Best Tent Camping near Cody, WY

What a gorgeous view! This state park has the best view and is a wonderful base camp for Yellowstone. Only 8 miles from Cody! Make sure and stake your tent down there is some wind. The tent sites do have a wind break wall.

Tent camped for 1 night along the river. The tent sites are close together so it was pretty noisy with people snoring and rustling around in their tents. It’s right off a main road so there’s a lot of traffic noise as well. This spot might be better for RV campers. For tent sites you aren’t allowed to park on the grass so you have to haul everything from your car. Great views all around. Don’t forget bug spray!

Crazy Creek Campground is a nice wooded campground near the North East entrance to Yellowstone National Park.  Crazy Creek is also the last developed campground as you head to the park that allows for tent camping,  from here to the entrance the campgrounds allow only hard sided camping units due to bear activity. 

Crazy Creek campground is a 16 unit campground.  Each site has plenty of trees which was great as it allowed my to use my hammock.  Each site has a picnic table and metal fire ring and plenty of room for your tent.  Campground has a vault toilet.  No water is available.  Campground is not ADA accessible.  Bear storage lockers are available as food must be stored in your car or one of the lockers.  Dumpster is available for your trash.  Sites are just $10 a night, but they fill up fast.  A great feature of this campground is the Crazy Creek trail.  A trail from the campground takes you across the highway to the trail,  a very short hike brings you to Crazy Creek falls.

I've camped here for years, with good reason. It's in a beautiful area and offers the chance to base a camp near Cody, WY, Cooke City, MT, and the Beartooth Hwy. and take day trips or hikes. The scenery is dramatic and the altitude (about 6500 feet) makes it a terrific escape from summer heat. The facilities are basic but clean, and the campground is suitable for tent and RV campers. I do advise having bear spray for hikes and to keep in your tent at night "just in case".

This is one of the most picturesque places to camp. Surrounded by mountains and right on the Shoshone River, this is a bit of Heaven on earth.

There is only one flush toilet/(paid) shower facility in the North Fork campground (none in Lake Side), but there are accessible vault toilets within walking distance from anywhere. The tent sites have HUGE tent pads, plenty of room for our 9x12 cabin tent and solar panels. All sites have large concrete picnic tables and the tent sites have privacy walls which are separate to the tent pads. And the tent sites are spaced very far apart, so you never feel cramped.

Cody, WY is pretty close if you need to stock up on supplies and Yellowstone is just 44 miles down the road.

This campground is about equal distances from the east entrance to Yellowstone park and Cody, WY. By Wyoming standards, it's a large campground (40 sites, many with electric hookup). The campground does permit tent camping, which the campgrounds closer to the east entrance do not. That being said, it lacks the intimacy and atmosphere of many Wyoming campgrounds. One must endure the sounds of generators and the highway. It's definitely a good place to camp while getting from Point A to Point B, but much better options exist for a relaxing camping trip.

What a gem this find was! Free camping with showers and bathrooms as clean as home, close to restaurants and a cute movie theater, and close to the Bighorn Canyon with great wildlife. I took advantage of its location to head towards Cody to visit the Heart Mountain Internment Camp interpretive center as well as to head up Bighorn Canyon to look for wild horses in the Pryor Range. There are about 8 RV pull through sites and about 5 or 6 tent sites, all with picnic tables available(although some tent sites share a table). The tent pads are not really dedicated pads, but they are covered in wood mulch, so they are nice and soft. You do get a little noise and dust from the nearby ballfields, and it was really windy the afternoon I showed up so I was glad I had extra tie downs for my tent. Once the sun set however, the wind died down. While the campground isn’t a destination site, it’s a great stop off while traveling.

Along the route from Cody to Yellowstone a variety of campgrounds abound offering inexpensive options with great views.    Amongst those Big Game Campground, a seasonally open campground with amazing river access and the wooded feel of a remote mountain campground.    

I found this campground when exploring the area and was instantly drawn in by the large shaded sites and how comfortable and secluded they felt.    Each site feels removed from the next as they are all built into little burrows and once you park your vehicle you feel very private.

Toward the front of the campground all sites are heavily wooded and toward the back they are somewhat open to the river.    Absolutely beautiful views of the mountains and the sound of water around you is very relaxing.   The only negative being that some of the river sites also have been barricaded off after recent undercutting of the shoreline by the river ways.

For those who enjoy fishing this is a perfect location as there are miles of shoreline which can be accessed from this point.   

Price point is very reasonable at only $10 and with both hard sided RVs and tents welcome this is a very appealing campground, unlike some a littler further toward Yellowstone which are limited to only hard sides.

Campsites each include standard amenities of picnic tables and fire rings along with mandatory use bear boxes.    There was a nice introduction to bears for those unfamiliar at the pay kiosk (cash only). I suggest reading this and becoming familiar before exploring the area or camping here.

At this location I did have cellular signal on AT&T although it was pretty limited.    

TIPS:

• Be prepared and bring everything you need.   There are very limited stops from Cody to Yellowstone and prices at this few locations are much higher than in the Cody community.
• Bring your water shoes if you intend on wading in the water.   Although most of the banks are covered with smooth river rocks some broken limbs are in the water with sharp jagged edges.

Great spot to re-group... Since we could not get a spot in YS for our rig, we use BBST as a home base. We were able to leave our rig to tent camp in YS. And yes is very windy at times.... Also watch out for the bugs they can be ferocious went the wind does down.

decent amount of spots and far enough between spots for privacy. directions send you farther than entrance if you’re coming from cody. there is a hill and a road to the right with a sign, that’s where the entrance is, not where directions send you.

me and my friends traveled in a truck, a 4runner, and a sedan. we passed a couple open spots but wanted to see what was further down the road. ended up going down a decently sketchy road, sedan made it but decided we better turn back to one of the first spots we found. once we set up camp it was a great 360 view next to the flag pole. upon exploration we found several bones (femur of a cow we think, spine of a smaller animal, and coyote skull we think) didn’t see any animals while we were there but just seemed like remnants of the coyotes we heard at night.

My wife and I were able to stay here for 3 nights. The grounds feature vault toilets, campfire rings, food storage lockers, and even a hand pump for water. There is someone who sells firewood at the camp which makes things easy on everyone. The tent site was level and large. There are some good hiking trails but they are open to mountain bikers so heads up! They may get pretty muddy. The kayaking was peaceful. I didn't catch much fishing but that's my fault not the campsites! We were on the Wild Bill Lake.

We came into this campground on a Wednesday and picked the best of three open sites. There were a lot of reserved sites, but they were mostly coming in on Friday.

The site was beautiful and very close to the river (the sound was great). The vault toilets were very clean. The water was available through a easy to use hand pump. The camp hosts had firewood for $5.00 per bundle.

We were tent camping and the site had a large pad, a place for my hammock, a nice wooden picnic table, and a GREAT fire ring. The sites were all very far apart from each other.

It’s hard to believe that a town creates a free campground for anybody to use. This is well laid out with RV and tent sites. Water, restrooms and showers are all available. There is a donation box for people to offer their own fair value price. Perhaps all towns should offer donation based camping. With the effort the town put into this place, it’s a blessing. 

Town is a wonderful place. There are some unique small stores and restaurants. The families sitting in their yard wave as you pass. Right next to the campground is a great park. 

This is a wonderful community offering.

We were so lucky to find this campground! It is a perfect base camp for exploring the east entrance to Yellowstone Nat'l Park. We were looking for a tent camping site & found exactly what we wanted in the lower loop sites #38 & 37. These are RV sites without hookups ($30/night). These sites are reserved through an online site, but the attendant helped us make our reservation when we drove up. The only bad thing is that people reserve sites online & then don't show up. Because the sites are "reserved" no one else can camp there. There is a vault toilet & water pump. The upper loop has very nice pay showers. Firewood is available for a donation or you can collect your own. We have stayed here 8 days & loved it!

We were visiting Yellowstone and camped here, just 15 or so minutes from the Northeasr entrance. It was early June and we did not have a reservation, but we almost has the place to ourselves. We were tent camping, but each site could be tent or RV.

it is a nice flat campground full of beautiful wildflowers and scrub bushes. Vault toilets which were super clean and drinking water from faucets outside the bathrooms.

Steel bear boxes at each campsight which I would suggest using as we saw a mmma Grizzly and two cubs not 15 minutes from camp as we entered Yellowstone.

We paid in the honor system as we never saw a sign of the camp hosts being present. We paid $10 a night with our senior pass

We didn't see much wildlife in camp, but there was evidence of them and a beautiful river runs behind the camp.

Wehave a great Big Agnes tent I would suggest that you secure your tent well, and use all guy lines . It was unbelievably windy and two other campers' tents were mangled when we arrived at the site, due to wind.

Although it is fairly close to the highway, it drops down into a small valley and we could not see or hear the cars going by.

When traveling along the riverside from Cody to Yellowstone and looking for a site which provides large spaces and electricity your options are very limited.     This campground is one of the only options available with river access which meet this requirement while also catering to those which desire unimproved camping.     The location offers two loops of camping including one which is designed for the primitive camper and one which caters to those who would like some of the comforts of home.   

Upon entering camp you will find a camping kiosk with an honor box, however unlike many of the campgrounds in this area there are campground host which hold you accountable for your entry.    This makes sense with such offerings.

Each of the camping loops are designed for one way traffic, which allows you to more simplistically move through camp however can be a bit harder for larger rigs when searching for sites as some are not clearly marked.

Each loop has access to vault toilets scattered throughout camp in key locations and there is a common water spigot in several locations around the camp.   I found that this was very convenient for those which are not requiring the electricity to still have some access to water since there are no services located nearby camp.

On the primitive loop and improved loop alike the sites are very evenly sized with some locations being back in or pull in another others being pull through.     There are also double sites available.   All sites have common picnic tables and bear boxes in addition to fire rings.

With such a variety of services and spaces offered prices do range vastly from site to site.     If you are wanting a primitive site they start off at $15 for singles and $30 for doubles or $20 for electric singles and $40 for electric doubles.  They do however offer a discount for those who have a senior access pass.

This particular campground does not welcome or offer sites for those with horses, something I noticed was very common to this area.   

Something which sets this site apart however from other locations is the specific area designed for fishing access.   If you pull through camp there is a parking area and large bank access point for those camping at the grounds or just visiting for day use.

Despite being right on the river, I felt this campground seemed much more dry than other campsites and many of the locations were more exposed to the harsh sunlight.   When vehicles drove through it was very dusty and made things feel very cloudy.

This large State Park campground gets pluses for having both dry and hook-ups sites for RVs, and can accommodate large ones. It's not as optimal for tent campers, as there are only a few sites that lack shade and are very windy because it's right on Buffalo Bill Reservoir. Sites start at $17 which does make it a prettier and more reasonable option than camping in Cody at RV parks, yet it's only a 10 minute drive to town.