Tumco Historic Townsite

What a great place to camp (we stayed for a week). It can be quite windy so be prepared for that, but the historical hike is so nice. Don’t get me wrong most things have disappeared through the 300 or so years but you can still make out where things would have been. It’s a very beautiful area with great hiking. And, plenty of space for our RV so we’re well away from others if we wanted to be. As far as internet or cell, our Starlink worked great and we had no issues with our Verizon or T-Mobile coverage.

If you are looking for free camping with some history, we have you covered in this video. We found free camping with some history at the Tumco Historical Townsite. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has a free camping area adjacent to this historical townsite. In this video, I give you a walking tour of both the free camping area and the historical townsite. Verizon cellular service clocked in at 48.9 Mbps download speed and 3.84 Mbps upload speed. AT&T cellular service clocked in at 113.5 Mbps download speed and 5.36 Mbps upload speed. T-Mobile cellular service clocked in at 38.7 Mbps download speed and 1.26 Mbps upload speed.

Beautiful spot to camp, with amazing views of the small mountain range, sunrise & sunset. There’s tons of open space - we stayed for a Friday night in Jan 2021 and there were just 2 other RVs overnight. We really appreciated the nice fire pits that people have made. 1 bar of TMobile LTE that faded in & out - just enough to send e-mail & text. As other reviewers mention, there’s some airplane noise, but it didn’t bother us. We were worried there might be a lot of ATVs & noise, but we didn’t see or hear any. We set up a tent in the back of our pickup truck, so felt the wind starting to pick up in the morning, but were fine overnight. We were lucky to get to see a cute fox visit the campsite looking for crumbs from dinner :) Thanks to campendium - we would never have found this spot otherwise! Loved this spot, and would definitely come back again on the way from LA to Tucson!

This spot is about 8 miles north of I-8 on Olgiby Road. This is a "ghost town" but there wasn't much to see (maybe I didn't walk far enough into the hills?) The daytime temperature was great (late February) but I would not be able to stay when it got hot. There's no shade, no water and the ground is all rocky. I heard a few birds chirping but no other wildlife. I was hoping to hear coyotes call after dark.
I think this place is along a flight path for a major airport (I seem to have a penchant for finding places like this). It wasn't as quiet as I'd hoped but that's just one of my pet peeves; planes seem to be everywhere overhead these days. Blair Valley in Anza Borrego had super noisy plane activity in November when I was last there, too.
There were 2 other rigs parked far away from me. The old guys got on their ATV's and took a short ride into the hills. One or 2 other cars showed up to the kiosk tat explains the history of the old mining town but no one stayed long.
The Ocotillo were blooming, along with Mojave Desert Star, purple Notch-leaf Scorpion weed and brittle bush yellow flowers.
Where I parked there was no cell phone coverage (T-Mobile)

I have camped here many times over the years and it's my favorite because you have more space and a great area to explore. I used to like it because the Gold Rock Rv park was across the road and were friendly to us, we were glad to pay for a shower, laundry, and dump. This last time I was there the park looked in major distress. The office sign always was Closed and nobody around, it kinda felt like Slab City. Well I did get a shower but the money boxes were broken and so I slowly drove around to the dump and used it. Afterwards I went out back by the office to see if I could pay somebody, but nada. So I am driving down the road to the highway and next thing I see is the angry cow lady on a razr yelling at me. I stop and she cussed me out for not paying, she was just nasty about the whole thing. So Don't bother going to Gold Rock RV Park, just go back to Pilot Knob or El Centro.

Great place to boondock. We were there in mid February. Very few campers in the area. So much to chose from. Fire rings in various areas. Easy for any rig to get in. Hiking everywhere. Visiting the Tumco townsite is a great experience. The train tracks are quite a distance away yet its sound is not bothersome at all. Beautiful sunrise and sunset. From Interstate 8 in Winterhaven, take Ogilby road North. Tumco is approximately 5 miles past the train tracks on the right side.