Bonito Campground

What impressed us most was the open and spacious nature of this campground. 100 feet to the next camper on one side and a little less on the other.

Very clean with asphalt pads (ours was level) and concrete walkways and pads around the picnic tables.

Larger rigs may have problems fitting but there was plenty of room for our 25 foot trailer plus the F250 crew cab right in front.

Very helpful and friendly staff.

The visitors center for Sunset Crater is right across the street and there are hiking trails right out of the campground that leads to the crater.

Not a place to be if you are looking for cell service

We normally boondock directly across the highway from the turnoff to Bonito, but when I realized this one had never had a review, I decided to give it a try. The Forest Service campground is located immediately outside of the Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument and is operated by a contractor. Open seasonally, this is the first time we've actually found it open. The campground has lots of pine trees and no low brush so it's very open between sites. There are three separate bathroom buildings with flush toilets scattered the length of the single, one-way, loop road. The loop road, and all of the sites, are asphalt in very good condition. There is water available at the bathroom but it is not for filling RV tanks. There is no dump station, no electrical, and no connectivity on any of the big three cell networks.

On average, the sites are relatively short. Large rigs will have limited choices, but medium sized rigs will fit nearly all sites. In my opinion, the big drawback is the number of sites are 'parallel parking' style ON THE WRONG SIDE of the road. That, combined with a relatively high price (our price reflects the 50% senior discount) for a basic FS campground, and that almost all of the sites will require some (often significant) leveling, will lead me back to boondocking on the other side of the highway.