Best Glamping near San Cristobal, NM

Hamlet went to visit his fun cousins for the weekend -- Diego, Thelma, Louise, Frida, Ralphie, Sunnie, and others– all vintage campers available for rent at this amazingly cool space just outside of Taos, NM. 

It was Thanksgiving weekend, and while many of the campers were fully booked, there was lots of space in the dry camping area just beyond the vintage trailers. There’s lots of room here for dozens of campers, vans and RV’s. There are no trees or shade structures in the dry camping area, just a few randomly placed fire rings. But camping here means you have access to the very clean bathrooms/showers, water, and other services at the "hotel." 

Surprise!  The weather went from day-time highs in the 60’s to blizzard conditions with overnight lows in the teens.  We busted out our Airskirts Insulation to help keep our floor warmer and our heated air inside. 

It’s a great place to base your Taos adventures, hiking near the Rio Grande Gorge, or going further up into the mountains. Nearby activities include fishing, rafting, cycling, mountain biking, and skiing in winter.  Across the road from the campground is the Taos Mesa Brewery where you can get amazing craft beers and some great food. 

It was the perfect place to hang out on a cold, wintery night.

Taos also has all the restaurants and services that you might need, and some of the best southwest eateries you’ll find anywhere. The campground is ideal for solar power, as is the New Mexico weather. We also had no problem connecting with Starlink and had LTE in the campground.  If you love the combination of vintages, views, and brews...check this fun place out!

Pulled in around 4pm on a Saturday and only 1 other camper was here. A few vehicles were parked at the bathroom/trailhead, super friendly. There’s about 3-4 spots with picnic tables then at least 10 other spots with rock ring fire pits but no tables. There is 1 clean vault toilet, but no TP so bring your own. 1-2 bars LTE AT&T service available near bathroom but gets worse the further you go away from it. The views of the river are beautiful as well as the sunrise. It’s a bumpy 3 mile road off the highway, had no issues in my transit van as long as you take it slow.

Beautiful views

Stayed in one of the unofficial sites just outside the campground. Could see and hear other campers but they were fairly distant and the site still felt remote. Great dark sky viewing! Our spot was close to some very nice overlooks.

Very beautiful spot. Lots of dispersed camping a few fire pits. There’s a 1.25 mile hike down to the river to cool down. Plenty of shade and lots of off road trails for driving/running/biking. No water. clean bathrooms (with toilet paper!!) only 30 mins or so from Taos.

It was slow going getting back here. The sign says no passenger vehicles, but I made it just fine in my Subaru Forester.

Throw campsite is gorgeous, hugging the rim of a canyon overlooking the Rio Grande. You can hike down to it. While there are established campsites, a bathroom, and a handful of picnic tables, the campground was all but deserted during my stay. I’ve seen one other family per day out here. Not sure why a site designed for twenty or so campsites is so unpopulated, but I don’t mind! Wind is strong, but arid, and cool to visit in the summer. Great spot! Note: takes about half an hour to drive in, through rutted, dirt roads. I had no problem, but advise caution for larger vehicles.

Driving through Taos we needed a place to camp. This place is a gem! It's absolutely beautiful. We thought we would have trouble getting a spot to pull into, but there was only one other camper.

Hubby and I stayed in the arena and visited the parks around! Definitely an area to check out! The Rio Grande river is something else!

Travel mid March just passing through. Stayed one night. Hidden oasis, great views, clean campgrounds and a lot of option for camping.

The best site at Wild Rivers. 850 feet above the gorge. This is where the magic happens, beautiful moonrise’s and sunrise, sunsets. clean wasteland clean bathrooms. I camp here as often as I can.

Great place to camp along the top of the Rio Grande.

A no nonsense BLM campground with limited spaces. The location is isolated and you need to bring plenty of water. The advantage is being able to walk into the Gorge, which if you fly fish, is an amazing thing.

We went up here for Memorial Day weekend several years ago and stayed at site #26, without reservations. Great shaded site with water flowing behind it, which made for great sleeping. Campground was full by the afternoon with lots of families but it didn’t seem crowded. Vault toilets were incredibly clean and the whole campground was well-maintained. We hiked a little bit of the Columbine Twining hiking trail - can’t wait to go back to be able to hike more!

All sites sit on a beautifully shaded Creek (Columbine Creek) that feeds the Red River. The vault bathrooms were extremely clean and even pleasant smelling. Pads are well maintained and each site I saw had multiple tent options. Even if your pad does not have shade, each site has ample shade to the back of the site along the Creek. Each site has more than expected space and offset to adjacent sites. Camp Host are doing an excellent job.

This will be a lengthy review but I need people to know not to book, especially site 11. 

I’ll start by saying I don’t normally stay at developed camp sites so maybe all my issues are typical and I’m just ignorant. That being said, camp site 11 is an unfortunate little piece of land. It is unusably small (maybe 25sq ft of barely usable space)  and bordered by a mountain, the road, spot 10’s driveway, and trees. The picnic table and fire pit are centered in a way that left very little room for our 2 tents on rocky uneven ground. My tent was forced to be less than 3 feet from driveway 10. Our other tent had to be so close to the fire pit that it would have caught fire if the pit was used. It also is a waterway for all the road water and mountain side so a small river formed through our space (hitting both tents) when it rained. All this on top of the fact that every other spot around us was so plentiful (4 to 5 times our size) in space it almost made our spot seem like a cruel joke. It should cost 1/4 of the price of the rest and should be for small RV or day picnics only.

Now the camp area as a whole is well maintained and the vaulted toilets smelled surprising decent the entire 4 day stay. The mountains are beautiful as mountains tend to be. The hiking is great and there is an awesome stream that rolls through the campground in certain areas. There is constant highway noise so be aware of that, though the spots further in or near the stream probably don’t deal with it. A lot of the sites are packed close and  you can easily hear many conversations at normal talking volumes. 

The camp staff guy (Bill?) was friendly at first but that changed rapidly after the first night. There was a no wood fire restriction at the time of our stay despite days of rain and rain every day so we used only our propane stove the entire time. This didn’t stop Bill from calling the fire department on us the first night because he “thought we had a wood fire”. We didn’t. 

Now this second part I’ll admit was on us but was handled poorly. I didn't know there were curfews at that campsite. The bulletin board does show quiet hour times but it’s buried in a novel of information most of which was about a bear sighting so that may have distracted my attention when I first looked at the bulletin. Quiet time is 10-6 and I know that now. So we’re hanging out around the “campfire” and I decide to walk down to the restroom, it’s about 11pm. As I’m walking back, I pass Bill and say hi. He doesn’t acknowledge me (he wouldn’t talk or look my way the rest of our stay either). When I return to the campsite the 2 women and 2 children I was with told me Bill had just ran up on them and was standing over them in a very aggressive fashion pointing his finger in their face and reprimanding them for breaking the quiet hour rules. He left after getting directly in one of the females face and saying “don’t make me come back here” in a very threatening tone. They all, just remained silent throughout the ordeal. C’mon man. We messed up and felt horrible but it was an honest mistake and had he just told us respectfully we would have shut up just the same but instead he created this uneasy tension for three days. And to put a cherry on top, other campsites broke the rule every night and morning (music, laughter, generators) and were not reprimanded. I know because everyone was so close we could see what was going on. Also, we saw Bill greet every camp site every day multiple times a day except ours. We aren’t abrasive people, we try to be generally respectful, courteous, and aware of our actions so the treatment of our camp was unjust. I will say that had he not had it out for us for one reason or another I’m sure things would have been cool. We saw Bill constantly having friendly conversations with everyone so I’m sure he’s nice to most campers.

In short, I know there are better campsites out there. Go find them.