Best Tent Camping near Palisades, WA

This campground seems almost brand new. There are no hookups and no water on site, though there are several vault toilets.

Each site has a picnic table, fire ring, tent pad, and path down to a rocky beach on the Columbia. The sites are definitely not large enough for most RVs, so I'd consider this tent or van camping only.

There's not much shade at the sites, but you can get out of the sun near the river.

The biggest drawback to this spot is that it's just of the highway. You can and will hear air brakes all night. For me, staying on the Columbia was worth it.

This is a great state park to set up camp. It is always very busy. The sites are relatively spread out. There are two different sections for camping: an upper and lower. To me, the lower section doesn’t seem as nice. It has more trees, but the camp spots seem to be closer together. Likewise, the lower section just feels a little more rough than the upper section. The views are spectacular. There is a boat launch, and a swimming area. Furthermore, there is also a small store, and a mini-mart across the street. What makes this place great is the actual camp sites. They are huge. What makes it difficult for tent camping is there are a ton of sprinklers that turn on frequently. It is important to watch where you stake down your tent. For this trip, we brought our RV and a tent. During the summer, the temperatures during the daytime are hot! Luckily each site is equipped with water and electricity. There is no WiFi, but the cell service is outstanding.

This campground is better suited for tents, not RVs or camper vans. Many of the sites are small and lack privacy, especially those in the west end. We reserved on line and there was no notice that sites 30 and 31 share the vehicle space! Since we were camping in a van, we felt like we were in an ordinary parking lot and not camping. Two strange vehicles parked immediately next two us the whole time. There were some other shared parking sites too. Ok for tent camping because you can tent away from the parking area, but not ok for vehicles. 

In addition, people kept walking through our site (and we watched them walk through other occupied sites). One day, my hubby wasn't feeling well, so we took a nap only to be woken by our dog growling because a man and women were peering into the side window of our van! WTH! Numerous people walked through through our site even though the end was a restoration area clearly marked to stay off of, but people walked through it anyway. And, then there were the young men playing football in our site. Oh, and the dogs not on leashes. One knocked me over when it jumped on me from the bushes as I was heading to the restroom at night. 

The only good thing was that the vault toilet was the cleanest ever vault toilet. No odors!! Kudos to the guy who cleans it!

The campground is beautiful. Because of the fire that destroyed the campground, there is next to no privacy on each campsite.

Pros: -Stars were incredible- we saw the milky-way and a few shooting starts -clean flushable bathrooms -views, access to hikes -cool lake to swim in -cellphone service (although we opted to put our phones in airplane mode to unplug) -family friendly

Cons: -noise: during quiet hours there was zero enforcement of quiet time. We had a camp next to us partying until 1am and another group up at 6am putting up a canopy and being incredibly loud -no privacy at campsites -there is a fire ban, so if you are hoping for s’mores make sure to bring a propane stove (not a con for us, but may be for others) -bees: there were so many bees. If you are allergic I recommend staying away. We had a screened in canopy and still managed to get several inside -not a ton of shade, mostly because of precious fires

We visited a cousin in Moses Lake and discovered this city park campground for an overnight stay. Not sure we would make this a destination as we are not boaters but for boaters, this would be an excellent place to land.  There is a boat dock so you can hear the drone of boats coming and going; not sure how late this will last but I assume it will taper off by dusk. There are a combination of both RV and tent sites, some right on the water and most, if not all, with water views.  Each site has a picnic table, fire ring, and bbq pit. Although there are trees, they did little to offer the comfort of shade in the afternoon heat but the views make it worthwhile. Nothing to separate the sites so not particularly private but again, the view of the lake makes it ok.  Bonnie, the"camp sheriff" greeted us with humor and helpfulness. We arrived on a Sunday at the end of June and we were fine for a one-night stay but Bonnie did say they were full up for the 4th of July holiday. Firewood and bagged ice are available for purchase. No alcohol is allowed (probably a good thing when combined with boating!). There is a nice playground. The bathrooms were reasonably clean and there are showers available for a fee based on how long of a shower you want. Open April - September and reservable May-September, although the reservation process was a little cumbersome so we decided to chance it and see if there would be a site available when we arrived.

It was an amazing campground a lovely host and spacious okay privacy sites,ours was right on the river it was huge could fit lots of tents and hammocks a picnic table big enough for 4-6 people and there was also a connecting site making it pretty big,huge fire ring,and so close to the river(by the way this was a walk in)there is not a lot of space for a trailer here but right down the road less then 3 minutes is lake Wenatchee and they have a huge state park but this place was way better so much wind down there and NO privacy NONE but Nason creek VERY GOOD