Best Tent Camping near Terlingua, TX

3 large sites that share one parking area.  vistas and views are incredible and almost located exactly in the "middle of nowhere".  wonderful place to watch sun rise and set over mountains.  One large bear box that is shared by all three tent sites. great base camp to explore the southern half of the park and you could spend your entire trip never seeing a paved road.  Around 20-30 mnt travel time from Panther Junction to site.  There is one considerable dip in road leading to site that may prevent all but the shortest tongued pull behinds from reaching the site. If you do get a trailer there, it will be staged in the parking area as the wooden borders that designate the tent camp areas are too narrow to get any vehicle thru. Be prepared to be isolated and tranquil and all the beauty that comes with it!!

Tin Valley Retro Rentals is a diamond in the rough! Owner Ronda has transformed Airstreams, buses, retro RV’s, and even a VW Beetle (the Cuddlebug) and Land Yacht into amazing places to stay. At Tin Valley you’ll share your stay with a donkey, some pigs, chickens, dogs and cats. It’s a pet friendly atmosphere. Along with the retro rentals and tent sites there’s amazing RV parking and new to Tin Valley, Van Lifer parking spaces. This is not your standard RV park, the RV parking spaces are spread out not packed in tightly. The sites are spread out so you’re not looking directly into your neighbor’s window but instead at the immaculate unobstructed view of the surrounding mountains. Two of the tent sites have their own artistic touch complete with A-Frame style lodging so you can leave the tent home if you’d like. The Land Yacht site is the only clothing optional site here as well, where you can feel free to feel free. Each site has it’s own fire pit and charcoal grill. There’s an outdoor shower here, or nearby showers, laundry, pool and cafe at the neighboring Terlingua Ranch. Artist Jules Muck has put her own touch on Tin Valley transforming what would normally be just a renovated RV into a work of art. Stars will shine brighter here than you’ve ever seen before without the city light pollution nearby and it’s an amazing sight. You can hike up the two mountains closest or take a walk around Tin Valley. Take time to head to Big Bend national or state parks in the Terlingua area. The center of Terlingua also has a ghost town complete with walking tour. In that area you’ll find bars and restaurants, Cottonwood, the nearest grocery store, or the closest place to fill up on gas. A visit to Terlingua and Tin Valley Retro Rentals won’t disappoint. You won’t’ find another place this original, or with this much space to rent to call your own as an RV’er, camper, or retro renter. Check out tinvalleyretrorentals.com or Tin Valley Retro Rentals on Facebook.

As the saying goes, When in Rome ... staying at BJs RV park was like an immersion experience to living in Terlingua. You feel the history and past of days gone by, with the ghost town of Terlingua and the junk yard behind the RV camping area. Both the town and the junk yard take on a mysterious magical quality in the light at the end of the day. Lots to learn about the history of the place and one great way to learn is to talk with the locals, both in the town and those living in the RV park (temporarily or long term-in addition to those passing through like us). Besides the history of the place, you also learn about the hopes and dreams of the locals - such as the artist cooperative gallery, the RV park manager who hopes to open a cafe / outdoor music spot, and so forth.

The RV sites are all clean and level with electricity, water etc. There’s also a shower house. One note: the wifi doesn’t reach the tent sites (but works fine in RV sites) so we let a young woman traveling alone move her car from her tent site to park overnight on our site so she could use the wifi and check in with her loved ones. We enjoyed sharing some food and conversation with her, as well as meeting other campers and residents.

Terlingua ghost town itself is fun to explore. Many visitors flock to the Starlight Theater (which used to have no roof other than the stars in the sky above). The line to get in is hours long (apparently great menu), but we relished the Frito Pie at the cafe on the side (no wait for that). The art gallery is also worth the visit, and it’s fun to just walk around the ghost town. Of course it’s also a great location for visiting Big Bend NP. We especially loved hiking into Santa Elena Canyon - spectacular.

Terlingua and BJs RV park are hopeful places, with lots of history in a beautiful remote setting that feels like a crossroads in time and place. Really enjoyed it. Would be happy to return.

Great place for tent camping. Make sure you check Recrwation.gov for description of sites some not ok for trailers or RV. If you want shade check the site as in summer only about half have shade. Great place to start your hike in the backcountry. No electricity, sewer or water hook ups.

Tent camped for 3 nights without any issues. The host was very friendly and helpful. The site are well maintained with clean working bathrooms and water spigots. The coyotes were active but mostly walking around and storing up barks from all the dogs. The convenience store is close y for any forgotten items with showers and laundry. I recommend.

We tent camped 3 nights here in early December and it was in the 20s one night! Windows trail and Santa Elena Canyon were the highlight of our trip. Bathrooms were clean and easily accessible. Sites were not at all private, but that was made up for by the awesome amenities - bear box, great table, waist-high grill, and shade coverage.

This campground is located near the center of the park and at a high elevation. It is located in the only mountain range that is entirely within a national park. There are many hiking trails and chances for encounters with nature in the area. The campground is not accessible for large rv's or large tow behinds, so tent camping, pop up callers, tear drop trailers, and class b vans are prevalent. There is a gift shop and restaurant in crisis basin as well.

We went out here for a four day primitive site stay in Javelin. If you love solitude this place is right up your alley. We chose Big Bend Ranch over the National park primarily for an adventure and the fact that they allow camp fires. It was a long drive out in the desert. The main road is well maintained. Once you hit the side roads to your campsite you need to pay attention to what vehicle they tell you, you need to get to the campsite. They aren’t fooling around😆we had two wheel drive high clearance and it is exactly that. One thing we didn’t realize was that the brush grows close into the road so if you go out to Javelin you will scratch your vehicle. But you are rewarded with the solitude and beauty of the area. In four days we saw no one. We heard wildlife (coyotes) but never saw anything. It had plenty of trails close by to explore if you want to stay put. They require your own waste disposal. The site includes tent sites (they are rocky), picnic table and a fire pit/grill. Just a beautiful awesome place that I hope to return to soon.

We tent camped here in late January. The campsite had lots of room to spread out, and there was a giant bolder behind this site that we could climb up on to sit and watch the sunset in the "Window". We will definitely seek out this site again. There was a charcoal grill, picnic table, bear box, and hangar for our lantern (Campfires are not allowed in the campground, but the charcoal grill is.) It would get pretty chilly at night, so I wish we could have had a campfire. I wondered if we chose poorly to camp in the mountain during the winter because the daytime temps were warmer near the river. However, it seemed like the night time temps were even lower near the river than up here in the mountain.

The restrooms have a sink area to wash dishes and electricity, and there are water spigots near the site, but you can't shower in the Campground. To shower, you have to drive down to the Rio Grande Village campground and pay $2 (in quarters) for a lukewarm shower of ~5 minutes. That was the only drawback of our stay.

The park's scenery was well worth the inconvenience, though. From the Basin campsites you can hike out to the Window or go for a short walk up to the visitor center and restaurant. This would be a great place to camp in warmer weather, because it was significantly cooler than the river during the daytime.

When we first tried to book our Xmas week Big Bend trip, all campgrounds inside the park were full. We found this on The Dyrt and figured we would stay a night or two and get a spot at the Rio Grande Village inside Big Bend, which is the only full hook up place inside the national park (FYI RGV is phone reservations only and usually has spots open).

We were surprised at how much we enjoyed staying at the Stillwell Ranch RV Park and ended up staying a full week for only $150 with electric and water hookups.

There are 3 sections to this campground. The full hookup sites, which we had originally booked, are up by the store and are fairly cramped with limited views. However, the Electric & Water only hookups across the street offer much better views and even though the campground is set up as a gravel parking lot to pack people in, it was Xmas and we were one of 8 campers. Lots of space. We had the "end" spot so the views were pretty epic. 

The 3rd area is a ranch road with some pull offs for boon docking or tent camping and are even more "dispersed." 

There are two cons: First, the dust. Which I'm fairly certain you would find camping anywhere in the desert. Especially near the once volcanic Big Bend. Coming from the the Atlantic Coast, the insanely arid dusty air was a new experience. But we loved it. And it made for amazing sunrises, sunsets and star gazing. 

The second con for us was the water pressure. Maybe 10-12 PSI at best. It is well water and even with a high-end filter, even the water tasted "dusty."

We set up an outdoor shower tent next to our camper and were able to camp for an entire week without needing to dump since we did all showers outside.

The store it self is small, and has a a few things that are pricey, but much cheaper than driving an hour north to Marathon to find a grocery. So come well prepped with food and bev. Big Bend is HUGE and you want to minimize store visits.

Stillwell does have gasoline available, but only 87 Octane. No propane (bring extra tanks if you have a propane fire pit like we do).

The laundry room was clean and only $1.25 per load. Their campground showers/ bath house is a bit outdated. While you can use the bathrooms, their showers are currently closed due to COVID.

Overall, only 8 miles to Big Bend's north entrance, and then another 3 miles to the first trail head "Dog Canyon," it's a great place to stay when compared to the other options which we checked them all out:

- RV Campgrounds near West Entrance: The little town of Study Butte/ Terlingua does offer small grocery store and several RV parks. But the campgrounds here are all asphalt parking lots and you are packed in. And even though you have bigger mountains in your view, you also have the dusty less than amazing views of all this small town. Powerlines everywhere and lots of noise.

- Inside Big Bend - First, we went to Rio Grande RV Village... it's a small asphalt parking lot. You are packed in and when we went through, the entire place smelt like sewage. So happy we avoided this one. 

Chisos Basin is an epic spot, BUT, like many national parks you are stacked on top of your neighbors. While I feel confident we could have safely pulled our 23' travel trailer down the winding roads, there are only a handful of spots in the basin campground big enough for a camper. Would have loved the views and close proximity to trails, but we prefer a more secluded feeling and Stillwell gave us just that...even though we had to drive more.

Cottonwood Campground down by the St. Elena Gap is nice too, but again, you're packed in there.

Overall, very happy with our choice at Stillwell and would stay there again in the E/W only spots.

Perfect RV park in a remote part of Texas. WONDERFUL staff and amenities. Everything you need. It's a dark camp so if you have issues turning off your camper lights before 9 or 10 depends on the season this isnt your place. Best stars and moon viewing you'll experience! Close to Big bend and terlingua and all of that area. I will be back and cant say enough good things!!

Big Bend Ranch State Ranch is quite different than Big Bend National Park. While much of the national park has sky islands (mountains), much of the state park is classic desert. The park stretches from the desert to the Rio Grande River. There is a scenic road that runs along the river with a number of campsites. The campsite are drive up campsites, but somewhat primitive in nature in that there are not restrooms with toilets, sinks and showers. There are picnic tables and fire rings, but that is about it. There is not much shade cover at these campsites so it is helpful if you have a tent or canopy shade. The attraction of this park is the expansive views of the desert that one is able to view. The heat and lack of cover can be tough on the body, so bring lots of water and hydrate. Outside the park are some interesting towns like Terlingua and the old silver mining town of Safter.

Camping here was decent. We absolutely love Big Bend. We were able to find free camping in the park but this place was worth the money.

Theres picnic tables, fire rings, bathrooms, running water, maybe 40 or 50 sites. We were able to find some hot springs in the Rio Grande river, in the park which was fantastic. We also walked in to mexico and spent the day over there. Its hot during the day and cold at night. Amazing hiking, biking, swimming, and site seeing. Big Bend NP is least visited NP and most re-visited. That says a lot about the place.

Also terlingua texas and the ghost town are a hoot. All kinds of cool off grid homes, artists, and musicians. These places are a drive from the campground and outside the NP.

Cheers!

This is a great place for dispersed camping. The road in is dirt single track with a few wash out and little steep hills. Low profile vehicles, I would not recommend. Check campsite for proper directions for those pulling travel trailers. On site, there is a bathroom and shower…, but need to check with camp host because water is a premium “ it the desert”. We loved it. It is about 30mins out from Study Butte/Terlingua -got to love the name. We highly recommended Big Bend Boating and Hiking Company… Check these guys out.