Texas camping help

[Spawndn72]

We are planning a two-week trip to West Texas/New Mexico in October of 2023 but we don't know anything about West Texas/New Mexico. We live in Nashville TN.

We are thinking about starting in the Big bend area, then El Paso, and then Albuquerque staying a few days in each location.

We are looking for sightseeing, dark skies for astronomy, hiking, and maybe kayaking. We will have our 16-year-old son with us.

We also need reliable internet service for at least one of the weeks as one week will be a working vacation.

Any advice? Does this sound like a good plan? Would you do something different?

[Persistent]

We have spent time in the Big Bend area. All campgrounds are crowded except in hot dry periods.

Big Bend National Park has three campgrounds. None have usable cellular data. Chisos Basin has voice and text cell, but no date. The hotel at Chisos Basin has wifi. The store at Rio Grand Village has wifi.

You can spend weeks hiking in Big Bend and never take the same trail twice. Distances are huge. Driving to trail heads is essential.

Drive to see lots if you have had enough walking, but still stop and get out of the vehicle and at least walk short distances. Often there are great distances between awesome sights. Guided tours to get started work real well.

Rafting and canoeing the Rio Grand is wonderful when there is enough water.

Many places are dark sky, but not campgrounds.

If it rains while you are there, the whole place magically transforms.

There are many RV parks outside the park West Entrance. Some have wifi. They are all crowded.

[twogypsies]

October is a perfect time for Big Bend Nat'l Park and yes, dark skies.

However, not so in ElPaso, Albuquerque or any other city. You will have to seek out some truly dark sky areas away from cities.

Do a Google for perhaps 'dark sky area in Texas' or 'dark sky area in New Mexico', etc. and you should get some ideas of where to go. From there you can Google for things to do around those areas.

You may have to keep kayaking for your own state. Finding fast water kayaking in Oct may be difficult in the western states as the water will be down at that time. As far as in Big Bend.... this outfitter is now suspending trips because of low water. (See the blue banner on the top of his web site.) https://bigbendfarflung.com/river-tr...national-park/

Here are a few sites for New Mexico dark skies:

https://www.newmexico.org/darkskies/

https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/new-...est-places-nm/

Ideas for Texas:

https://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/p...in-state-parks


Have a great trip!

[creativepart]

El Paso isn't really much of a destination. I'd suggest skipping that From Big Bend you might like visiting Las Cruces, NM/White Sands National Park. Then Carlsbad and Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

In New Mexico you might like Ruidoso and then Santa Fe. Both are great places to visit.

Lots of folks go to Roswell to see the "Aliens" but that's way over rated, believe me.

We have friends in Albuquerque and got there frequently - we'll go again next month - but you'd like visiting Santa Fe better.

[High Road Travelers]

Originally Posted by creativepart

El Paso isn't really much of a destination. I'd suggest skipping that From Big Bend you might like visiting Las Cruces, NM/White Sands National Park. Then Carlsbad and Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

In New Mexico you might like Ruidoso and then Santa Fe. Both are great places to visit.

Lots of folks go to Roswell to see the "Aliens" but that's way over rated, believe me.

We have friends in Albuquerque and got there frequently - we'll go again next month - but you'd like visiting Santa Fe better.

I second this post.

[TexasTom]

Consider Palo Duro Canyon

[Isaac-1]

Lots of good advice above, but I will add a bit more, first off cramming Nashville to west Texas / New Mexico into a 2 week trip and trying to even just hit the major sites is in my opinion too much, 3-4 weeks maybe, but 2 weeks is tight. Consider that the driving distance from Nashville to Sante Fe, NM is 1,200+ miles and Nasville to El Paso is right at 1,300. Most experienced RV'ers try to plan less than 350 miles per day for driving distance, though on a limited schedule people can and do push that. My personal cut off is 450 miles per day, the longest I have ever done was 499 miles, almost all on I-10 in west Texas with an 11 hour 59 minute driving day, from pulling out at one RV park to stopping at the next, allowing for fuel, food and rest area stops as I wanted to get through San Antonio on a Sunday night, instead of a Monday morning. Everything takes longer in an RV, fueling, getting on and off the highway, setting up and breaking camp vs staying in a motel, etc. even doing 500 mile driving days, you are still looking at something on the order of 3,000 miles driving distance for this trip, which is 6 full days driving from sunrise to sunset or longer in October on the road out of a 14 day trip.



Also be aware it can get cold in the mountains of New Mexico, and out in the dry west Texas high desert, I got caught in a early season arctic blast the last week of October 2019 at 7,000 ft elevation in eastern Arizona, temperatures dropped below freezing before sunset, and dropped to 12F before sunrise, and barely got to 40F by noon the next day.



Now for some suggestions on places worth stopping at and seeing along the route, first stop in the Texas hill country west of Austin, see the town of Fredericksburg (German town established in the mid 1800's, home of Chester Nimitz and now hosts the National War in the Pacific museum) and some of the surrounding area, LBJ historic park (winter whitehouse 16 miles away), Luckenbach Texas (11 miles away) famous dance hall / ghost town with live music on the weekends, Enchanted Rock (pink granite mountain, limited number of hiking visitors allowed each day, 17 miles away).


Going west from there on I-10 lots of open space scenery from the road that gets drier, and more mesa and desert like as you go west, then mountain like. If you go south of I-10 from Fort Stockon you get to Big Bend NP, the thing to remember it is remote, stock up on food and Supplies before you leave Fort Stockton (they have a small Wal-Mart super center)


Next consider a stop in Fort Davis in the Davis mountains, and see McDonald Observatory (about 15 miles west of the small town of Fort Davis, the highest town in Texas), where they host public star parties at the visitor center a few times per week.


From here consider heading west towards New Mexico, mostly stay out of the cities, only one worth really visiting is Sante Fe (One of the oldest cities in the US, established by the Spanish in 1610). For dark sky options consider the area around Cloudcroft, NM, in western NM the Gila National forest is good too, with Cosmic campground being an international dark sky observing spot, though that is a lot of extra miles. White sands national park is worth a stop for the novelty, about 25-30 mile across area of the brightest white sand dunes you have ever seen (Gypsum sand) only about 35 miles and several thousand feet down below Cloudcroft.



North eastern NM gives you Sante Fe, Los Alamos (where the atomic bomb was built in WW2), Chama (scenic train through the mountains between Chama NM and Antanito, CO, not sure if they run in October), also be aware the annual hot air balloon fiesta is held in Albuquerque in October, RV parks in the region charge double and book up way ahead of time for the couple of weeks surrounding the event as far out as Sante Fe (65 miles).



In NW Texas, Palo Duro Canyon just south of Amarillo has already been mentioned (second largest canyon in the US, which you would never guess as there when you drive by on I-40 just a 15 or so miles away).


I could go on, but I have already more than filled up 3 weeks worth of stops, not counting driving time between them.


p.s. I left out Carlsbad Caverns, which are well worth stopping at also, oops.

[SergioP]

We were just in Cloudcroft NM, 8600ft, in the Lincoln National Forest. Temps were 70 day 50 at night, August 15-19. From there we went to White Sands hot of course, Ruidoso, and to Fort Sumner to Billy the Kids grave and museum.

From there we went to Carlsbad Caverns. Then the Guadalupe Mountains National park, Fort Davis, the McDonald observatory, dark skies, is only 10 miles away in the Davis Mountains. Then we went down to Lajitas to see the Rio Grand because the river was flowing from all the rain, locally and upstream. The River road FM 170 from Lajitas to Presidio is a roller coaster drive that follows the river with awesome views.

For fun there’s a Prada store front foto op on US 90 about 30 miles west of Marfa right after the town of Valentine.

We did all of that in a week, starting in Houston.

[MikenDebbie]

Issac-1 provided a great write up! I enjoyed it immensely!
I will second the Texas Hill Country and Fredericksburg, and I always enjoy visits to San Antonio if you can swing it. Take the toll road AROUND Austin.

[CharlesinGA]

For places to visit, see and do in Texas, I recommend the Youtube channel Secrets of Texas

I created a MyMaps map using Google and located each of the videos, with links and location information. I am not connected in any way with Secrets of Texas, I created the map to learn how to do it, and I update it whenever he gets four or five videos ahead of the map. The map is open for anyone to view.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?m...Zj&usp=sharing

Some of the videos are hiking, some are just walking around small towns seeing the buildings and unique museums, some are kayaking, some are riding bike trails (rails to trails), etc.

[Mark_K5LXP]

First week of October is Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque, if you don't have your accommodations lined up already you likely won't find any near town. Can't speak to dark sky areas specifically but Cochiti Lake has nice sky views and an easy ride to ABQ or Santa Fe. Tent Rocks is a neat place to visit and a quick trip. Items on my list are the space museum in Alamogordo, VLA near Socorro, Nuclear museum in ABQ, hiking Bandelier national monument, Bradbury museum in Los Alamos. Between everything you can do in TX and NM I think you'll have to pick carefully with the limited time on this trip.


Mark B.
Albuquerque, NM

[F4Gary]

Skip El Paso.

[carybosse]

I see suggestions that suggest San Antonio and Palo Duro. Both great suggestions. But I thought we were trying to stay close to I-20.

San Antonio to Palo Duro is 500 miles. Either detour is a full day one day off I20. So, a day detour, a day there, and a day back eats up 3 days of this journey.

[Fotoryder]

For a campground with dark skies, try Prude Ranch near Fort Davis, TX. They do star parties there at times, possibly in conjunction with McDonald Observatory. That's in Big Bend country, along with Fort Davis National Monument, and city of Alpine with Sul Ross University, and an art museum.

Prude Ranch may have more facilities for a working stopover than Big Bend park, Fort Davis State Park or Terlingua and Study Butte (two towns outside Big Bend Park.)

Mobile phone connectivity is limited in the entire Big Bend country, west Texas and southwest New Mexico whenever you get off major highways. If you're a ham radio licensee, Big Bend Amateur Radio Club has a ham radio network that covers much of the Big Bend area, and New Mexico has a good ham radio network that covers much of that state.