Best Glamping near Monticello, UT

Can't wait to go back!  Moenkopi yurts are in the perfect setting for fantastic views, star gazing!  Each yurt sleeps six and is very close to trails.  Rest rooms are conveniently located.  This is the true glamping experience.

The yurt was amazing. Clean restroom, huge deck, and the air conditioning was nice in the desert! Right on bike/hike trails and the night sky was stunning.

We wanted a camping experience along our girls’ road trip without having to pack all the camping gear. The Wingate yurts were and are fantastic. They are perfectly appointed, clean, A/C is included, the mattresses are comfortable, there is a firepit and propane BBQ. The restrooms are nearby, they are extremely clean (plenty of toilet paper and hand soap), and have water/dish washing areas. No showers. It is a short hike on a trail from the yurts to Dead Horse point overlook. There is a store in the campground and the ranger station sells firewood. We utilized the site as home base to many attractions. Nearby is Moab, Arches, Island in the Sky section of Canyonlands, and more.

Monticello is the ideal place to explore eastern Utah from.  Everything is about an hour away.  National Parks and monuments: Moab, Arches, Canyonlands, Hovenweep, Monument Valley, Canyons of the Ancients, even Mesa Verde is close.  Moab is an hour away.  Cortez, CO is an hour away if you need recreational, um, tobacco.  It's also a lot less crowded than other places in the high season.

Old West RV Park, plunked down right in the middle of Monticello, is owned and run by "Big Jim," an avuncular trick shooter who regularly gives a show to the occupants of the 15 or so rigs that fit in his park. 

Good Verizon coverage; the campground has wifi but it doesn't stretch out to the end.  We were in space 12; Big Jim seemed to think it was not the best spot (no wifi), but we liked it because our door opened onto a view across the street instead of the side of another trailer.

The park will fit any size trailer if you can get one of the few pull-through spots.  Other spaces, like ours, will fit pretty big trailers (ours is 25-ft) but you will have to unhitch and park next to your rig.  There are full hookups and everything is in good order.

NOTE: the water pressure is quite high.  They will lend you a pressure regulator for free or they will sell you one for $15.

We really enjoyed our four days here and would definitely visit again.

Dead Horse Point has a new section called Wingate. The older section is Kayenta.

Wingate has wide asphalt spaces, electricity, fire rings, tent pads and picnic tables with wind blocks on 2 sides. There are very few trees...so no shade. (Kayenta has greater shade possibilities.) There may also be some sewer hookups.

Another feature - walk-in tent sites and yurts. There are 4 great looking yurts in Wingate and 5 others near the park's Visitor Center.

Bathrooms - they are private and include an automatic flush toilet, soap dispenser, automatic faucet and hand dryer. No showers but the bathrooms are very nice.

There is a dishwashing sink outside the bathroom. It appears the water is potable but they ask you to arrive with water and help conserve water. Their water is trucked in from Moab....per reserveamerica.com.

The Moab area provides ample camping opportunities from yurts to primitive camping. With Arches National Park campground closures, other spots are going fast. Given that and it being Friday, I was amazed that I was able to snag a spot at the Dead Horse Point State Park campground!

Despite the weather being ridiculously hot (from the PNW...we only know rain and overcast), this campground offers beautiful scenery and well developed sites. Each site has two spots to set up a tent and a RV hookup. 

The campsite itself is located at 5900 feet which makes for amazing views but also nothing to shade from the desert dry sun. 

Each site does have a covered picknick area, a cabinet to store belongings, and a working light! 

There are only 22 sites which book up fast so if you are like me and refuse to be committed to a reservation, better get there early enough to grab a spot! 

By day...beware of ravens...they are fierce scavengers. By night...beware of bats...they are blind. 

Utah is known for its night skies and this campground lives up to the hype! Truly a gem!

Why anyone visiting arches and canyonland/Moab would choose to stay here is beyond me! I booked this campground based on raving reviews and recommendations. First this campground is double the price of campgrounds in town that have showers, pools, WiFi, all amenities, dead horse has no showers, as a tent camper you are not allowed to park next to your site, supposedly you get a 5.00 credit for this inconvenience. The site and park are nice and clean, with beautiful views. The sites have a two sided structure that houses the picnic table. Beware of the sand and mosquitoes. I included a picture of the yurts they rent, we didn’t stay in those, we tent camped. Some people said it was close to Moab, it’s about 45 minutes away from Moab and arches!

General & Site Quality: 56 electric sites, walk-in tent sites, and nine yurts in two loops: Kayenta and Wingate. Paved driveways, mostly level, a tent pad, fire ring, and a sheltered picnic table (from sun and wind) complete the electric sites. Back-in sites are on the inside of the loops while pull-thru sites are on the outside. There were three camp hosts in the Wingate loop, more than I usually see. 

Bathhouse: Eight individual units in each loop with toilet, sink, soap, and hand dryer. Although the toilets were automatic flush, they didn’t always do the job and often took multiple tries. One toilet was clogged. There are also some vault toilets. No showers. 

Activities: Nice and easy hiking trails. You can hike the west rim and east rim trails to make a loop for approximately five miles (depending on how many overlooks you include). Some trails are better marked than others, but we enjoyed a west-to-east rim hike from and returning to our campsite in Wingate. Designated mountain biking trails. 

Unfortunately, we could only snag one night here but would have liked to have stayed longer.

I had the opportunity to stay at the brand new Dead Horse Point State Park Windgate Campground. The campground opened in 2018 and it showed. It was clean, convenient and offered great views.

We were using the campground as a basecamp to visit a number of the parks in the area. It is a 20 minute drive to Arches National Park, 20 minutes to Islands in the Sky District of Canyonlands NP and a 2 hour drive to The Needles District of Canyonlands NP.

We stayed in the tent walk in sites. The reality is that each of the walk in sites is no further than a 100 foot walk. There were parking spaces located next to the restroom facilities and the campsite was within easy walking distance. Many of the other campsites had room for tents or RVs and were drive up sites. Each of the campsites had a tent pad, shelter with two walls, picnic table and a campfire pit with a grill. We experienced a cold front which brought strong winds, rain and cold temperatures so the shelter came in handy. I'm guessing that in the summer, the shelter offers valuable shade from the sun. There were Yurts available to rent.

The restrooms were the cleanest restrooms at a campground that I've ever seen. Each restroom offered sinks and toilets, but no showers. There are no showers in the park. There was an outdoor sink that could be used for cleaning dishes.

Beyond the campsites, the Dead Horse Point State Park offers some well manicured hiking trails with some spectacular views. Go straight to the Dead Horse Point Overlook to see the iconic view of the Colorado River bend like a horseshoe. There are a number of other scenic overlooks along the road that passes through the park.

The park office has an educational center and a store. The store sells souvenirs and basic supplies, but the prices were a bit high. You'll find grocery stores and outfitters 20 minutes away in Moab. There was a food truck cafe parked near to the park office, but it was never open during our stay.

I know. The deserts of Utah and I’m complaining about shade. Great location at Deadhorse and right on the cusp of Canyonlands and near Arches and Moab. Great views of the stars

We love this park! Great hiking right from the campground. Beautiful scenery, friendly staff, clean bathrooms and close to Canyonlands National Park. We really enjoyed our stay here, hiking most of the trails and also visiting Canyonlands Island in the Sky area. Utah does state parks well!

You can't beat the scenery in Utah! Beautiful views of the mountains, clear open skies, trails and hiking options for beginners and avid hikers alike, close enough to Moab to visit but separated enough you can forget it's even there. Clean facilities and well kept sites, perfect place to get some distance but not TOO much!

We stopped here for a night on our way from Moab, Utah to Supai, Arizona. After a long evening of driving we decided to stop along highway 191 and found this easily accessible campground while looking on The Dyrt. We pulled in late at night but had no trouble finding a spot, it was actually quite empty considering it was a Friday night during the summer. The sites are large and well appointed, we had no trouble finding flat and shaded spots for our two tents. There was rain in the forecast so we chose a site that was a bit uphill, which served us well as a big storm hit and some of the lower sites did seem to get a bit muddy. The bathrooms here are very clean, and the campground as a whole was pretty spotless. We also got a discounted camping fee by using my annual national parks pass which was a nice surprise. I hope to come back again and explore the sorrounding areas, but I would also happily stay here again as a pit stop on a road trip.

First of all, it's a campground. I'm not sure what others expected. I'm happy to have a place to pitch my tent, a pit toilet, some place to chill at the end of the day. Maybe this place is more expensive than others, but have you checked the hotel prices in Moab? We got an established site (vs a primitive site) and hung a hammock from the trees. Minimal instructions, we just hung our printed booking confirmation on the post of our choice. Yes it was hot & dusty, but that's Utah at the end of June. We were there mid-week and only a handful of other sites were occupied. Found the noise levels to be satisfactory and the stars pretty impressive. The canyon views were lovely.. Would've gotten bonus points for river access though...

We went to Buckeye with six families and somewhere between 10 and 12 kids(The oldest being Nine years old) to celebrate one of the kiddo's 7th birthday. We camped at the group site, which was a big enough place for all of us. We had a mix of camp setups- including a Class B RV, a pop, a hybrid travel trailer, and three or four tents. There was a large common area with plenty of built-in picnic tables and a very large fire pit. All for only$50 a night! The lake was beautiful, and we fished, Sup’d, and swam in the refreshingly cold water. 

There are some monster Rainbow Trout in the lake, and we had fun catching a few with the kids on fly rods, but there were a lot of other campers having good luck with spinner rods. The area also has a good mountain bike trail that us adults enjoyed. The Mtn bike ride starts and ends from the campground, taking you across the border into Utah and then swings back towards CO on a ridge that offers an incredible panorama of the lake and red rock cliffs. The trail is primarily double-track, and we bumped into a few ATVs along the way. 

Overall, if you’re going with a large group, you 100% should book the group site, which is also separated from all the other single campsites. 

We’ll be back! Buckeye is about a 2.5-hour drive from Telluride, where our group lives, and a 1.5-hour drive from Moab, UT.

Lastly, if you're looking to stay connected, there is no cell service or wifi(I have Verizon), although when we rode our bikes to the top of the ridge, I got two bars. You can also drive to the top of the hill in an offroad-capable vehicle if you need to make a call.

So Buckeye has a few spots to camp. There is the reservable set of sites just after the picnic area, then the group area and if you drive past the group area you can get to an area of dispersed camping. The dispersed is free, has a fire pit and a spot to park. There are trees all around and the views are much better in the dispersed area. You get a great look at the mountains that are on the other side. The Utah boarder is with in walking distance, and is barely marked, that was kind of funny.

So, if you pay to camp it's $10 a night. They have picnic tables, the free sites do not have picnic tables. However, there are two vault toilets over in the dispersed area and when we got there they were incredibly clean, well stocked and had air fresheners to keep smells down. The sites aren't all very level but were still suitable for our needs and many others needs. Almost all the dispersed sites were taken by the end of the night. In fact a group of 12-15 bicycle tourists came in and set up camp. They really spread out in the two sites that were available next to us. Unfortunately they were a bit loud, walked around in towels and made the restroom disgusting.  So much so we walked to the farther restroom for the rest of our stay. That was unfortunate. 

It was incredibly windy while we were there the first day. So much so we walked in to the woods to get out of the wind. The sun was quite warm but the wind made it cold. The second the sun went down the temps dropped drastically! We sat by the fire for a bit and then headed to our tent for the night. It got insanely cold overnight and really made us cut our stay short. We really couldn't imagine another night in the cold. There wasn't any snow but it was cold. By morning the wind had stopped all together and the lake was just glass. Made for some great photos. 

This lake was almost completely empty last year with the drought. This year though, with all the snow there is plenty of water, if not too much. It looked flooded in places. We are not sure about fish but we could see something jumping so there is hope that some fish survived the drought and maybe they will stock it. It looked like it would be fun to take a canoe out and fish. The cyclists bathed in the lake when they came in and our dog loved swimming in it. It was his first experience swimming. He's just 11 months old.

This would be a great spot to bike. In fact I biked back out of the park. It's hilly and rocky the whole way down. About a mile and a half of incline and about 5 miles of decline. I think top speed I hit was about 31 mph. I did have to push my bike for some of the uphills. It was fun and I could see doing the ride again.

It's a great spot and worth a stop and we will return when it is warmer! As tent campers, it got just a little too chilly.

What a great find! We stayed at William’s Bottom Campground last September 2017, when we were visiting Arches National Park on a road trip. There were some major construction projects underway at Arches at the time that we visited, and because the park was only open from 7am - 7pm, the Devil's Garden campground within the park was closed.

When researching where to stay, we saw that there was a private campground in Moab that seemed to cater more to motorhomes and trailers - we are tent campers who would prefer to be out in nature. Besides the private trailer campground, the only other camping options in the Moab area are small first-come, first-served campgrounds provided by the Bureau of Land Management. There are quite a few of these BLM campgrounds scattered along the Colorado River, and during peak seasons, these campgrounds can fill up quickly. We were concerned that all the campgrounds would be full and that we would be without a campsite for the evening, but decided to chance it since it was a Wednesday evening after the Labor Day weekend.

The first small BLM campground on highway 297 that we came across was full, but the next one - William’s Bottom - only had a few campers in its 12 sites, so we stopped and set up camp for the night. The campground is primitive and unmanned, and the $15 nightly fee can be left in an iron ranger at the front of the campground.

The William's Bottom campground is and easy drive from the Moab area, under some beautiful red cliffs, and the Colorado River is right across the highway. Because it is so close to the Colorado River, the campground has some trees and shade - hard to come by in this area of Utah. Even so, an easy up or canopy would come in handy if you were to hang around camp in the afternoon heat. The campsite was quite sandy, and there were a lot of fire ants about; I would suggest knocking your shoes and checking for insects if you leave your shoes out at night.

Each site has a fire ring and tables, but there are no trash cans, so you have to pack your trash out. There is NO WATER available, so bring plenty of water! Arches does have water spigots outside its visitors center, if you need to refill water bladders for a day of hiking in the park. I believe there were pit toilets…but we were in and out of camp relatively quickly, and never needed to investigate. It is right off the to the side of a fairly busy highway, so there is some noise pollution. There is a small road running through the campground, so you are not directly on the highway.

There are petroglyphs very close by on the cliffs along highway 297 and are worth seeing. Looking at maps, Williams Bottom is also close to hiking trails and popular climbing spots.

We had never camped in a BLM campground before, and were happy with the experience. Williams Bottom Campground is the perfect base camp for visiting Arches and Canyonlands NPs.

CAMPSITE SPECS

Fees: $15/night

Plumbed Toilets: NO - pit

Drinking Water: NO

Showers: NO

Picnic Table: Yes

Firepit: Yes

Cooking Grates: Yes

Shade: Yes - limited

Cell Service: NO

Animal Bins/Food Lockers: NO

Trash: NO