Valley of the Gods Dispersed Camping

We plan many of our trips through the Southwest with a stopover in VOG. Why? It's a large area, and offers many places to camp. You can camp right next to the road, or far off the road, depending on how crowded it is, and how adventurous you might be. There are some nice spots that are far off the road, but you have to look for them. Some appear to be two-tracks leading nowhere. There are a number of places large enough for small groups to camp together, three or four vehicles. There are NO facilities, so be aware. You can get water at the gas station/trading post in Bluff. The road does get a surprising amount of traffic, so if you are camped next to it, you will get dusty, and hear cars, trucks and motorcycles all day.
In certain spots, you can get 5 bars of AT&T, in other spots, nothing.

This is one of the greatest spots you will ever camp at. The views are stunning, it is peaceful and quiet. It is remote boondocking, you won't find anything for a long ways. Be sure to check the forecast for any major wind before you come, it can be brutal in this area. If you have a larger rig or trailer I recommend coming in from the east side off of Hwy 163, the road is very smooth and easy. As you get closer to the large rock spire (you'll know it when you see it) the starts to degrade, most rigs should not go beyond this point, I have good clearance on my trailer so I could make it, but most should stop here. There are sites scattered all over the road, so typically you won't have any problem finding a site. Cell is spotty, Verizon picked up extended 3G on and off, but AT&T had good 4G (not LTE) for most of the road, in the valley near the rock spire there is no signal in the valley, even with a booster, but when you get just outside of this valley it comes back. A great nearby area to check out if you're into ruins is Comb Ridge.

I don't know if there is a more beautiful, secluded place in the West than Valley of the Gods. Its impossible to camp here and not feel like you're in an old western film. Valley of the Gods Road is not always in great condition, but still manageable for most size rigs. If you drive about 5-6 miles in you will have an incredible site all to yourself because most people don't want to drive that far with their campers or trailers. You'll be surrounded by sandstone monuments. Mexican Hat is the closest town and there are not many options there besides the Shell station so stock up before you go. Goosenecks State Park is close, the Moki Dugway, Muley Point, Natural Bridges National Monument and Monument Valley are all close too. Theres a little bit of 3G for Verizon, but in some areas you'll find 4G. You can also get 4G if you camp over at Goosenecks.

We wanted a few nights to stay out of the way with a beautiful view. After reading a bunch of the reviews, we chose to give it a go at Valley of the Gods and we were not disappointed. Let me add here that we followed a recommendation to come in from the east. As we were ready to pull off the road, we saw a wash at the bottom. We got out and walked it, solid rock. Having a 40 ft diesel pusher we knew we were pushing the limits. Add to that we pull an enclosed 21 ft trailer and you have a very long and heavy rig. We went until we found a nice spot, not as far as the spires, but next to a rock called "Resting Hen" we were told. This we tracked back at 3 miles. Others told us we could keep going, so don't let anything but fear stop you from enjoying this beautiful area of earth that is left untouched and clean.

Well now, Valley Of The Gods is a very scenic spot. Like, truly a spectacle of nature. Why? Well, because it's beautiful, yes. Also, it's just so interesting. You can hike at the base of a mesa and be constantly entertained by the changing landscape.

We stayed about 4.5 miles in from the 163 entrance, known as the East entrance. Yes, there's a small dip and a tiny flow of water right away, but my VERY low clearance piece-of-crap weight distribution bars did not drag, nor did the end of my 24' travel trailer.

The road is well maintained. It was while we were there, anyway. You can go as fast as you dare and there was pretty much no washboarding, but I wouldn't recommend going 50mph as there are random bumps, rocks and STEEP (if you're going really fast) dropoffs!

Internet: Well, this was the only bummer. I have Verizon. We found *decent* internet where we were staying, but it was so inconsistent. One day it was so bad I scouted out another spot to go sit for the day just with the truck and chairs to work. It worked very well at the new spot and we considered moving. However, the next day when we went to try it out again? Zip. Nothing. We were BUMMED!

So, we ended up leaving the area a few days earlier than planned because we need the internet to work. It wasn't that we didn't have ANYTHING... strangely, at night I could easily stream Netflix. In the morning, I could as well. (Didn't try during the day...was working) So why would websites load slowly but I could usually stream Netflix or Hulu? I have no idea.

We had an ATT card as well and would sometimes use that for better 'net, but not for streaming because that one is not an unlimited plan.

We would have stayed longer had it been great internet.

No cows around.

Cow trails all along the main road!

Great skies.

Great photography place but I suck at it.

GREAT things to do nearby... a few anyway... check out TripAdvisor for things to do- they list where Forrest Gump ended his run just south of Mexican Hat. I got a fun video of me running in the middle of the road right where he did!

North- if it's cold enough, you can go to Monticello and see snow/mountainous area.

Mexican Hat- well, there's a rock formation that looks like a Mexican Hat.

Natural Bridges National Monument is not too far away.

MOKI DUGWAY- Listed as one of the most dangerous drives in the country? or world? - Please, people. Just drive it at a reasonable speed and there's nothing dangerous, but it's a fun curvy drive that boggles the mind in terms of how it was made!

Ok, don't go to Valley Of The Gods to boondock, because I don't want it to be crowded next time I'm driving through. 😊

Oh yeah, and like NO trash, ANYWHERE. Let's keep it that way. : )

Valley of the Gods is a really great place to boondock. We took the east entrance off of 163 and it wasn't bad at all. The road immediately goes through a wash that did have a little water in it, but it is running over sold sandstone, so it wasn't an issue. It would be though if there is significant rain, but, it's the desert, so hopefully that is somewhat rare. We're leaving today, and it did rain last night, so I'll update this if we don't make it out:)

The scenery here is much like Monument Valley, but without the bad road and crowds. During weekdays there is little traffic and only a handful of campers were here. On the weekend there was more traffic on the loop, and a few more campers, but still, it is remote enough that it seems like you're pretty much on your own. The night sky is incredible too.

There are no facilities here, but there is a BLM dumpster at the boat ramp in Mexican Hat about 10 miles away. The Shell station has water, but didn't seem to have a dump station.

The spot we camped at did have 3 bars of AT&T 3G, but that would sometimes disappear, but was stable enough for streaming some youtube and I did post a video of our the are and our site. YouTube.com/jumpingoffthecliff. I couldn't get any Verizon service. We don't use a booster.

All in all, I would highly recommend this place if you're OK with dry camping. I'm pretty sure we'll make this an annual trip.

To echo everyone else, this BLM space is amazing. Stayed here in mid-April 2017. We were towing a 32' trailer with normal ground clearance. No problem entering from the East entrance. However, only made it 5.5 miles back, then had to turn around as we ripped off a stabilizer jack while driving across a wash.

Arrived on Tuesday and found a lot of the spots to be fairly full. However, was able to find a good spot. We really loved the area and wish we could have stayed longer.

No trash and please keep it that way!

We entered from the East entrance as most others have mentioned. There is a wash to cross but it was no problem for us. Arriving on a Saturday morning we found the first few miles of the road fairly full, but once we got about 2 miles back it started to open up a lot. We ended up in an incredible spot right near one of the really big spires - it was one of the most beautiful camp sites we've stayed at yet.

The only downside to this place is the cell signal. We need Verizon LTE during the week to work. We were able to get Verizon 3G throughout most of the valley, which was good for around 0.50 Mb/s consistently, which is enough to load web pages and check email, but not enough for us to do our work (online teaching). Oddly, we could get a little 4G in our spot but only download (incoming) bandwidth... so we watched Netflix perfectly that night but were unable to get any upload to go through (even with a booster) so it wasn't going to work for our video chatting programs. We spent all of Sunday trying other areas to get a better signal but couldn't get anything and had to accept that it was just a weekend place for us and we headed out for the work week.

We drove a ways down the road and it never became impassible for us, but there are certainly some rougher sections to get through. The wash-boarding is really terrible in a bunch of places, slowing us to a crawl a few times. Site variety is everything from tiny van-sized pull outs, to huge group camping areas. There is some traffic on the road during the day but many of the sites are set back away from the road.

If you want to camp for free in some of the most unbelievable terrain you could ever imagine, and you don't need good internet connectivity, then there is no reason for you not to go here. The lack of trash was mind boggling for such a popular boondocking spot - hopefully it can stay that way.

Now we know why we were the only people camping here in late June...IT'S HOT! Our trailer got to 90 degrees by bedtime. I fell asleep with an ice pack, ha! Stunning views though. We also don't have a 4 x 4 vehicle, so some spots were iffy. Also, because we had the windows open, had dust all over our trailer. Be sure to look up at night.

Like all previous reviews, it is a must to enter from Hwy 163. The road is narrow, windy and too steep in places at the other end if you are pulling a trailer of any size. We have a 40' fifth wheel. Coming in Hwy 163 we found three or four places within the first mile or so that would work for us. The area is beautiful. We had no Verizon service. Not much traffic on the road at night or early in the morning at all. I think we were a bit off season though at the end of August.