Plomosa Road Camping Area

We stayed here for two weeks from mid to late February 2020, after the crowds from the big RV show had left. We went just over a mile in from 95, turned left, went across a wash, and found a great spot with no one too close by.

Lots of people park right off 95 in the parking lot areas... no idea why because you get constant noise there.

Some tips:

Going even a little ways off to the side makes a BIG difference in the noise you're going to get from traffic on Plomosa Road. We walked to a newly vacated site closer to the road and were amazed how much louder it was, only 100 yards or so away from us.

You can fill up with fresh water, dump tanks, fill propane at the RV Pitstop in downtown (ha!) Quartzsite, about 5 miles away. We filled our 66 gallon fresh tank for $7, and went back to fill our 30-gallon bladder (highly recommended!) for $2. They go by the length of your rig for fresh fill. RV Pitstop is AWESOME.

There is a business out of Yuma (RV Mobile Dump Service) that comes out to Quartzsite once a week (at this time of year - more frequently during the show) that will empty your black and gray tanks. Well worth the money for not having to tear down, hook up, and drive into town to dump. If your tanks/sensors are in bad shape there's a business called the RV Proctologist that will clean them out at an RV park in town. We did that on our way out of the area. They can also replace your gate valves.

You can see cell towers on the hills nearby. Cell service on both Verizon and AT&T was good and we had no issue with our Unlimitedville WiFi. (If you work and depend on high speed Internet, check it out. It's expensive but if you rely on it, it's worth it.)

If you like manicured RV parks and pulling in in the dead of night, wild camping is not your thing. Please don't leave prissy comments about how there should be lights to guide you to your site (!) late at night. Just go stay at some golf resort RV park and review that.

When we were here it was about half people with solar and half running generators. There's no enforcement of generator hours so if you have solar, look for neighbors who do as well.

It's rocky. It's flat. It's level. For real boondockers (not Wallydockers) this is ideal.

There were a good number of people with off-road vehicles/side-by-sides.RZRs here, but none were obnoxious. (Thank you!)

Watch out for the small, dark baby cholla cactus that are prevalent here and will tear up your feet and those of your dogs if they're not cactus-savvy. Also, Google "scorpion weed" and memorise what it looks like. It's in bloom in the spring and it is deceptively pretty. Touching any part of it gets you a noxious substance that causes severe itching like poison oak or ivy, and can't be rinsed off. Your dogs can walk in it and get it all over your rig and you. Learn what it looks like and avoid it.

You can take your trash to the transfer station a few miles away (south, toward town) for free - but be aware that it is closed Thursday, Friday and Saturday so plan accordingly. There are NO dumpsters at Plomosa Road! (And for the jerk near us, no, it's not okay to just leave your trash bags and drive away...)

By March 1, businesses in Quartzsite are winding down and by April it's a ghost town so stock up on groceries elsewhere. The Roadrunner grocery store in town is the best one there. Nice meat section, decent produce, everything else is spotty.

Don't try to have mail sent general delivery to the Post Office. They are serious jerks and will send your mail back if the slightest thing is wrong with the address (even though they know perfectly well who it is for - they're just spiteful, miserable people.) Also if you're an Escapees member, DO NOT have them ship anything to Quiet Times (business that accepts deliveries) because they WILL NOT follow the correct address protocol, and your package will not be delivered.

Rainstorms here are no joke. Watch the weather and if rain is forecast, plan to stay put until the washes are not flooded and the ground is not soup. It doesn't take long to drain, but we saw plenty of impatient people who didn't want to wait. The washes are as deep as they are for a reason, folks.

If you go into it with reasonable expectations (remoteness, peace and quiet, dark skies) then you'll love this place like we do. If you really prefer a FHU RV park, there are plenty in town.

We really loved this place. It was easy to get in and out of for any rig. It was very quiet. Plomosa Rd. which takes you to Bouse runs through the middle of the area but is infrequently travelled especially at night. We almost didn't have to do any leveling here it's so flat. Watching the ground squirrels and cottontail rabbits was fun and the star gazing at night was excellent. It was nice to come here for the peace and quiet.

We arrived three days before the Quartzsite Sports, Vacation & RV Show opened. This annual RV gathering happens every year in the middle of January. Quartzsite population goes up 1 million people for this show alone! We found a spot on Plomosa Road about 3 miles in on the left. There are plenty of flat rock to park on and find a level site. We were part of the Escapees Boomerville where over 250 RVs came together in community! It is dry camping - no amenities. No WiFi (obviously), AT&T was 2-3 bars LTE but towers were overloaded most of the time so you saw the spinning wheel a lot. There are no OTA TV channels, so you would have to depend on your hotspot data to watch anything. We had a great spot to watch powered paragliders take off in the day-use area behind us.

Great views but drove to end of camping area to avoid groups gathering for big show. Quietest of 3 BLM sites we stayed in Quartzsite as we are far from highway. Got some free tv reception (nothing came in at Dome). Had good service at American Custom Tire getting tire repair today and corner laundry was great for $2.50 washed and dried a load of clothes. Not too impressed with shows (Tampa has better rv show) rest is giant flea market so likely won’t stay. But all BLM sites and hosts have been terrific.

The 680 watt solar system we had installed in Quartzsite, Arizona is performing wonderfully out here at the Plomosa Road BLM. The solar system was pulling in 14 amps at 9am on close to the shortest day of the year—sweet! The campsite we selected has great cellular service, campsite grid coordinates (33.7527428, -114.2054541). AT&T cellular service clocked in at 91.7 Mbps download speed and 43.8 Mbps upload speed. Verizon cellular service clocked in at 18.8 Mbps download speed and 25.8 Mbps upload speed. Both services show 3 bars of 5G. Our campsite is convenient to the free trash collection transfer station on US Route 95 just north of Quartzsite with easy access to Plomosa Road. To access this campsite, enter the dirt/gravel road at grid coordinates (33.7527054, -114.2003646) to the left off of Plomosa Road heading east. Stayed three nights in mid December. This boondocking site is a keeper.

As someone who travels alone with dog I felt safe here. People around, just not close.

Only reason I would not be back is that my dog did not do well on the rock beds and that was all there was (from my point of view)

Thanks for the video on this one because that was what convinced me to do this. It was my first time so knowing what to expect made a difference.

Our first visit to Quartzsite and we really loved staying at this BLM property. It was not very crowded yet when we stayed the first of November.

We rode our sxs into town on the Peace Trail along with riding many other trails in the area.

We drove into town one day with friends to look at real estate, however this is just not the town for us and we would not want to be here during the winter RV Show, way too crowded.

We figure we were here at a perfect time of year, weather was amazing, crowds were minimal. We did not see a host set up when we were here. Those campers that were here were quiet and very respectful. We had a very strong Verizon LTE signal that we were able to use as a hot spot no problem at all.

We will definitely return to this boondocking area in the future.

For me there are only a couple reasons to visit Quartzsite, the first being free camping and the second being it's one of the few places in the country where it's comfortable to camp in the winter. These are actually pretty good reasons to hit up the area for a week or two during the winter, just know that there's not really much to do.

Our first campsite in Quartzsite was the Dome Rock area which was a nicer area to camp at. We left Dome Rock because there was scorpionweed (itchy, and hard to keep kids away from) everywhere. We also had some animal encounters on our first morning (scorpion and non-venomous snake). Plomosa Road, on the other hand, was essentially a big flat gravel parking lot. This did make it less scenic, but it was much more kid-friendly than Dome Rock. Sites on the south side of the road overlook a dry creek bed, with great views of the rocky foothills.

It would be a great place to camp for ATVers, as there are endless miles of gravel roads in the area. I rode mountain bike a couple of days. It was just ok mountain biking, but better than sitting around the campsite.

The area is easy to access right off a paved road. Just register with the host to receive a free camping permit. At the end of March, the whole place was fairly quiet.