Camping in Texas

If you've been following my Texas posts, and considering a trip to the Lone Star State,  here's one on the ins and outs of Texas camping, specifically camping in the Big Bend, Hill Country and Panhandle.

Unlike Arizona and most of the Rocky Mountain West, Texas is short on public lands.  Although there is plenty of wide open space, it's not "this land is your land, this land is my land"space, space you can use for hiking and camping.  On the Federal front, in the western half of the state, the half we visited, there's Big Bend National Park, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, and the Amistad National Recreation Area.  No National Forests. No BLM land.  The AAA map tells me there's also the Rita Blanca National Grassland in the northwest corner of the Panhandle and Buffalo Lake National Wildlife Refuge, just west of our present location in Palo Duro Canyon State Park.

In the last 3+ years with the van, our default style of camping has been National Forest, National Park and BLM campgrounds. These are reasonably priced, and practically free with the America the Beautiful Senior Pass (if you're 62 or older, $10 gets you free admission/parking and half price camping for life).  In west Texas, with one big exception, our pass didn't do much for us.

The exception is Big Bend National Park.  Three great campgrounds, each $7/night with the pass, plus a great backcountry option we'll use next time we're here.  For one $10 fee ($5 with the geezer pass) you can spend up to 14 nights in designated primitive sites, many of them on decent dirt roads.

So what's a camper to do?  Two options, one free, one a little more costly than we're used to.  As a side note, when we visited cities like San Antonio and Austin, we stayed in hotels and motels, and used the van to get around.

In Texas, you can stay overnight for free at picnic areas. Since Texas highways are lousy with picnic areas, this is a good option for folks on a tight budget.  Although we made a lot of lunch time stops at picnic areas, we never used them for camping. Texas picnic areas consist of several picnic tables and trash cans, generally in a grassy area, and right by the highway.  When we camp, we're generally looking for distance from road noise, places to walk with Toby, water, and a toilet.  If we find a nice spots for boondocking (dry camping, remote camping, primitive camping, dispersed camping), we're happy to forgo the water and toilet.  Picnic areas didn't do it for us.

We quickly realized Texas State Parks were the way to go.  These parks were mostly constructed by the CCC, and are all over the state, generally in scenic areas.  State parks offer water, restrooms, hot showers, and hiking, and with the exception of Big Bend Ranch State Park, dogs are welcome on the trails. The only drawback is cost. Overnight camping fees vary from park to park, and range from $8/night for primitive sites to $24/night for sites with full hookups.  It's been a mostly cold trip, with many nights in the teens and low twenties, so we've mostly opted for water and electric sites, at an average cost of $15/night.  In an electric site, we can plug in our extension cord, then run the refrigerator and furnace, and recharge stuff, all without draining the "house" battery.   Many state parks also offer decent WiFi in the water/electric camping areas.

Although not as big or remote as what we're used to, the Texas State Parks have all been good places to spend the night, well-maintained, and generally staffed with welcoming and helpful volunteers and rangers.  The one exception is Palo Duro Canyon, easily the most spectacular of the parks, and also the least welcoming and most poorly maintained. Perhaps it's the proximity to a city, in this case, Amarillo.

If you visit Texas and think you'll visit more than half a dozen state parks, natural areas and historic sites, consider a Texas State Parks pass. It's $70 for a year, and gets everyone in your vehicle into these parks for "free." Since admission to Texas Parks and Wildlife sites ranges from $2-6 per person per day, this in addition to any camping fees, it's a better deal than you might think.  The pass also includes four half price nights when you're in the same site for two nights. The pass expires at the end of the month in which it was purchased, so ours is good through February 2017.

Of the parks we stayed in, we particularly liked Copper Breaks, Caprock Canyons, Seminole Canyon and Davis Mountains.  We also visited and loved Pedernales Falls, Enchanted Rock (this park has all walk-in sites) and Colorado Bend State Parks.

Another side note- more of west Texas than we expected has no Verizon signal.  Not a problem, and it's good to be prepared with paper maps, books, magazines, etc.  We're also doing a three-month $0.99/month trial of Spotify, and enjoyed listening to albums we had downloaded and saved offline.

We found the state parks pretty empty, and hear that changes dramatically with Spring Break in March. Even in winter, Friday and Saturday nights within a couple of hours of cities like San Antonio and Austin may be booked way in advance at more popular parks. 

The good news is Texas has a good park reservation site, and unlike Recreation.gov and the Arizona State Parks site, no additional reservation fee.
http://texas.reserveworld.com/Home.aspx

If you camp Texas and find more options, let me know!

Toni

The photos are of our camps in Chisos Basin (Big Bend National Park) and Comanche Loop (Copper Breaks State Park).