Palm Canyon Dispersed Camping

We stayed on MST&T Road, which is unmarked, but is one road north of Palm Canyon Road. It is also BLM land, so it's free.

We went about 2 miles down the road, which made for absolute silence, except for the occasional offroading vehicle or RVer heading down the dirt road. There are endless campsites available all over Kofa, so finding your own little slice of boondocking heaven should be easy.

Definitely do the Palm Canyon hike--it's very cool to see the palm trees tucked away within the canyon's crevasses. Also, if you have time for a day trip, the Desert Bar near Havasu City is a unique experience.

Just 10-15 miles outside of Quartzsite, this is a nice place to come to experience the RV gathering without being in the thick of it. Unfortunately, the closest "real" grocery store is in Blythe, which is a 40 minute drive away, so come stocked.

A good place in town to dump, fill up water and get propane is at the RV Pit Stop; bring cash.

Located thirty or so miles south of Quartzsite, AZ is the King of Arizona National Wildlife Refuge. We stayed April 16-30, 2016. With the exception of the occasional car driving to the base of the "mountain" we are alone. Found a spot easily for our 44 foot rig with a views of the surrounding landscape for miles.

The area is desert and gravel, there are no paved sites. The gravel is also not so pleasing to larger dogs as it is less gravel and more rocks than anything else. However, smaller dogs (we were dog sitting first half of the trip) have no trouble floating across the rocky surface. The road isn't paved except for a brief spit once you turn off. When we stayed it was heavily washboarded but no damage internal or external to the rig.

Cell and satellite coverage was amazing. We were able to stream baseball games nightly and play video games online at will, assuming we wanted to run the generator. The nights were quiet and peaceful. The stars are probably amazing when there isn't a full moon lighting up the night sky. Sunrise was breathtaking, so much so that Dave who loves to sleep in made a point to wake up and see sunrise more often than not.

The hidden gem the whole trip, other than the site we picked? The General Store in Quartzsite! There is a butcher in the general store who is amazing. No seriously, best meat we've ever purchased in Arizona and Arizona is where we currently live. Meat is tender and tastes like beef or pork. The sliced roast beef for sandwiches is cut to order at the thickness you desire. It is worth the trip into town to purchase your meat and other grocery items at the General Store rather than some big box store in one of the larger cities.

This is a 5 star BLM. No trash, no water and gravel road but it's free and the views are amazing.

We camped in the last large spot. It's right at seven miles from the highway, again, all gravel but easy to traverse.

If you go much further, you begin to notice an incline in the road. There is a trailhead parking at the end and smaller rigs should be able to turn around.

Don't forget to hike the Palm Trail.

If it was warmer right now, we'd stay longer.

Think the polar opposite of Quartzite, open space peaceful tranquil surrounding with panoramic views in all directions and virtually no crowds. Great little hike up to see the name sake "Palm Valley" set out late enough that the sun is illuminating the palms, we did the walk late morning hitting the view spot at between 12pm - 1pm. Will absolutely stop here again.

I can't believe I have driven past the general area of Q a million times and never popped into Kofa. Lots of room and one helluva backdrop for the photos to make everyone staying in Q jealous. Some great hikes nearby as well.

Palm Canyon Free BLM camping is on a 3 mile stretch of the road leading into Kofa National Wildlife Refuge south of Quartzite called Palm Canyon Road. It is flat with lots of spaces. Good Verizon LTE and a few digital TV channels. There's been a north wind and since the sites are mostly on the south side of the road it can get a bit dusty when the wind is strong. The view of the mountains, sunsets and sunrises are great.
See my Video at: https://youtu.be/EqrBIKb9s5I

We really enjoyed our almost two weeks out here. The views, stargazing, wildlife, hiking, jeeping, and camping were amazing. We even got a great over air HD TV signal to watch the Super Bowl. As others have mentioned this is close to Quartzsite but a world away.

We parked a little outside of the refuge and had a great spot close to a wash with some small trees. I hiked to the very top of Signal Peak at almost 5,000' and will post some more details on my blog. Pretty good gravel road here and dust stayed away with a South wind.

It's a slow 7 miles on chunky gravel road but infinitely worth it for the view.
The farther away spots were taken, which was great! We ended up with the last 'large rig' spot although smaller rigs could stay at one more spot closer to the mountain and some people parked their truck camper in the trailhead lot (I believe there's a fire pit there too). As another reviewer noted, it's not terribly ideal for dogs...it's really nothing but chunky gravel as far as the eye can see. Also, one of our dogs was off leash and got a little cactus ball stuck in his paw (definitely our fault for having him off leash but just be aware, those little cholla cacti balls are everywhere!)
Pleasant hike up to view the Palms in the Canyon. We were a bit bummed we didn't see any of the large wildlife that lives there but we had amazing sunrises and amazing moonrises right over the mountain peaks.
We were there in early January 2017.
We had no problem working and video conferencing on our Verizon hotspots.
Our vlog and more photos is available here:
https://youtu.be/elzedlx_Bus

We drove the on Palm Canyon Rd, a very good gravel road, for about 7 miles until we found a campsite that was accessible, flat and had some great views. There seemed to be many sites and as there were not may rigs around, we had many choices. We would recommend going pass the camp host site for some sites that have better views of the mountains and canyon. We did see sites that were large enough to accommodate two Class A Diesel Pushers, but the norm is room for one motorhome and toad. They graded the road prior to our visit, so the gravel curb was pretty high to access your site. If you have high ground clearance, no problem. We barely made up to our site and had to smooth it out with a shovel to prevent bottoming out when we left. But the area is worth it.

At the end of the road is a short hike up through Palm Canyon...the palms are quite hidden, but there. You can do alot of hiking in the desert, but if you have a pet, be wary of the Cholla barbs, they were everywhere. Our dog was very wary of them, but still managed to find those nasty barbs. You need needle nose pliers to remove them. Sunsets and views were spectacular. We could easily spend a week here.

lots of hiking close to town very quiet.