10 Best Campgrounds in the Parks

There are few better traditions in the United States than taking to the road and pulling into a national park campground for a few nights o...

There are few better traditions in the United States than taking to the road and pulling into a national park campground for a few nights of adventure. Of course, the parks can be crowded, so the best spots to pitch a tent are off the beaten trail, where they immerse you a bit deeper into the landscape and unique history that make these parks national treasures. Dig into our picks below and start planning your spring break and summer vacation now.

Fruita, Capitol Reef National Park, Utah

Best For: Oasis seekers

The Campground: Capitol Reef flies a bit under the radar when it comes to Utah’s cornucopia of stunning sandstone-and-slot-canyon national parks. But Fruita Campground, named for the still maintained fruit orchards here that were first planted by settlers in the late 19th century, is a true oasis in this red-rock desert. Visit in spring to see the stunning contrast between the sandstone cliffs and cherry blossoms. Come when the fruit on the 3,000 trees is ripe and you can pick and eat it as you please within the orchards along the banks of the Fremont River.

What's Out Your Door: The Waterpocket Fold and sandstone cliffs offer up a natural playground of hikes, rambles, and slot-canyons exploration. Climbing 1,672 feet, the nine-mile round-trip Rim Overlook and Navajo Knobs Trail looks out on the oasis of Fruita as well as the formations of the Waterpocket Fold, and it wanders into the unique white towers of Navajo Knobs. For a tight slot-canyon experience, head to the east side of the Waterpocket Fold and Burro Wash.

Book It: The park may be lesser known than many of Utah’s other gems, but it is quite popular, and the 64 tent sites and seven walk-in tent sites here fill up fast. You cannot make any reservations ahead of time.

Seawall, Acadia National Park, Maine

Best For: Ocean gazing

The Campground: While many U.S. national parks protect vast, wild landscapes, very few include people and culture inside that sweep. Acadia preserves the forests and rocky beaches of northern Maine, and those natural treasures include the history and culture of the towns on its borders too. Located on the other side of Mount Desert Island from the popular tourist town of Bar Harbor, the wooded Seawall campground is close to both the dramatic breakers of the Atlantic and the quiet town of Southwest Harbor, where yacht-builders still craft their boats.

What's Out Your Door: The eponymous Seawall, a natural rock wall that keeps the ocean at bay, is just a short walk away, and it’s the best place on the island to view the sunrise while you sip a coffee you made in camp. Or head to the nearby Wonderland Trail, a 1.4-mile loop that scans the ocean. If you are looking to head inland, make for the 1.2-mile Beech Mountain Trail, which skirts cliffs and looks down on Echo Lake before it summits at the fire tower on top of 839-foot Beech Mountain. Here, you’ll have an incredible view of the entire island and a wide stretch of the Atlantic. Road bikers will also appreciate the campground as a base for tours around the park.

Garden Key, Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida

Best For: Beach camping

The Campground: The small, ever shifting islands of the Dry Tortugas, 70 miles west of Key West, were first documented by Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León. The best way to visit this refuge of coral reefs, blue waters, and tiny, deserted keys covered in mangroves? Take a ferry to Garden Key and pitch a tent at the campground. Sitting in the shadow of the unfinished Fort Jefferson, which the United States Navy began building in the mid-19th century, it’s a unique spot in the National Park System both because it’s located smack on an island beach and because it’s right in the shadow of the fort.

What's Out Your Door: You won’t find any of the tacky tourism and development that has ravaged many of Florida’s beaches. You will find outstanding snorkeling in the shallow waters just off Garden Key. The islands are also an ideal place for bird-watching: The Dry Tortugas is part of the Great Florida Birding Trail and the spring and summer nesting ground of tens of thousands of sooty terns. The terns nest on Bush Key, but you can watch them from Garden Key if you take along your binoculars. The park provides guided tours of the fort as well, or you can simply sit back on the white sands of the beach and relax.

Namakanipaio, Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Hawaii

Best For: Volcanologists

The Campground: Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park is a living laboratory. Here you can witness the visceral power of the Earth forming the island of Hawaii, as its five active volcanoes continue to spew and flow earth-forming magma. The lord of them is 13,677-foot Mauna Loa—the highest mountain on the planet if measured from its underwater base to the summit, which lies within the borders of Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park. Though still active, Mauna Loa has been relatively quiet compared to Kilauea, a 4,190-foot volcano also in the park that has been sending out lava flows since 1983. That ongoing eruption has wiped out towns and roads and created more than 500 acres of new land on Hawaii. Namakanipaio campground feels serene in the midst of that volcanic fury, however. Set high on the mountainside at 4,000 feet, the quiet campground offers tent sites as well 10 camper cabins maintained by the nearby privateVolcano House Hotel, where you can sleep in a comfy bed.

What's Out Your Door: It’s just a short drive to the trails that explore the tumultuous landscape of the Kilauea caldera and a view on the inner workings and land-building processes of the volcano itself. The four-mile Kilauea Iki loop begins in verdant rain forest full of birdsong and ends up on the blasted floor of the crater, site of a 1959 eruption that sent a plume of lava 1,900 feet into the sky.

Camp 4, Yosemite National Park, California

Best For: Beginning your career as a big-wall climber

The Campground: There may be no other campground in all of the National Park System that has such a fine reputation for rule breaking and risky vision. After all, Camp 4 was the place in the 1960s where Yosemite climbing icons, including Warren Harding, Tom Frost, Royal Robbins, and Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, plotted before putting up classic lines on El Capitan, Half Dome, and other rock faces throughout the valley. And many of the early climbers more or less flouted the Park Service rangers and ended up living in Camp 4. Those trespasses have been forgiven, however, and the campground was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003 for its role in the development of the sport and culture of climbing. It’s still a hot spot for climbers from all over the planet, and the 35 walk-in sites at Camp 4 may be the best place to begin your career as a big-wall legend.

What's Out Your Door: Camp 4 is where many climbers honed their rock movement skills (and in the process created the sport of bouldering itself) on test pieces such as Midnight Lightning (V8), a hard problem put up by Ron Kauk in the 1970s and easily identified by the lightning bolt drawn right on the rock in chalk. It’s also the birthplace of slacklining, and you can show off your balance here with the best. If you want to get away from the scene, take a big 7.2-mile round-trip hike up 2,700 vertical feet from camp to the top of Yosemite Falls.