Cottonwood Campground

All sites are on a first come first serve basis, and we arrived early enough in the day to snag a very spacious pull through with lots of privacy. It was a delightful stay exploring North Dakota’s badlands, and we really enjoyed the campground quite a bit.

This was a gem of campground. The sites are large and well spaced with plenty of trees providing privacy. In general, the pull-thru sites are bigger and well-suited for larger RVs, while the back-ins are best for tents or small RVs. We picked a pull-thru with a cute little sitting area in the trees and a driveway so long we could have fit two more RVs in there with us!

Half the sites here are reservable, but we showed up without a reservation and found lots of open sites. At the time of our visit the campground was never more than half full. Twice we saw bison roaming around the campground. They seem to especially enjoy the large open meadow in front of sites 68-76. If you want an up-close wildlife encounter these are the sites to be in.

We decided to camp here based on Campendium reviews and were not disappointed. The campsite is located on the banks of the Little Missouri river in, as the name suggests, a grove of cottonwoods. The sites are well spaced and are surrounded by vegetation. Some of the sites would be a tight squeeze for larger RVs, but #17 worked well for our 27' trailer. The campground is some 5-miles from the park entrance over a rather rough road, but the reward is peace and quiet in this remarkable corner of the world. We reserved our campsite ahead of time through recreation.gov so as to secure a large enough site, but we noticed that even in July there were many sites available.

This is a good National Park campground. Sites are level and mostly shaded with cottonwood and fir trees, with reasonable spacing. Half the park is reservable, the rest is first-come, first-served. In mid August we found the park to be full every day and were lucky to get the last site without a reservation on the day we arrived.

The water is the only really bad thing about this park. Smells and tastes of sulfur, and comes out of the spigot with a yellow tint.

If you are planning to rely on solar power, keep in mind that the dense tree cover will make this a challenge in most sites.

Voice calls on Verizon were iffy in some spots, fine in others. Data was slow without a booster, and adequate with a booster.

Park staff were serious about maintaining quiet, which is nice. A neighbor was told to shut off his dual Honda 2000 generators and work with only one at a time.

There is no dump station. You can pay $5 to dump at the Red Trail RV park in Medora.

Since it's a 5 mile drive to town, and the entrance road is bumpy/slow, you will probably want to minimize trips into Medora for supplies. Also note that there's a $20 park entrance fee if you don't have a parks pass.

Cottonwood Campground is divided into two loops, pull-through sites in one and back-in sites in the other. Honestly, you could easily have parked three or four Class A’s nose to tail in a couple of the pull-through sites. The back-ins were not as spacious. Even numbered sites are first come/first serve and the odd numbered sites can be reserved. The campground does fill up, especially on the weekends.

We were in site #9 which was huge and fairly level pull-through. The only knock is that the access road is one-way with pull-through sites are on both sides of the road, so pulling into the sites on the left (odd # sites) puts your door/awning facing the road instead of the campsite. It took some very creative maneuvering to get us in “backwards”, but it was well worth it. Lovely view across the Little Missouri River. Smaller rigs could easily pull in the “out” side of the pull-through to resolve the orientation issue.

The campground has no hookups. Potable water is available, but no dump station. There are bathroom stations, but no showers. Most of the sites are well separated with lots of vegetation between for privacy. We could not even see our neighbors. Verizon varied from 3bars of 3G to 1 bar of 4G, boosted we managed 2 bars of 4G.

There is a large day use/picnic area adjacent to the campground and Ranger programs nightly in the amphitheater. We enjoyed the visiting bison who seemed content to graze and pose for pictures. There is a 36-mile scenic drive through the park, we timed it for sunset viewing at Buck Hill. Beautiful! We also did the West Loop trail (about 12 miles) and encountered bison, wild horses and lots of prairie dogs.

The campground is five miles from the park entrance, which is in the small, cowboy-themed town of Medora. During the summer the Medora Musical, a local variety show in a huge outdoor amphitheater, is a really big deal. It came highly recommended so we gave it a try. If you like small town, corn pone humor this is your show. The cast was very talented and we enjoyed the parts where they covered classic C&W tunes, but much of the show is a promotion for Medora goods/services. Overall it was ok, but we wouldn’t do it again. Your mileage may vary.

We pulled in on a weekday morning and scored a nice pull-thru site with lots of sun for the solar panels.

The five mile road, from the National Park entrance station to the campground, is rough. It's paved but hold on.

There are no hook-ups, water faucets are located throughout the campground and NO RV dump ( we asked the ranger to confirm).

Odd number sites are by reservation and even number are first come. Two loops in this park. One with pull-thurs and one for smaller (23-25 foot) back-in campers or tents. The back-in area is more open with grass throughout. The larger pull-thru area is overgrown.

In the pull-thru loop, the sites on the outside edge have good views.

Not a bad campground and definitely nice right in the National Park.

ATT & Verizon not bad with booster.

May 15, 2017. For a campground with no hook ups for our 40ft MH, this was a lovely one. Right in the park, a number of pull-through sites to choose from, quiet during the week, good views. When we arrived on the 11th.the pull thru loop was open, 38 spots, no water in the spigots, but the next day the back-in loop was opened ( not suitable for a 40ft RV) and water was available at the spigots. We were told the even #s were first come, the odd #s were reservable. We took #24 and were very satisfied with it.
The senior pass rate of 3.50/night was unbeatable.
Our Verizon wifi reception was decent.
This is a gem of a NP with a RV-friendly campground. Thank you!

Stayed here in early May 2017, for 2 nights. In the photo's, the #4 photograph is of the same site I stayed in. The view of the Little Missouri River with the bluff behind it was staggering. On the afternoon of my first day, 4 adult bison were eating the grass in my campsite, while I was having lunch in my camper, in my campsite!
The morning of day two, I rolled out of bed, swung open the door to my teardrop and about 30 feet away, were 2 more bison having breakfast.
The night were sooo dark that the stars seemed like you could reach out and grab them.

Cottonwood campground is located in the South Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. It's about 5 miles from Medora ND. The campground consists of 2 loops with 76 sites. It's set in a cottonwood grove stretching along the Little Missouri River. Bison can occasionally be seen grazing in the meadow nearby. The campsites have no hookups, it's strictly dry camping. Generator hours are 8 AM to 8 PM. There is an RV water fill as well as water spigots at several locations in each loop. There are flush toilets but no showers and no dump.

The loop to the right as you enter has the bigger sites more suitable for RVs. The loop to the left has smaller sites best suited to tenters, Class Bs and truck campers. Even numbered sites are first-come first-serve, the odd numbered sites are reservable. There is a pull off area along side the entrance road that seems to be an overflow or oversized rig parking and camping area.

In the right loop there is a mix of back-in, pull off and pull through sites. Several of the sites awkwardly share part of the same driveway. We reserved a pull through site, 19, only to discover that the driveway had trees on both side and was too narrow, the arc was too tight and the overhanging trees too low for our 5th wheel to fit. Fortunately site 16 was open and we fit in there just fine. Larger rigs need to be careful in choosing a site.

We were camped there the weekdays prior to Labor Day. The campground hosts posted a sign identifying which sites were available. The sign identified sites that could fit trailers and larger rigs. Each day the big rig sites filled up by about 4 PM but the smaller sites did not fill.

We had 2 bars of Verizon 4G LTE.

This Park has always been fantastic. Great Campgrounds, both the North and South units. Very clean with breathtaking views. If you are planning on a visit, and want any sites by the river, please make a reservation. This campground never disappoints.