Best Cabin Camping in New Mexico

If you haven't yet discovered the beauty of the chihuahuan desert, the Carlsbad KOA is a great place to hang your hat while you explore.

I often stay in camping cabins at KOA's while on road trips with my children. We like having a bed to spread our sleeping bags out on sometimes, access to AC after a hot day of exploration and the kids like a chance to 'plug in' while we are unplugged....

Carlsbad KOA is big, but it has adequate bathrooms and showers for the size, and they were in very good shape when we visited in June 2016. There is a pool, laundry, all the amenities you need if you are RVing, a game room and food on site. If you like camp cabins, the cabins had grills, picnic tables, the usual double + set of bunks (bring your own bedding), and AC.

Campground was peaceful. The great tailed grackels were courting and whistling, quail wandered through and rabbits romped around our cabin.

If you are in this area, visit the Living Desert State Park and Zoo and of course Carlsbad Caverns - stay and watch the bats fly out in the evening.

The only drawback on this KOA was that the wifi signal was spotty at our cabin, and I had some work to do. If you are taking an ACTUAL vacation, it wouldn't be an issue!

We stayed at this site on the way back to Texas from our Colorado trip this summer. This is a great National Forest Campground south of Taos in the Carson Forest. The campground is just off the highway and situated in a beautiful mountain pine forest and next to a great trout stream. You have great shade during the hotter summer months. It’s far enough away from the highway that you don’t hear the traffic. It has a huge meadow and group camp site which look fantastic. The individual sites have some privacy between the sites and come equipped with fire pits and picnic tables. We made a reservation but the camp had a number of open sites in the peak summer season. The highlight here is the proximity of great hiking to nearby lakes and fishing in the trout stream. They had great facilities including clean pit toilets and some historic log cabins. They have a camp host and the sites accommodate tents and smaller vans and campers. I would give this another visit on our next trip to NM.

We were very excited on our first night to settle into our campsite after a long day of adventuring. Just a short drive to the outskirts of Santa Fe in mountain country we found our campground, Rancheros de Santa Fe.

Upon entry the staff was very friendly and welcoming and we felt like this would be a great place to call home away from home.

The campsites were laid out well with room between campers and because it was the end of a weekend, they were not entirely at capacity which made for a pleasant sense of space in the great outdoors.

Our campsite was positioned in the "high road" tent site area which is a primitive campsite without additional amenities. Each campsite has a fire ring and also a picnic table for campers to utilize and a pad site for tents slightly raises from ground level.

It made for a beautiful night sleep under the chilly New Mexico skies.

By morning we ventured up to the public showers and restrooms which were clean and had amazon water pressure and hot water to set the morning in motion perfectly.

The facility also offers a pool and theater room during summer months so while we didn't get to take advantage we were excited to know upon return we would have these features available.

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Overall we give this campground a 4 of 5 Bunniea! The only things we noticed which kept it from a 5 were the lack of wifi reach in the back sections of the campground, wouldn't have been a big deal but cell service in the off grid location was also patchy so the wifi would have been handy. And the pad site was not designed for a tent quite our size. Our tent is a 12x8 and had a little side hang on on the 12 foot end.

We stayed here only overnight as part of our cross-country trip. Overall, nice for a quick stay but would not for an extended visit.

Pros: Everyone there was friendly and accomodating. They have personel maintaining the gate 24/7. Restrooms & showers were clean. They offer RV sites, cabin rentals (which we were told they were all booked but saw no one there- possibly closed due to pandemic though), and tent sites. We tent camp. The site had a fire ring, picnic table, a shaded area, and is covered in pea gravel. The shaded area is not waterproof or "fully" covered. But seems it would help with the heat to provide some shaded comfort. It rained the night we were there, and I was unable to get all of our tent spikes into the ground for our rainfall (think there may have been concrete a few inches below). If you are staying for an extended time, I recommend bringing a tarp that you can tie to the shaded area to help with heat / rain. Each tent site is separated by a privacy wall (see pic). The best part was the sunrise! Absolutely stunning as you are literally at the base of the mountains. You just have to ignore the giant Geico billboard on highway in your view.

Cons: EVERY review will tell you about the noise from highway, and it is no joke!! We were so tired we did not care. But it is BAD! If you are looking for peace and quiet - THIS IS NOT THE PLACE! You can see the highway wall in my pics. It appeared to be in what seemed as "not the best part of town". It is fully gated 24/7 which I appreciate, but makes you wonder where you are staying. However, we did not have any issues, and the few people we saw were all very polite. We arrived later in the evening and ran out to get a quick bite, but everything closes at 9p so be mindful.

Pandemic note: We stayed here 6/1/20-6/2/20. Everyone was wearing masks, VERY mindful of social distancing, and you could not even go in to the office - they come out to you.

I would recommend this only as a quick stop-over / last option campground.

This RV spot is right in town on the Main Street. It is gated, has friendly staff, two cabins, tent spaces, a store, super clean and nice bathrooms/showers, laundry facility and pool.

This is not typical wooded or beautiful camping, it’s a place to park your RV or tent and that is just about right. If you are making a quick stop over or heading to Carlsbad Caverns then what more do you need?

We stayed in the cabin because we didn’t want to get all our camping stuff out for a quick overnight before we head to our destination (SW CO). It was only $15 more than tent camping so it made sense. It was also raining hard when we got here so we were double grateful. The cabins have a double bed and a bunk bed. It has a TV that we never turned on, a fridge, microwave and AC. The mattresses are like the ones you find at camp, wrapped in plastic but we just put our bedding and memory foam on top of it and it was just fine. I’d recommend it because it was just what we needed on our way and at a good price. Also the shower/ bathrooms are probably the nicest I’ve ever seen at a campground.

We love Royce and the Camp @ Cloudcroft. We started out coming here NYE. We stayed in the teardrop camper — so cold outside but the teardrop was warm and cozy. Since then we’ve been back several times! They have new beautifully renovated shower houses. They have a Yurt with all you could ever think of as well as a pop up trailer (amazing king size bed). When you rent these, you basically can come with clothes and food. They think of everything else from utensils, grills, stoves, linens, seasonings ... even a deck of cards! There’s WiFi throughout the campground. They also have RV spaces and tent areas. Super super nice staff (Sissy and her pup Mickey). Can’t recommend this place enough and we can’t wait to get back to our home away from home!!

This is a larger RV Park. They provide full hookups, spaces for tent camping, and some small cottages. I have not used their restrooms, but the laundry is clean and reasonably priced. Many of the spaces are pretty close together, but we’ve had worse! They have nice picnic tables and fire pits. There is a creek that runs behind the park and the spaces along this creek cost more. We stayed in Space 20; which is supposed to have the creek behind it (so we paid more), but there’s a bunch of electrical boxes there so you can’t see it or access it and there’s also a huge manhole sticking up in our space! So don’t take Space 20 unless you are desperate! That is the reason for my 4 rating. The grass is sparse, but there are big grassy areas throughout the park. Some of the spaces have the shade of large trees. I would stay here again, but would avoid #20.