Best Glamping near Brackettville, TX

This park is a great escape to disconnect, view the DARK SKY and witness Mexican free-tailed bat emergence! Park campground is 25 miles after the turn off of US90. We stayed Friday and Saturday nights in mid-March. Few bats emerged during our stay; much better emergence in April as experienced in previous visits to Stuart Cave. 

Pros:

• Excellent DARK SKY campground

• Stuart Cave bat emergence nightly from a very nice viewing deck

• Small park

• Extremely quiet park during March Spring Break

• Good campsite privacy due to good brush coverage

• Most sites had a nice distance from neighbor sites

• Clean campsite

• Picnic table in good condition, especially eating surface

• Our site had aluminum picnic table on a concrete slab under a metal shelter; not all sites had metal shelter

• Clean restroom/shower facility

•  Campsite hook-ups in good condition.

• Level gravel campsite.  

• Pedestal BBQ grill, fire pit with grilling grate, double hook lantern pole and aluminum picnic table at each site.   

• Park roadways in good condition. 

• Park Ranger patrolled campground numerous times throughout day/evening 

Cons:

• No AT&T signal; no park WIFI, so completely without phone service and no public phone available for emergerncies. Had to drive outside of Park about 3 miles for AT&T signal.

• County burn ban prohibited wood campfires and ban posted on Park’s website. Park Ranger stopped by our campsite to tell us to put out our campfire, but we showed him it was a propane firebowl.

• Limited shade in campsites

• Must pack out all personally generated trash. Absolutely NO dumpsters; no garbage cans in park

• No campground host

•.  No entrance gate locked at night

• One and only restroom used by entire Park, so campers and day users. Women’s restroom had 2 toilets, 2 sinks and one shower stall

• Women’s restroom lacked consistent supply of TP and wall dispenser soap• Wildlife sightings limited to squirrels and armadillos

• No park store, so come prepared with all necessary supplies as Brackettville is closest small town which is 25 miles away with only a grocery store and couple fuel stations. Ulvade and Del Rio have the typical box stores.

A very nice & well kept camp ground. This place has wonderful amenities for campers of all types. They have tent sites close to the water with electric, water, picnic tables and grills at what looks like every tent site. There are multiple gate ways leading into the beautiful Nueces river bed where you can explore, fish and swim in the crystal clear cool water. The cabins are beautiful, clean and thoughtfully placed. There are well placed and easy to pull through RV sites that look like they'll fit even the biggest rigs.They also have a driving range for golfers, a very nice pool area with splash pad, separate mens and womens bath houses/bathrooms, pavilions and even a laundry mat! There are also multiple play areas, volley ball court, basketball courts, and thoughtfully placed hanging porch swing type swings to sit and enjoy the views in. All very clean and well kept. I thoroughly enjoyed my tent stay and plan on coming back on a regular basis. Love this place.

My wife and I had never been camping together. Why not roll the dice and go on an adventure for our 5 year anniversary? We really wanted to be far from everything we knew, we wanted it to be beautiful, we wanted to get away from the city and close to the stars, we found “the camping spot”.

Ms. Donna is as honest and good hearted as they make here in Texas, she was super helpful from the start! We never had a problem! She has a truly unique piece of property for primitive camping chocked so full of wildlife we could hear the deer breathing next to our tent as the sun was coming up!

There are a couple short nature walks through her acreage that let you cut through the thicket. There is ample shade underneath some of the biggest oak trees in the area!

It’s a short distance to the Nueces River which will completely blow you away. I thought the Frio River had the bluest water and whitest limestone until Donna showed us the small private river access point where it’s deep enough to swim. Spring can’t get here fast enough.

I wouldn’t recommend driving a car out there, you’re going to need some clearance getting through rugged dirt roads, for the most part it’s very groomed.

We spent 4 days/4 nights there, if you can get there during the week, it’s as quiet and tranquil as you can dream up. Weekends naturally have a bit more “traffic” as it’s a semi popular area for the weekend warrior getting away with the family. Met the neighbors as our dogs roamed freely and stumbled upon their dogs, all were very friendly.

Not for the unprepared, town is not close!

I can’t recommend this place enough if you’re looking for that real private camping experience where it feels like you can see the far side of the moon at night. (Was awesome listening to the mountain lions screech and the coyotes howl)

This place has gone unnoticed for too long. It’s one of those places you’d like to be selfish with and keep quiet but more need to experience ALL this place has to offer!

Garner State park is a fantastic State park located just west of San Antonio. When we went it was a bit chilly but perfect weather for camping. We were able to get a great campfire going and enjoy being out under the stars. We did quite a bit of hiking and Geocaching. I believe there was also water activities like fishing and swimming available, but we did not do that this trip.

Pros:

Loads of amenities. Showers, Restrooms, MiniGolf, Dances, Cabins, Open Areas!

Loads of amazing Trails. Some of my favorites so far with hugely varied terrain levels.

Shockingly good food truck

Loads of sovereign shops (Could be a con for some)

Lots of awesome and unique geocaches.

No Cell service so we were forced to unplug

Cons:

Checking in Sucked. It took almost 3 hours and was pitch black by the time we finally were given our reserved campsite.

No Cell Service making Geocaching tough but do-able.

The RV sites are spacious, and the grounds are spaced out nicely. The river access is nice. There are a few drawbacks. There's isn't a dog park for pets to safely let out energy without tons of wildlife poo (it was EVERYWHERE). Disposing of dog waste was a challenge. There are only two bins on the opposite side of the grounds from the RV sites. One by the playground and the other by the river, additionally were no guest accessible dumpsters, and they don't tell you to put your trash by the curb. To have pets, it is $2.50 for each pet per night. Also, a second vehicle parked at a lot is an additional $10 per night, and the credit card fee is ~$10. They will also charge $50 for violating the pet policy. The site price range has gone up from $45-$75 to $55-$91(and that's still off-season pricing). This place is very nice, but they aren't pet friendly, and the hidden fees are ridiculous.

Now Called Nueces River RV & Cabin resort. We were here Easter Weekend 2021. Lots of families here for the holiday. We have an 18 foot travel trailer so they put us down near the river. There were mostly tents on that area but there were partial hook ups. Our spot was Beautiful with a perfect view of the hills and the river. 2 basket courts, driving range, sand volleyball, see saws, swings....a slight walk down to a nice rocky river area. The Nueces is very clear. We brought paddle boards but it was quite a walk down to the river (if I was carrying a board). We could have probably driven down the road a bit to the dam and gotten in there but it was a little too cold on the weekend we were there. The main RV area was up near the front in a more typical “RV park” set up in rows. The bathhouse had about 6 individual bathrooms. It would probably be plenty big for a normal weekend but was very small and busy for a holiday weekend. ****BYOfire pit!!

Very nice small campground in a fairly remote state park. The park opens Friday morning and closes Monday morning. The campground is very clean, quiet and appeared well maintained. The park staff were really nice. There are some campsites with electric and water and can accommodate an RV or camper. The rest are for tents only and just have water. Shade is sparse and it is VERY hot in the summer months. It was also very windy while we were there. There is no cell service, however the park headquarters building has wifi you can access for free and the range was pretty good. Caves in the park are home to large numbers of bats, and watching them exit in the evenings and fly back at dawn is quite a sight. There is also a really nice bird blind where staff set up a little recirculating creek to attract lots of birds. I saw several species of birds I had never seen before. The main reason we traveled here was for the very dark skies at night for star gazing and astrophotography. Unfortunately it was cloudy at night except for two hours one evening. I would like to come back but would only do it during the colder months as we were tent camping and the daytime temperatures were high 90’s F.