at the views during sunset. Those views were amazing overlooking the city and into the mountains as the night fell from the distance.

We found an outdoor grill area upon arrival which offered a little more relief from winds than our campsite itself so were able to use our camp stove there and also have a nice area to sit and eat peacefully.

There was a pool and it looked very inviting, however it was not open until mid month, a sad negative to us upon arrival. 

I did take notice for those rv camping they also provided full hook ups and cable. To all campers wifi was available as well.

🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰

Overall this campground gets 5 of 5 Bunnies. The security of code locked facilities as well as comfortable facilities made for a pleasant experience in Las Cruces as a pass through city on our venture.

I spent two weeks here at three different sites, and while I was ready to get back to civilization (the park is fairly remote), I genuinely had a relaxing time.

The bathrooms/comfort station are clean and fairly new—the only downsides are they’re only open from 7am-5pm to conserve water and it’s a bit of a trek by foot if you’re at one of the far campsites. I also had strong enough reception with T-Mobile to work remotely, and good service through Verizon as well.

Site 25 (Crab): a truly iconic site within a park where nearly every site is a gem. Downside: very little privacy and no shade from the afternoon sun. Upside: Site is level, great sunset views and a quick walk to the pit toilets.

Site 24 (Hercules): Connects to site 25 via a the rock formations, but more private as it’s not directly on the main loop. Again, close to the pit bathroom. There’s a fun and semi private climb up into the rocks to the left of the picnic table that will give you a stellar sunset view. Site is level and protected from the worst of the south/SW winds. I also saw the most wildlife from this site (marmot, roadrunner, jack rabbit, and more). Downside: the site curves rather drastically and is best suited for vans, tent camping, or very small RVs; little shade as the tree that used to offer shade was removed.

Site 30 (Triangulum): hands down, the best site in the park IMO. Lots of shade and privacy as it’s set far back from the main road; it almost feels like you have the park to yourself. Pit toilets are conveniently at the end of the drive. Downside: people climbing through the rocks occasionally end up near your site, but no one ever wandered too far; the windmill does makes some noise but it’s really not too bad; this site has FULL shade, which is ideal unless you run on solar panels. For a few hours a day I had to back my van into the sun, which put it at a fairly severe angle as the drive slopes once you back out of the sweet spot by the picnic table; very little protection from the wind, but there is some.

You can't beat New Mexico State Parks. Water and electric hook-ups for $18. Great views and a concrete picnic shelter to boot.

Like many New Mexico State Parks, Leasburg Dam offers beautiful views and nice facilities. We have the facilities here to be among the best. We love the adobe shelters!

On way from Texas to Vegas this was a nice stop along the way. We took extra day to visit white sands and experience some New Mexico Mexican food at Andele Restaurant.

Weather was perfect in October.

Very nice day.

Convenient spot when driving south in New Mexico. Nice campground. The water level on the lake was pretty low. There is some good hiking nearby and also a bike trail that goes around the lake which is quite long. We were there early in the season so there was a lot of accessibility for campsites.

We stopped at this KOA for one night while passing through New Mexico.   We had a great view of the valley below and our site had everything we needed--full hookups. We were pretty close to others but that's not unusual for a KOA. Nothing wrong with this place but not a luxurious campground.

A little confusion at the park enterance sent us to the incorrect loop, discovered shortly after we were in place. But camp host made a few calls and as it worked out we were able to remain in location. The helpfulness of each person along the way made this an excellent spot. We used this as a base to explore south central New Mexico.