Summary

• Name: Big Bend Resort & Adventures
• Dates of stay: Feb 5-19, 2018
• Location: Terlingua / Study Butte Tx (near Big Bend National Park)
• Type of campground: Private / Independent
• Cost: $33 / night, FHU back in site
• Additional fees: Showers $2 / 6 minutes
• Stay limit: none
• Accepts mail / packages: yes
• Cell reception: cell OK, data slow
• Website: http://www.bigbendresort.com/
• Pros: Good value, proximity to Big Bend area parks
• Cons: mineral-y tasting water, desert heat in summer

Full Review

Big Bend National Park is one of the least visited national parks for good reason — it’s out in the middle of nowhere. As a result, there aren’t too many RV parks to choose from if you want to be close to the park. But, fortunately, Big Bend Resort & Adventures is quite an adequate campground to stay at while exploring the region. The campground is located conveniently between the National Park and the Big Bend Ranch State Park.

Since this is a “resort” with a few hotel rooms (along with the RV park), the park offers a restaurant, game room, gift shop, and small general store along with the usual coin laundry facility and restrooms/showers. The resort also offers tours and horseback riding excursions. A gas station is conveniently located on site.

All of these facilities are basic/limited, as one might expect given the isolated nature of the area. If you want to take a shower in the bath house, it will cost you $2 for 6 minutes! I understand that’s not unusual for a desert resort, but it was the first time we had encountered pay showers. I perused the laundry room ($2.00/load), but half of the machines were out of order. Fortunately, we have both shower and laundry equipment in our bus and don’t have to pay extra or rely on the campground facilities!

The campground has 120 campsites, with spaces suitable for all rig sizes. Our gravel site was back-in this time, but the internal roadway is very wide, allowing us to maneuver into the site with no problem.  Our campsite was wide enough to allow us to park our truck next to the bus. It is desert camping – no fire ring (burn ban in the area) and our site did not have a picnic table (some did). We had the usual full hook ups with 50 amp electric service, water and sewer connections. Being in the desert, the water had a distinct mineral taste which Jeff did not like. We bought bottled water for drinking.

I was initially faked out by the site’s cable box and excitedly hooked up our never-before-used cable, only to find that cable TV is currently offered only to the hotel rooms. If you don’t have satellite TV, you will get absolutely no channels! The area is too far away from civilization to pick up any digital over the air channels. Free wifi was available, but only in the game room. However, our AT&T cell signal was surprising adequate, so long as you are in or near the small town. The data connection was accessible, but slow. Once you venture into the park, you are pretty much off the grid.

The nearest big box store is miles away, but there is a small grocery store down the road as well as a bicycle outfitter. You can get the basics, but it is advisable to stock up before you head this direction. We stayed overnight at the Super WalMart in Fort Stockton and did our shopping there before heading south the next day.

The campground accepts Good Sam discount, but our weekly rate was a better deal at $33/night. There aren’t a lot of frills and no planned activities, but Big Bend Resort provides a reasonably-priced base camp from which to explore the Big Bend area. This IS the desert and gets unreasonably hot in the summer time. We were here in February and the desert sun was still quite warm some days. It’s best to visit in the winter time.

Bottom Line: Basic full hook up site at a reasonable cost near the Big Bend.