Pioneer Village Motel and Campground

Do NOT miss! I rarely last more than 2 hours in any museum from San Francisco to London but I could have stayed several hours here. Informative, well displayed items, extremely well done.

So worth it! I was a little concerned going into the dilapidated building in what looks like a strip mall but as soon as we entered I was pleasantly surprised. Tons of antiques from cars to planes to phones to actual buildings such as an old school house & pioneer fort home. Everything is well organized with signs and interesting info on the item. Kids and Adults will love! Our kids are ages 3,7 and 10 and I can't tell you how many times I heard the excited "Mom, look at this!!" We stayed busy for hours. Fantastic!

We came here with the group A Year to Volunteer to work on the Pioneer Museum and their campground. At the campground we mowed, trimmed, painted, and cleaned. It’s very good now and hopefully will keep getting better. They don’t have showers or a laundry but they do have some full hook up sites with pull through. The museum next door is unbelievable and you get one free admission with your camping payment. The town is also quaint with beautiful old buildings, a great grocery store 1/4 mile away and a good Mexican restaurant.

We saw a billboard for Pioneer Village on I-80 west of Kearney and got curious. Turns out, in addition to one of the largest and most comprehensive museums of American history we have visited, the Village boasts a lush green campground with mature trees. The park does have clean restrooms and showers but no laundry facility - yet. With our camp reservation, we received one adult admission to the museums at the Village, which we highly recommend seeing. We called at 8 p.m. to see if spots were available and got a recording, which, smartly, gave us the number for the camp host. We called, and Mary gave us the okay to come pick a spot. We wouldn't hesitate to stay here again!

I wasn’t going to write a review about the roughness of the campground, the very small and dirty showers and bathrooms, nor the very dirty museum (the pictures must have been when it was newer) until Mary, who checked me in, called my daughter a liar and told me I was going to have a life of disappointment because I don’t discipline her (texts attached).

I’m a PA member and found this place on their app. I was excited as that’s what my 11 year-old and I have been doing this school year. In fact, we had just stayed two days at Laura Ingalls Wilder’s house! Mary took my reservation on the phone and let me know sewer hookups were reserved for non-PA guests first. This was fine, though three of those nine spots were vacant both nights we were there.

We have two dogs with us. I let Mary know and she indicated that was fine as long as they were well-behaved. I told her they are. She told me they needed to be leashed, and I said, “Of course!” She continued to tell me a dog had been running loose that day for more than five minutes while she called it and while she understands sometimes they get out, this was just not ok. I agreed whole-heartedly.

I was surprised when we got there because the pictures on PA and on their website look tree-lined, grassy, and well-kept. It is rough. The grass is patchy and it’s more gravel than not. There are buildings around the RV sites that look like they’ve been abandoned for decades and they are the motel! It’s certainly not $35/night nice. It did come with a free ticket to the museum, so that was cool.

The museum has neat stuff. It’s very run-down and dirty; I was sneezy. We’ve been in a lot of museums lately and this was both the most expensive and the least well-kept, which is too bad, because the stuff is cool. There are people restoring things and I hope that’s where the money’s going and it gets better.

After we had been gone for more than 24 hours I received a message from Mary implying that I’m a bad parent and my child is a liar. Remember, there was a dog loose Mary was calling for the day we arrived. No one said anything while we were there, because I believe it didn’t happen the way she says. We have been traveling most of this school year. We’ve been in campgrounds ranging from National Parks to Disney; basic to fancy. Through 22 states no one has accused us of not cleaning up after ourselves. We are diligent about it because I highly dislike it in others.

Glad we stopped. Just don’t plan on using the RV park.

A massive collection of absolutely everything. We felt it was worth the trip off of I-80. You can come and go as needed. We ate lunch at a Nebraska chain nearby and returned to see more. The kids liked pretending to work at the train depot and playing school in the one-room schoolhouse.

This was really cool, really big and very well organized. It takes about 3 hours to tour. LOTS to see.

Ok, this stop was supposed to be just for a stretch and we felt so fortunate to have stumbled across this piece of history. The buildings do need some upkeep, but the amazing collection amassed here far outweighs any needed maintenance. The word needs to get out to rejuvenate this place so the treasures here are not lost forever. My teenagers were amazed to see cars from the early 1900’s, buggies, carriages, planes, a home, school, church, and so on. Our only regret was that we didn’t know about this sooner to allow sufficient time to go through the 26 buildings. We spent 2 hours and practically ran through it. We want to go back so hopefully it will still be open!