Boondocking at Joshua Tree National Park
After visiting Phoenix for a LV conference we decided to spend some of the winter in Southern California.
There are a few Thousand Trail RV parks in Southern Arizona but they are all age limited (55+). So we decided to go back to Southern California where there are a few Thousand Trails as well.
We went to Palm Springs Thousand Trails and had the best time there.
The park is clean, the pool area is great, there were lots of children for ours to meet; but most of all the staff there are super friendly and forthcoming.
They helped us with our future reservations and we never had an issue with anything. There were also daily activities for the children.
After 2 weeks we had to leave however and decided to spend a week on the BLM land at the South-entrance of Joshua Tree National Park.
I had read about it researching where to stay and only found positive feedback.
we arrived in the afternoon filled up with water and gas and were ready to spend the week.
As you get off route 10 and head towards the park after about half a mile is a road running parallel to route 10 with a lot of spots.
To our surprise there were already about 30 RVs, something we had not experienced before. Usually there are 5-10 spots. but here was room for probably 50 more easily.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land is just outside the park and stretches for miles in both directions.
Because the area is so large there is plenty of privacy. Our closest neighbors were about 100 yards away from us. So there is plenty of room for our children to play, to make lots of noise and still not bother anyone.
We stayed there in mid November for a week and came back again at the beginning of December. The weather was very comfortable but it got chilly at night.
You are supposed to only stay 14 days at one place but we never noticed anyone stop and check.
As we are a large family we go through our water very quickly and after 3-4 days we are usually out.
If you enter Joshua Tree National Parks South entrance you head towards Cottonwood Campground.
There is a dump station and fresh water so we took the trailer to dump and fill up with fresh water. There was no sign so we did not pay anything. We have the annual America the Beautiful National Parks membership so we entered the park with that but there is no barrier or ranger station you have to pass.
You are in the desert here but there are plenty of shrubs, bushes and small trees. The ground was mostly gravel but it was compact enough for our rig not to get stuck.
The kids played ball and bocce outside, rode their bikes and dug holes with the shovel we have.
The internet there was good enough to stream video over our T-mobile internet gateway.
The mountains of Joshua Tree are right behind you and there is an area that is managed by the LA water district which you are not allowed to enter.
As long as you stay away from it you are fine to spread out as much as you want. We saw several groups of trailers in a circle who met over the weekend. There were expensive motor homes, Trailers, camper vans and people camping in tents.
There are plenty of things to do in Joshua Tree NP as well. We took the children on a hike, bouldering and also just drove from one end to the other
with plenty of stops for all the different sites.
All in all we felt very safe as there very a lot of campers and we left our trailer by itself to go to town for shopping etc.
It is definitely a place we will use again if we feel in need to stay somewhere in Southern California.
Check out our video on YouTube.
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