Best RV Parks & Resorts near Ute Park, NM

Nice park nestled at the foot of the mountains and on the banks of the Red River. Nicely landscaped with two ponds and a river walk. Location is great for visiting Rio Grande del Norte NM and the Wild Rivers Recreation Area. Just north of Taos too. Nicely shaded, level sites with full hookups. Nice picnic table and grill. Might be a little tight for big rigs, but my little Casita was quite happy. Very friendly folks in the office. Clean laundry and restroom. My site backed up to the river and the sound of the rushing water was the perfect lullaby.

I loved my stay here. This location is so prime for visiting all the sights in Taos, and there are many.  The campground is compact but still, private. There are several pull-thru sites for big rigs, many back-in sites with water/elec. hookups, and some tent sites in the back of the campground and a few sites at the front by the office that are back-in without any amenities.

There is a dump station, a dishwashing area, bathrooms with very hot showers, a playground, and office. No open fires are allowed only propane or other contained fires. Cell phone service and wifi thru the campground is available tho not fast when everyone jumps on at the same time. During my stay everyone was very quiet.  My only complaint was a light that stayed on all night for security.

Restaurants are really close enough to walk to and there is an Ace Hardware store across the street for emergency repairs. Old Town Taos is 3 miles away.

This is one of only a few RV parks in the immediate area of the city of Taos. This campground had positive reviews, and the photos looked nice, so we chose it. As other people indicated, the park is clean, and reasonably spacious for a private campground. There were buddy sites so your traveling partners could have coaches facing one another, which is also nice. 

There was ample room to park both our fifth wheel and our truck. The sites we had were concrete and level(we were traveling with others, and their site at a different area of the park was dirt/rock and much less level). There was good Verizon and AT&T cell service in the park as well. 

I don’t use park WiFi, the laundry rooms, or the bathrooms so I cannot comment on that(although people we were traveling with said they were nice). My issue with this park is the way they charge. 

Their website indicates a certain charge for 30 amp sites, 50 amp sites, pull-thrus and back-ins. Also, some had sewer, and some did not. Not until we got there did we discover that although we had paid for a premium spot with 50 amp power and sewer, that the cost of the electricity itself was NOT included in the price. This was not prominently indicated on their website. Their policy/procedure was to take a meter reading each day, and that cost was added to the camper’s bill at the end of their stay. I understand that many campgrounds do this for monthly campers, and even weekly. I have NEVER seen this at a campground on a daily rate. I have been all over the country, staying at private campgrounds from coast to coast, and this was the only one that I have ever seen that charged for electricity on a daily rental. I brought this to their attention, and their attitude was, “that’s the way we do it” and was terse about it. The actual dollar amount was not great, about$2/night...but that was based upon our usage. 

We had people traveling with us that used their air conditioner(we did not) and it was about$5/night. They have every right to do this, but it goes against the industry standard that I have seen everywhere else. So, I am only giving this campground 2 stars because of that. If it weren’t for that, I would give it 4 stars. Take this information and use it how you choose. 

We stayed in a 35’ fifth wheel.

We've lived in New Mexico (Alamogordo and Albuquerque) for 30+ years, but had never made it up north to Sugarite Canyon State Park. But on our RV trip back home from Rocky Mountain National Park, we decided to spend a night here rather in the small town of Raton(eight miles away). It's a lovely park, with some steep walls, small lakes and an interesting history. We took a few of the smaller hikes(time was limited) and the one of the Coal Camp was very interesting.

Our 29ft RV barely fit in our site, and there were some tricky branches and overhanging trees to work around. The site was fairly narrow, but I will say we were spread out nicely between the sites. We were at a site with electric(30 amp only) and water(water pressure very low, due to a lower aquafer). The dump station was nearby, but no water available by it for flushing out the tank.

Camp hosts were super friendly. It was a very easy going place. Most of the sites are pretty small, and our"small" Class A was the biggest rig there, except for the hosts' 40' RV. So if you've got a bigger rig, you might have trouble finding a site to accommodate. But for smaller RVs, I think this is a great place to stay. VERY dark and quiet at night!! A lovely and reasonably priced spot that I can easily see spending a long weekend at.

(OH, there is NO wifi and no cell signal. Be prepared to be off-grid completely! You're at least 5 miles from a signal.)

The Raton KOA is conveniently located off I-25 in Raton, NM. The campground offers of a mixture of back-in and pull through sites that are a mix of mostly live gravel and dirt. Most sites have 20/30 amp service, water, and septic hookups, although less expensive sites with fewer amenities are also available.

The campground offers a fenced in dog park where the pups can run off leash. There is also a nice grassy walking path around the perimeter of the property with trash cans and dog waste stations positioned every 100 yards.

The campground owner, Grant, is great to work with. He helped us get setup with the park WiFi and was super responsive to any questions we had. Don’t forget to ask him for the WiFi access code when you check in!

We stayed at Soda Pocket in mid-May 2022.  Actually we had reserved site 06 in the Lake Alice campground, because it was full hookups, but upon arriving at Lake Alice we confirmed what another reviewer had said - it's a tightly packed campground, very close to a busy road and not close to the lake itself.  On top of that, there was a boil water notice for the water hookups, and to top it off, the utility hookups for Site 06 are on the *Wrong* (i.e. the passenger) side of the rig, given the orientation of the driveway for backing in.  Put all that together and we decided to forego our reserved site and see if we could do better up at Soda Pocket on top of the mountain.  The campground host at Lake Alice warned us that the road up to Soda Pocket was treacherous and without guardrails, but we disregarded this warning and took our chances...

Man are we glad that we did that!  The view from Site 23 was incredible of the canyon below.  And we arrived just as a thunderstorm was passing to our east, and witnessed an incredible double rainbow over the canyon.  The pics don't even do it justice.  There's great hiking and viewpoints from Soda Pocket, and the so-called "treacherous" road up to the campground is gravelly and a bit steep in a few places, but very passable (there was a Class A rig up there, and a number of 30+ ft 5th Wheelers as well).  The sites were well spaced, and Site 23 was fairly level and wide, easy to back in.  It looked like Site 18 is a nearby pull-through site that still offered nice views even though it's situated more in the middle of the campground circle.  

Overall this state park was extremely cool, kind of off the beaten path, and well worth the visit!  Check out Soda Pocket, it's worth the drive up the mountain!