Gila Bend FamCamp

Barren looking, out of the way place. BUT, full hookup for $12 a day and free laundry. Plenty of areas to walk dog. No showers, and only restrooms are in the office building. Nice lounge w tv and wifi, open 24 hours. Little over an hour to drive to Organ Pipe Cactus Natl Monument..well worth the visit.

Great stopping over location from East/West Interstate 8. All sites are gravel with FHU's, the exception is the water has a low arsenic content and non potable. There is a RO cabinet on each site for filling containers with drinking/cooking water. The sunrise/setting view of the surrounding mountains and desert are beautiful. We will stay here again if in the area.

About an hour from any real shopping I.e. Lowe’s, Sams, Wal-Mart, PetsMart, conventional size grocery store, meat markets etc. Famcamp is about 3 miles south of I-8. Water hookup contains low level arsenic to use for showering/washing but each site has a reverse osmosis tank that yields about a gallon of drinking/cooking water. Famcamp is mostly occupied by elders in which some stay long term. Summer months, I’m told are almost intolerable due to the fact that it can reach 120’s Fahrenheit. 120’s pretty much negates proper function of RV ceiling ac units. The scenery is beautiful however that is tempered by long drives to shop so go to a Walmart /Grocery before arriving. There are a couple truck stops, a dollar general and a family dollar in Gila Bend. Though it is open and well spaced, a close watch on kids is a must. I suspect tolerance of kids screaming and interrupting the life of elderly outside of the jets noisy hours would be not met with joy. Washing is limited to two loads per day per camp site. Guards and lodge staff are very courteous. Price is very good considering full hookups. I do see why folks don’t flock here. I would stay again. You are near the border with Mexico and this is a huge wilderness / the wild desert which includes coyotes, rattlesnakes, scorpions etc. keep watch over kids and pets! Keep in mind fighter jets start early so early to bed early to rise is a great.

Very nice campground with HUGE full hookup sites for $12/night!!! Very quiet, with beautiful sunrise and sunset views. Not far from the Organ Pipe National Park which is worth the day trip. The water is not as big of an issue at the sites as people have reported. They have reverse osmosis at each site to fill containers for drinking. Or just fill your containers or tanks before you get there. The town is only 2 miles from the base. Great place for bike riding on base. No traffic to deal with. Pam (lodging reception) is amazing to work with. No TV there, but it was a nice break. Will definitely be returning. If you want great quality time with each other or the family, you get it here.

Just stayed one night. Got in after dark. Check-in was nice, found full hookups and had a quite night sleep. Would stay there again, in the winter!

If you must have glitz and glamour - stay away. This is a great desert c/g. Many miles to walk, great place for bike riding. The people are all family. Free laundry. We spent Thanksgiving here and had a potluck dinner with some wonderful folks. For the price - it's a diamond. For the atmosphere - it's gold. We can't wait to go back. The little town of Gila Bend is fun, not much there but several good places to eat. A little ways out of town is a fresh water shrimp farm. A short drive to beautiful National parks. Loved it!

This was my second time at Gila Bend. The staff was very friendly. My first visit was in the heat of the summer, only two RV were there. The temp was 117. This visit there were a number of "snowbirds" there. Very friendly group. The camp is a basic very basic, but at 10 bucks a night, it had everything I needed. Free Laundry. The electrical upgrades, completed since my first visit, were very nicely done. There's no WiFi there, The water is non-potable, but they do have a reverse osmosis system at each space for drinking water.

The park is full and there are five of us dry camping at the moment. For us that's okay. We prefer to be out by ourselves. The wifi works from our RV, the three washers and three dryers are FREE and have been empty both times I've used them. The lobby in the lodge is open 24/7 with a TV for those of you without a satellite. We are unable to get any channels with our antenna so the TV with cable attached is allowing my husband to feed his football addiction. Gila Bend is small but has everything I need. There are two dollar stores, a grocery store, a hardware store, a Mexican, Italian, and American restaurant and a Dairy Queen and McDonalds, gas stations, etc. The town is five miles from the Fam Camp. Most of the people here come year after year and stay all winter. They tend to be friendly and look out for each other, with a couple of them being busy bodies. The park is an open desert field with hook-ups. It's quiet. And it is definitely cheap. We were the next ones to pull in after all the FHU sites were filled. We got the only site with electric only. We fill our fresh water tank from our neighbor's water and dump once a week at the dump station around the corner. Even though we have electric we only pay $3.00 per night. There is an abundance of coyotes. We had heard that in other parts of Arizona, but had never seen one. We have seen them many times here. They stay away during the day but come back every day as the sun hits the horizon. We keep our small dog on a short leash after dusk and make sure all three cats are in our rig as soon as the sun sets. F-16's fly over every day either doing touch and go's or practice approaches. The run way is right behind the Fam Camp and it is interesting to watch them. At least for me. Hubby has been there done that having retired from the USAF. At $7.00 a night, the place can't be beat.

Stopped by enroute to D-M. Of course, no comparison BUT terrific value. Yes, there are the "annual regulars" but most are friendly. We've been visiting since there WAS a Base and amenities there. It is frustrating that the employees at the Lodge have no clue as to the vacancy status. They claim it is because folks move from site to site without notifying them. We enjoy going in to Gila Bend to the Senior Center for lunch while in the area. The locals are friendly and the food is pretty basic and a balanced menu - I usually bring a current menu out and post it in the Laundry Room. A few of the LT GB residents volunteer in town at the Senior Center during their stay but I don't think the RVers that stop by for a day or three - realize that amenity. They have Wi Fi in the Lounge Area now - quite an improvement from the former dial-up. There are water machines in town and it was great to see the coffee machine and hot chocolate machine was working - must be because of the increased military training going on now.

We arrived at Gila Bend in the afternoon, shortly after a rain shower had passed through. We figured that was good because it would keep the dust down. No sooner had we checked into the c/g and gotten all hooked up, than the power to the base went out. We walked over to the billeting office and asked if this was a scheduled outage or some such. The lady there said it almost always happened after a rain, to be patient and they'd have power back before too long. Sure enough, in about an hour, all was well...or so we thought. While the electricity remained on for the rest of the night, Mother Nature threw her second punch about 7pm and through the rest of the night with extremely high winds with gusts well over 60 mph. It was a full-on desert sandstorm and visibility in the c/g dropped to a few feet at its peak. That earlier rain meant nothing because the winds were so fierce they were picking up not just sand and dust but large gravel as well. Fortunately for us, we were parked in the wind shadow of a 45 foot mother ship RV (we're just a little class B), which kept the sand blasting on our vehicle to a bare minimum. Others with unsheltered exposure took the full brunt of the sand blasting, I'm sure. By 3am or so, the winds had abated to a more normal 10 to 15 mph. We were up before dawn and outta there, so we didn't stick around to survey the damage to others. As to the c/g itself, it's just desert dirt with small concrete pads next to the parking places for use as patios. The hookups had 50 and 30 amp plugs. The water is NOT a hookup, but a cabinet in which a filtering mechanism allows you to put clean water into a container and bring it into your RV. Each one has a picnic table. The laundry room has several washers and dryers available, and was kept neat and clean. There's a book swap shelf available, and chairs to use while you wait for your laundry. The sign-in process is pretty relaxed and the woman at the billeting desk didn't know which sites were empty. She just assigned me one she though might be. It was full, so I moved on down the row to an empty one on the leeward side of the aforementioned mother ship. The grounds are regularly patrolled by security police. This is an adequate place to stop over for the night if the weather cooperates, but not a place I'd care to spend any time. ---- UPDATE: The brutal sandstorm I reported in the above review did some serious damage to the Visitors Quarters when it ripped the entire roof off in the middle of the night. The RVers faired somewhat better. None tipped over in the wind, but there was a lot of sandblasting of exterior paint and finishes. We're back eight days later, headed east, and all is calm. Now folks have some new tales to tell about the big wind in the desert. This time we spent a pleasant evening, and were on our way the next morning. As I said before, a good stopover place, but not a particularly great campground for an extended stay. I've also changed my star ratings to reflect further thought on the place.

Nothing fancy here. That being said, for your $10 a night, you do get good 50 amp electric service, sewer and water from a reverse osmosis system. Also, there's free laundry and all the ice you can use which you get at the lodging office. There are no reservations but we're told to call ahead to check on availability. Tried to call several times inbound but could not get anyone to answer. When we went to pay, in mentioned that to the desk clerk who shrugged her shoulders and turned on the answering machine. Luckily there were two open sites. We had dinner at the Little Italy restaurant in Gila Bend which was good and we noticed the small grocery store is now open. We will go back.

This campground is as advertised, no frills. It is pretty much an open field. There are concrete pads for patio, with a nice concrete walkway to each. Each site has a picnic table. Parking for your rig/toad/towing vehicle is on dirt. There are a few small trees, but that is about all that can be said about the park. Laundry is free and that is always a plus. There are BBQ grills, but it seems you must share one with your neighbor. The grocery store in Gila Bend had a lot of empty shelves. So, closest grocery is in Ajo, about 35 miles away. Water hook up is OK, but you must use reverse osmosis units provided at each site for drinking water. As stated, some of the hookups are a little out of place for RV's, but nothing that cannot be overcome easily. If you just want a place to get away from everything and have alot of nothing to do, this is it.

A place to park for the night on the way to somewhere else is about all it's good for. The laundry is free and is worth the $7.00 for the night. There is no water at the sites. A windstorm of some sort kinda messed up the place. Lots of visible damage to many structures. OK for one night.

A place to stop for the night. Unmarked spots that are confusing to navigate into. Hookups are placed (presumably) for the mobile homes that once were here, which is nowhere near where one would want them for an RV. I used to be able to say that I've never encountered a situation before where my 50' power cord wasn't long enough. I can't say that anymore. All those negatives said, it was cheap and quiet and the laundry was free, even though we didn't use it. There are no shower or restroom facilities available, so you must be self-contained. All in all, if I were going to do it again, I wouldn't.