Goulding's Lodge & Campground

Monument Valley can feel like a monumental rip-off if you're used to state- and national parks, and boondocking. Visitors here have two choices: Either make it a day trip and boondock 45+ minutes away, or stay local and pull out the Benjamins.

Admission to the park itself is a flat $20 for up to four people for two days; every extra person costs an additional $6. Dry camping within the park boundaries (think giant parking lot) is $40. Camping outside of park boundaries is very limited, as this is Dine land, with no parcels allotted for general use, the way that National Forest and BLM land are in most of the country.

Having said that, Goulding's—across the highway from the park—offers scenic camp spots and nice amenities for a bit less. We paid $30.50 (with tax) to dry camp in the park. We had plenty of space to ourselves, a picnic table and access to clean bathrooms and shower houses. Wi-fi was good, and our boosted Jetpack even pulled in a decent Verizon signal. The redrock cliffs around the campsite are beautiful and, despite being relatively full, the park was quiet at night.

Monument Valley is one of the most photographically pleasing spots we've visited, so it was nice to cruise in at sunset and sunrise, and only drive a few miles back to the RV.

Look for the Goulding's sign across from the park road. Follow the signs to the RV park--it's a couple of miles away--and check in at the general store. The place seems to fill up, so it's worth coming in early-ish to make sure they have a spot available. They take Good Sam, AAA and military discounts, among a few others (no Passport America).

The rate includes a Good Sam, or AAA discount, and is for a full hookup back-in site. We had to stay in the overflow area, which had slightly smaller sites (four total) and the shower building in front with the office building in front of that. The view was still pretty if you ignored the buildings. The campground is generally pretty quiet, but there were some dogs in neighboring homes that barked sometimes.

The sites have picnic tables. There are showers and a laundry. There is an indoor pool (not open in the winter) that we did not use. They also offer a nightly shuttle that can take you to their gift shop, restaurant or grocery store - all nearby. And they offer guided tours of Monument Valley that you can pick up right at the campground.

Considering the lack of choices in the area, we thought it was a reasonable price for full hookup. The location is only six miles from the entrance to the Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, where you can go on a self-guided 17-mile scenic drive, or take a different tour. There are some very nice views from the park of several "monuments".

There is plenty of room to walk doggies, including a trail (a bit of a steep climb to it if your dog is older) right off the property. The grocery store is decent, though not a mega store, but there is not much else around.

The Goulding's Campground is nestled in among the sandstone cliffs with a view of the Monument Valley spires. The view is beautiful! As others have mentioned, it's also conveniently located to access and tour Monument Valley. Goulding's can also help arrange tours for you and ask that you arrive 15 min prior to tour departure to secure your spot. They also offer a free shuttle from the campground to other parts of the Goulding property.

Our site 59 was on the end of a row, with not much room to the right-side of our motorhome, but as the campground was only partially full during our late Winter visit, it wasn't a problem. There wasn't much traffic swinging around the corner past our RV. The site was level and graveled.

Bathrooms were a short walk away back in the main check-in/reception area. The bathrooms were clean though not heated. Wi-fi signal was so-so.

I had originally decided to stay at Gouldings Lodge since I was only staying one night. Decided at the last minute to camp in my truck instead. Glad I did. I did make a reservation online about a week before arriving.

The views of Monument Valley are quite nice from much of the campground. At sunset I drove down to the highway and got some excellent photos of the landscape. I did not take advantage of any of the tours. I will save that for another trip.

T13 is a decent tenting site that backs to one of the red rock faces. It did not have either an engineered fire circle nor a grill box. The site was pretty level, but a bit short. I was sleeping in my truck so space was not much of an issue, but if I needed to pitch a tent it would have been tight.

Verizon cell was 2-3 bars of Extended 3G. Didn't bother much since the wifi supplied was plenty adequate. Bathrooms were plentiful and clean. I did not use the showers. I am very likely to stay here again.

There is now another FHU RV park in Monument Valley, but we would stay at Gouldings again.

The dirt site was level with FHU 50 amps. Our satellite connected and the park WiFi worked fine. Small trees at each site with little space between. Makes the fire pit smoke annoying if the breeze is wrong.

Park is kept nice and dark at night so as long as neighbors don't leave their bright porch light on all night the stars are lovely.

Speed bumps coming to the park are horrible - crawl over them.

The history of Gouldings is interesting and the trading post has become the lodge, grocery store, restaurant, RV park, and several other services. There is even a university satellite on site.

I made my reservation he night before we arrived on October 27. I was thrilled to be able to get a site on short notice as we were just meandering about. We came up from the south rim of the Grand Canyon and did not know how long the drive would be. I had real concerns about driving at night to try to find the campground, but we got there about 45 minutes after sunset and were able to get checked in. We got set up easily and I was thrilled to be there. They have a nice store at the office and I checked with my wife and we made reservations for an all day tour of the valley the next day. Our guide was David, a Native American and he took us throughout the unseen reaches of monument valley. It was one of the most unforgettable days of my life. What an incredible experience to be able to climb the sandstone and see ancient ruins and arches up close. This was all done thru the campground. The campground was immaculately clean, well staffed and friendly. I adore the old westerns, and this campground is ground zero for all things John Ford and John Wayne. The campground was so quiet and the views were spectacular. I stood at the end of the campground and could see the mittens right on n front of me. It had full hook ups, and was cold at night. The valley is out in the middle of nowhere, but put 5681 miles on our coach this trip, and for me, this was a definite highlight of a great 4 weeks on the road. I had dust everywhere, but to be able to see things on the tour that so few do, was worth it.

Stayed for a week in 29 ft travel trailer. Great views from campsite! Campground was pretty much empty in the winter. Short trails accessible right from campsite. Have pretty much everything you need right on site with grocery store, gas station, gift shop etc. Only reasons for 4 stars is I can easily see this being crowded and tight in summer. Sites are really close together.

Park was about 2 miles or less from the highway. Road was paved all the way. Stayed overnight in a pull through site. Park was clean and had about 15 campers on a Friday night. Had full hookups and was able to charge up dump and be ready for several days of dry camping in Moab. Laundry and office closed a 6:00 pm. Beautiful scenery and sunrise at the campground. Good campground to stay at between Vermillion Cliffs and Moab. Perfect place to explore Monument Valley.

$30 for a no hookup tent site that’ll allow you to sleep in a van if you’d like. I suppose that is the value of the bathrooms and access to the restaurant/laundry/convenience store this place has. Otherwise, there’s free BLM land—and downright gorgeous at that—just north of here.

$57 for full hookups.

Kids under 8 incur no additional fee. WiFi is advertised as “probably not good enough for your business needs.” AT&T service is too weak to use for said business purposes, as well.

We stayed two nights in March 2018 on our way back down to AZ and home to FL from Moab. Lovely campground. Great views. The Goulding Trading post museum was fantastic, especially the living quarters upstairs. We had a couple of breakfasts and dinners in the Dining Room with great food and fantastic views of Monument Valley from our seats. As someone else said, everything you need is at this facility. The campground was very nice a very clean, modern laundry and a camp store. We had stopped and looked over the place on our way up to Moab and made a point to stop and camp here on our way back south. We just fell in love with the Monument Valley area and this is a great place to camp as a base for seeing things. The lodge, although we did not stay in it, also looks very modern and nice. There is a very nice gift store by the Trading Post and Dining Room with all kinds of beautiful things--we dropped a small fortune in it for gifts, etc.. Since this is John Wayne movie territory I just had to buy a couple of his movies that were filmed in Monument Valley; She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Fort Apache. We watched one each night. By all means take the driving tour!! Rough road, but awesome up close views of many of the monuments. We highly recommend this campground and the Monument Valley area.