Big Bend National Park was home to two Texas campgrounds featured in a new national ranking.
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For a state that likes to brag about doing everything bigger and better, Texas campgrounds are looking pretty mid.
Not a single Texas campground cracked the top 25 in a new national ranking of 136 popular camping spots, though four made the list overall. With fall camping season underway, outdoor connectivity company TRIO analyzed more than 111,000 Google reviews, scoring campgrounds on cleanliness, facilities, staff, quiet, scenery, activities, bugs and their surrounding environment.
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Texas’ best showing came from Big Bend National Park, where Chisos Basin Campground ranked No. 29 nationally.
Chisos Basin Campground in Big Bend National Park ranked No. 29 nationally, the highest of any Texas campground on the list.
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The popular frontcountry campground, perched at about 5,400 feet in the Chisos Mountains, earned excellent marks for cleanliness, facilities, scenery and environment.
One Google reviewer called it the “best” campground in the park, praising the surrounding mountains and helpful rangers who offered wildlife tips, hiking and keeping campsites clean.
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Chisos Basin in Big Bend National Park is home to Texas’ highest-ranked campground in a new national list.
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Campers worried about losing access to Chisos Basin also caught a break this year. A roughly two-year closure had been scheduled to begin in May as the National Park Service prepared for major construction and infrastructure upgrades. The agency later canceled the project because of rising costs, budget constraints and design complications, leaving the campground, visitor center and surrounding trails open.
Padre Island National Seashore’s Malaquite Campground was Texas’ next-best performer at No. 33. The semi-primitive campground tucked behind the dunes near Corpus Christi earned excellent marks for facilities, staff, scenery and environment.
Malaquite Campground at Padre Island National Park and Seashore ranked No. 33 nationally in a new review-based campground ranking.
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“Beautiful & secluded, this was the prettiest beach we visited on the entire Texas Gulf Coast,” one reviewer wrote, adding that it was quieter than nearby Mustang Island State Park.
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Live Oak Ridge Park Campground at Belton Lake came in at No. 42, making it the highest-ranked option relatively close to Houston at about 170 miles away.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers campground received excellent grades for cleanliness, facilities, quiet and environment. Every facilities-related mention analyzed by TRIO was positive, along with 98.3 percent of cleanliness mentions and 97.3 percent of peace-and-quiet mentions.
Belton Lake is home to Live Oak Ridge Park Campground, which ranked No. 42 nationally in a new campground ranking.
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“This is one of the cleanest and nicest campgrounds I have stayed in,” one reviewer wrote, also praising its spacious campsites, restrooms and boat ramp.
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Big Bend landed another spot with Rio Grande Village Campground at No. 51. The park’s largest developed campground earned excellent marks for cleanliness, facilities, scenery and environment, with reviewers highlighting wildlife including javelinas, coyotes, roadrunners and even Rio Grande beavers.
A view is seen from an overlook on the Rio Grande Village nature trail.
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There was one catch. Rio Grande Village also ranked as the seventh-buggiest campground in the country.
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Elsewhere, Schoodic Woods Campground in Maine took the No. 1 spot nationally, followed by Indian Cove Campground in Arkansas. California placed the most campgrounds in the top 25 with five.
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At the other end of the list, Sycamore Grove Campground in Red Bluff, Calif., ranked dead last at No. 136. It also landed among the country’s dirtiest and loudest campgrounds.