Best RV Parks & Resorts near Tierra Amarilla, NM

This is another great spot in the New Mexican high country, especially if you’re a fan of hot springs AND vintage campers. In addition to full-hook up camping/ RV spots, the resort offers vintage campers for rent. It is a great and quiet place to rest, recuperate,

and just enjoy yourself. 

We stayed in the camping loop, and even with electricity and wifi available, had plenty of sunshine for solar power as well as good access for our Starlink. Cell service was pretty skimpy though. 

The bathhouse at the camping area was well heated with wonderfully hot showers, flush toilets, and plenty of space. Water and a dump station was available in the camping area for an extra fee.

Access to the hot springs spa was NOT included in the price for camping, and not inexpensive, but the variety of pools and the beauty of the place was worth it. They offer steam rooms, a multitude of pools of varying temperature and mineral content, in addition to a mud bath, lap swimming pool and full locker/ changing room.  They also offer full spa services, massages, etc.  It was very busy on the weekend with day-use customers, but going early or mid week was a far less crowded time. 

The onsite restaurant/pub is a class act and delicious.  Nearby there are a few hiking trails right from the property, and with the national forest nearby there’s lots of outdoor adventures available. 

The nearest grocery/ convenience store is just down the road, but the selection is pretty limited. The closest town with full services is in Espanola about 30 minutes away.

My wife and I spent 3 days here in late May.  Because we planned out trip a little late, we actually stayed the first night in Spot 16 (no hookups) and then the last 2 at Spot 14 (electric and water).  Spot 16 was in the "Chama Loop" and I have to say, this loop is really not for our rig (a 30' Class A).  We had a pull in spot, and fit okay, but the spots here are all on the smaller side and we mostly saw tents and some truck campers and a couple of Class Bs.  We could NOT get level on our site without some serious efforts and more blocks than I really like.  We never got level enough to feel comfortable putting out our slides.  When we moved the next day to Spot 14 (in the Pedernal Loop, where the only electric/water sites are), it was much better.  Leveling was easy as can be.  The hookups were very conveniently located and we had no complaints here.  Very spacious lot.  Picnic tables under cover, a grill and a fire pit.  

Spaces between spots are fairly generous.  Not huge, but far better than most commercial sites.  We felt very much "alone" here.

Some great things:  the camp hosts Al and Cindy were INCREDIBLY helpful and friendly.  Best hosts we've ever had!  The playground is excellent (we don't have little kids, but we actually enjoyed the swings and such ourselves one evening!).  The views of the lake are very good (you can't get down to the lake from here, but the extra height made for great views), and the walking trail from the visitor center to the boat launch goes right through the park, so you can join it easily if you wish.  Dump station has two dump spots, which was nice.  There are lots of picnic areas, and the tent sites looked very nice too.  

Not the greatest:  other than the aforementioned levelness issues, I was amused to see how steep the road down to the little "front gate" is.  Not ideal for RVs!  You come down off a Mesa to the much lower campground on a fairly steep grade, and 2/3 of the way down, you have to stop to check in.  Just seemed weird.  The dump station has NO hose hookup for the non-potable water (just a weird contraption that sprays water everywhere), so no easy way to flush the black tank, which I don't love.

Connectivity:  no wi-fi.  And the cell signal is spotty.  We were able to use my iphone to create a Verizon hot spot, and actually, after a struggle, could watch some Netflix.  But then surfing sometimes went from slow but okay to non-existent.  My one word review would be:  inconsistent.  And now, we don't spent our time surfing the internet, but for doing research, checking email, etc., it was not ideal.  Workable, but not the best.

We'd stay here again in a second.  We've already talked about what we'll do next time we stay here.

We stayed in Blanco CG site 52 for 6 days in a 36’ Class A with a Cherokee Trailhawk tow. The park has gone to great lengths to make the sites level and most looked like they were. Ours was very level and I almost didn’t need to level at all. All of the sites are spacious and quite widely spaced. However, the inner loop pull-throughs are a bit wonky given the oneway road, as the hookups are on the apposite side that they should be for a pull-through. Most of them had enough space to make a U-turn and come in from the opposite direction, but our site was to tight for our rig to do that so I had to drop and back in. The park has several nice trails and the bathrooms/showers were pretty clean and well maintained, although there are only 2 shower stalls, one of them HA, for the whole campground. Unfortunately, the lake has been allowed to go mostly dry, during the decades long drought, to maintain a reservoir down at lower elevation and closer to Santa Fe and Albuquerque. AT&T coverage was fair, with 2 Bars of LTE service and speeds up to about 2 MB/s. Most of the trees are fairly low, so we were able to get DISH coverage on all three western satellites at our site. There were no OTA channels to be had with our fixed omni antenna. There is one small grocery store in Chama, with very limited selection, so plan accordingly. Unfortunately, most of the restaurants in Chama were also closed and looked like they had been for some time. Also, Google Maps erroneously shows a Fresh for Less in Los Ojos, but if you pull it up, it’s actually in Bernalillo. I’ve submitted a correction request to Google, so perhaps that will get fixed. Also, also, coming from the South and East RVTripWizard routed us down an impossible, and completely unnecessary, dirt track road to get there. I’ve submitted a request to fix this also, but in the meantime be aware and approach via US-64/84 and State Road 95.