Best Equestrian Camping near Arches National Park

This is the only campground in Arches National park. There are 50 campsites but it fills up so reserve online if you can. There are some low trees to give you some shade during the day. Pit toilets, potable water but no showers. Easy access to hikes in arches national park and a 30 minute drive into the town of Moab.

If you want more amenities you can get a camp site closer to the town of Moab with showers. They won't be near as scenic and run about $48 vs $20 but they have nice showers and walking to restaurants and shops.

Great spot if you can secure a site.

Here you're high up and amongst the beautiful sandstone formations of Arches National Park.

The campground: This is the only campground inside the National Park, and it is located at the very back of the Park. Be warned, traffic often backs up at the entrance to the National Park. Once inside the Park, the drive from the Visitor's Center to the campground can take between 30-60 minutes depending on traffic. Staying here is one of the best ways to explore the Park. There's a trailhead not far from the campground, and being able to wake up inside the park allows you to skip the entrance traffic and get a head start before the crowds flood in.

My campsite had a large concrete pad for parking, a picnic table, and a firepit. The area I set up my tent was dirt, but here that basically means sand. Be ready to have sand everywhere (totally worth it though). I had nightly deer visitors that enjoyed munching on the juniper nearby. The bathroom for my site was a 1-2 minute walk. The bathrooms consisted of flush toilets, sinks, a large outdoor sink for dishes, plus access to drinking water.

The area: If you're traveling from 70, there's not a ton between 70 and the entrance to Arches National Park, but Moab is only about ten minutes from the Park entrance. Arches National Park is vast. It has plenty of scenic spots to pull over on the drive between the entrance and the campground, and lots of different trails to hike with varying difficulty. Even if you're not a hiker you can still enjoy the beauty of this place.

Booking: I camped here in the offseason (November) when it's first-come first-served, and arrived on a day where there was no host. So, once I found my spot, I put my payment in an envelope found near the host entrance. It's worth noting that on days where there's no campground host or park ranger, you cannot buy firewood at the campground.

Cell service: Verizon was unreliable. Sometimes I would have enough service to stream a hockey game, and other times, in the exact same spot I'd have almost no service.

Arches National Park is a good example of how you cannot underestimate the drive times in the national parks. Just the drive from the entrance and visitor center to the end of the park road is almost 40 minutes (and slower with traffic, tour buses, etc.) so any way that you can cut down that drive time (and thus, arrive at trailheads early in the morning!) is key.

The method that we discovered was great for accessing trails before the crowds was to camp in the scenic, spacious Devil’s Garden Campground at the end of the road through Arches National Park. 

Devil’s Garden is the only developed campground in Arches, and since backcountry hiking is not readily available, it is the best way to access trails and overlooks before the rush of visitors from Moab enter the park.  

Our campsite, #53, was wonderfully spacious and far away from our neighbors. We met friends, and our group’s two tents fit beautifully. The amenities are pretty much standard in the national park campgrounds, including flush toilets, a dishwashing station, site picnic tables, and potable water. The other great benefit included easy access to the park’s trails, which are very popular during this time of year.  

Highlights of our four-day Arches trip include: hiking to Delicate Arch before the mass crowds, getting self-guided permits to explore the Fiery Furnace area, and hiking to the far less-visited Tower Arch.

You can read much more about our four days in the park on our blog: Switchback Kids (Arches)