Top 10+ Dog-Friendly Campgrounds near Dixie National Forest

This is a Great place! I love that they are pet friendly and not breed restrictive. I have a pit mix (who's just a big ole teddy bear) and you know how that can often make travel and lodging difficult.  I love that he is welcome here. They have a big grassy dog park for him to run and play in, he loves running in the sprinklers! Its two sided and completely fenced in so large and small breeds can have their own safe space to play in. I really appreciate the picnic benches to sit on for the parents. For me this is a huge benefit and I recommend this park for any pet owner!

The spots are on the Hollow Road close to the Red Rock Canyon in the Dixie National Forest. Road and site are easy to access but the most sites are uneven. The view of the red rocks is amazing. In the summer it fills up very quickly. You can stay 16 days. It's a good place to hike, bycicle use your atv and visit Red Rock Canyon or Bryce National Park. You'll find plenty to do there.

The most attractive feature of this campground is the little white-railed "bridge" over Panguitch Creek that you must cross over when entering the campground. This is a US Forest Service campground in the Dixie National Forest, so accommodations are expected to be sparse. There are clean restrooms, water on taps, very convenient dump station, and very close-together & small sites along a narrow camp roadway. Lots of fun things to do in the area, fishing, boating, off-roading, hiking, and site seeing.

What a fantastic experience. The road is paved except the last mile. The climb is 13% grade for about 8 miles so be prepared, but it is all paved. Two camps were closed so the only one open was busy, but quiet. At about 8300 feet altitude it does get cold. Much of the Dixie National Forest is burned but the immediate area has ample trees of many colors. This is remote so no amenities at all. We have a small rv and made the .trip no problem. No cell reception until you are in the town of Parowan

Dispersed camping in the beautiful Ponderosa pines of Dixie National Forest. The Forest Service road is easy to navigate. There are many dirt roads branching off of it with sites to choose from. Chose a site relatively close to the forest service road. If you're sensitive to dust may want to choose a site further off the access road as there is lots of dust kicked up every time someone drove in or out on the gravel. Convenient location to Bryce (about 15 minutes). Cell service for Verizon.

When the rigs pulling in and out stopped, the only sounds were the braying of cows (the herd wandered into the site) and the wind blowing.

Views! Peaceful! Free!

Bryce Canyon campgrounds were full, as well as the nearby designated campsites at Red Canyon.   We showed up at the nearby forest ranger's office who directed us to some nearby dispersed camping on the edge of Dixie National Forest.

This is dispersed camping, so no:

• Restrooms
• Water
• Trash
• Hookups/dumps
• Shops

Although since there is a designated campground just down the road, you can easily go there for water, restrooms, and trash.

This CG provided a good alternative to getting to Bryce Canyon without the mess of trying to get a reservation.  Red Canyon is also in between this site and the national park, which had some nice hikes and views of the hoodoos

Hesitant to let this secret secluded respite from the Bryce crowds out! This was our second stay, both times in the month of May. Only 13 quick miles to Bryce. Both times we were one of 3 or 4 campers in the whole campground. Sites are large, flat and spaced well apart providing a sense of privacy. Seven miles of well graded gravel road to get here from Hwy. 12. Tropic reservoir and boat launch adjacent to campground. Nice short hike to Hoodoos. Loads of OHV trails nearby to explore Dixie National forest and Bryce like geology. This early in the season most water spigots are off and not all bathrooms are open, perhaps more suitable for dry RVing or well prepared tent campers. You may want to bring t.p. for the clean pit toilets in the early season.

This is a nice alternative to camping in Bryce Canyon National Park. About 38ish mixed use sites (tents and campers mixed in, although most RVs and campers were on the one side and tents on the other loop) right on Highway 12, so there is road noise all day (but it quiets down around 10 or 11 at night). Flush toilets and showers were fairly clean, and there is a nice paved biking/walking trail that cuts right next to the campground. Word has it that if this is full, you can just take one of the forest service roads out a ways and camp there for free, no services. There is a nice visitors center across the road and down about 1/2 mile. Its a good home base if you want to play in Dixie National Forest (several great hiking trails- I recommend the Golden Wall Trail- and mountain biking trails if thats your thing), or if you want to visit Bryce but don't or can't camp there.

We booked Cedar City KOA as our first trip to a KOA. The park is on the edge of town but close to anything you might want or need. Our site was directly across from the playground and 50 steps from the off-leash dog park. Both the kids and the dog greatly appreciated both. Unfortunately, some campers struggle with quiet hours and allowed their kids to scream and play in the playground until as late as 1am. The second night of our stay the kids were back after 1ppm, but the staff swooped in and gently moved them along. Speaking of the staff, they were friendly, attentive, and professional 100% of the time. The grounds were well maintained and clean and the campground full of friendly faces.

This 37 site, first-come-first-serve Forest Service campground was quite a find. It's in the Dixie National Forest about 12 miles from the entrance to Bryce Canyon NP.

We enjoy staying in national park campgrounds, but we also love Forest Service campgrounds and decided to try Red Canyon because it's close to the park. Showing up early in the morning on a Wednesday guaranteed we'd get a site...and once we got it, we could have it for as long as we wanted (subject to the usual 14 day limit). We were surprised that the campground was not full in mid-July, but we also noticed that the private campgrounds and North Campground at Bryce Canyon were not full.

This campground has everything we want: flush (and vault) toilets, sinks, potable water, trash dumpsters and showers ($2.50 for 8 minutes, located in loop A with sites 1 through 18). There is also a dump station. Cost is $18/night ($9 with our America the Beautiful Senior Pass). I can't think of anything wrong with this campground.

Our site 22 is a backin/pullin site with no one across the road. Site 23 is 50 yards away and 21 is at least 25 yards away. Other than a bit of road noise, we thought it was the best site in the campground. If you have a tent, there are two places where you can pitch it; see photos.

Site parking is backin/pullin, pull through and parallel.  All sites from 19-37 in loop B except one are on the outer part of the loop so no one is across from you; the middle is green space and the dump station. I like sites 20 through 23 that are against a hill. Some of the sites in the loop A are closer together, and many sites on both loops are next to the highway with a buffer. That is the only drawback to this campground. 10, 10A, 11 and 12 are very close, but it looked people were using it as a group site.

In case you don't know much about the area:

• Shop for food before you arrive if you don't plan to eat in restaurants all the time. The grocery store in Bryce Canyon City has a VERY limited selection and high prices. We're traveling for many months and eat out often, but we need a well stocked grocery store once a week. Other than Moab which has City Market, the grocery stores in the areas near Utah's 5 national parks have limited choices.

• Bryce Canyon NP is the big attraction and rightfully so, but Red Canyon is worth a stop for hiking. We hiked two days in Bryce, spent a day at the stops on the scenic park road, and hiked one day in Red Canyon. It was necessary to get out early in July because the afternoons brought thunder and lightning every day except one.

• Leaving from a trailhead st site 24, you can hike Buckhorn Trail to Golden Wall Trail and come out near the Red Canyon Visitor Center (about 1/2 mile from the campground). Views toward the campground as you hike up Buckhorn are spectacular even if you don't hike all the way up.

• The paved Red Canyon trail is a great bike ride from the campground into Bryce Canyon. There is climbing in both directions, but more on the way to the park. The entire trail is 18 miles and starts about one mile west of the campground.

This is one of our favorite spots to camp in Utah. It's fabulously close to Bryce Canyon NP and a reasonable distance from Zion NP and Grand Staircase Escalante. Kodachrome is also a good destination in itself. Campsites are surrounded on three sides by beautiful cliffs and mountains and there are plenty of trails to hike and explore. We'll be back here again!