Pet Friendly

Joshua Tree Lake RV & Campground

Joshua Tree Lake RV Campground in Joshua Tree, California, provides a lakeside and desert camping experience at the gateway to Joshua Tree National Park—the 800,000-acre California desert preserve where the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts converge and the iconic twisted Joshua trees create the alien landscape that has made this park one of the most photographed national parks in the American West. The campground's pond and lake, wedding venue, live music programming, and exceptional dark-sky stargazing access distinguish it from the park's own developed campgrounds, providing resort-amenity camping with the Joshua Tree character—moonlit boulder piles, star-filled desert skies, and the haunting silhouettes of Yucca brevifolia in the desert night—that defines the high-desert camping experience at the edge of one of California's most beloved national parks. The campground's facility reflects the desert environment and destination event character: a private lake and pond for fishing and desert water recreation, planned activities and live music and entertainment programming that takes advantage of the dramatic desert landscape setting, a wedding venue for celebrations in the Joshua Tree destination event market, bird and wildlife watching in the desert tortoise and roadrunner habitat, a general store, pavilion, showers, bathrooms, dump station, pet-friendly policies, Wi-Fi, and mountain and desert views that frame every camping site with the park scenery that brought guests to Joshua Tree in the first place. Stargazing events and the campground's exceptional night-sky access provide the evening programming that no facilities can improve upon in this dark-sky desert. Joshua Tree National Park's Wonderland of Rocks—a concentration of massive rounded granite monoliths that rose from magma intrusions 100 million years ago and were exposed by erosion to create the boulder-pile landscape that defines the park's distinctive visual character—contains over 8,000 documented rock climbing routes that have made Joshua Tree the most visited and most iconic rock climbing destination in North America. The Skull Rock Nature Trail, Keys View's panoramic Coachella Valley overlook, and the Cottonwood Spring oasis in the Sonoran Desert section provide the representative national park experiences accessible on day hikes from the campground's Joshua Tree gateway position. The town of Joshua Tree, Twentynine Palms, and the High Desert arts and culture community that has grown around the national park's western gateway have developed a distinctive creative culture of galleries, music venues, and the annual Joshua Tree Music Festival that reflect the desert landscape's effect on artistic practice in the creative community that has colonized the Morongo Valley's high desert terrain. The Noah Purifoy Outdoor Desert Art Museum in Joshua Tree—a free outdoor sculpture garden of assemblage art created by Purifoy from the debris of the 1965 Watts Riots—is one of the most significant and unusual outdoor art installations in California. Joshua Tree Lake RV Campground operates year-round in the high Mojave Desert's four-season climate, with the fall and spring seasons from October through April delivering the most comfortable desert temperatures for hiking, rock climbing, and boulder exploration in Joshua Tree National Park—the summer months above 100 degrees Fahrenheit make the park's sun-exposed terrain genuinely dangerous for unprepared hikers in the heat of the day, while the mild winter nights create extraordinary stargazing conditions when the desert air's low humidity and the campground's minimal light pollution combine with the Milky Way's winter arc over the park's boulder silhouettes. The spring wildflower season in February and March after winter rains creates the desert bloom that brings maximum visitor volume to Joshua Tree.

from $16 $14/night

Cabins at Joshua Tree Lake by Hostel Cubed

2 Cabins, 4 Hostels

The Cabins at Joshua Tree Lake, operated in partnership with Hostel Cubed, provides air-conditioned cabin and hostel accommodations in the high desert community of Joshua Tree, California — a campground with a community fire pit, a duck-inhabited lake, and a gated environment that offers immediate access to the bouldered landscape of the Mojave Desert and the entrance to Joshua Tree National Park a few miles south. The modular cabin architecture, designed to blend with the desert environment in an eco-friendly configuration, gives the property a distinctive aesthetic that aligns with Joshua Tree's broader tradition of design-forward desert accommodation that has made the community a consistent destination for Los Angeles and Southern California weekend travelers. Air-conditioned cabin accommodations are the primary lodging format, directly addressing the high desert's temperature extremes — summer days in the Joshua Tree area can reach triple digits, and reliable cooling makes the cabin accommodations more functionally appropriate to the desert environment than traditional tent camping through the hot months. The community fire pit provides the evening gathering space that desert camping's spectacular dark skies make particularly rewarding, and the duck-filled lake on the property provides a surprisingly lush visual contrast to the surrounding Mojave landscape. The gated entrance and playground round out a property designed for comfortable small-group and family stays in the Joshua Tree area. Joshua Tree National Park, one of the most visited National Parks in the United States and a unit that encompasses the convergence of the Mojave and Colorado Desert ecosystems, provides the primary outdoor recreation draw for guests at the Cabins — the park's granite boulder formations, twisted Joshua trees, and the particular high-desert light quality that photographers and artists have been capturing for a century create a landscape of genuine visual singularity. Rock climbing at Joshua Tree is internationally recognized as one of the finest crack climbing destinations in the world, with thousands of routes across the park's boulders and monzogranite formations that range from beginner sport climbs to expert crack systems on the Headstone, Hidden Valley, and Intersection Rock formations. Dark sky quality in the Joshua Tree area is exceptional — the high elevation, dry air, and distance from major urban lighting sources combine to produce Milky Way visibility on moonless nights that is among the best available within a three-hour drive of Los Angeles. The national park's designated dark sky status formalizes what desert campers have known for decades: that Joshua Tree's night sky is worth the trip in its own right, independent of the daytime bouldering and landscape appeal. The Cabins at Joshua Tree Lake operates year-round, with the key seasonal logic being temperature — spring and fall deliver the most comfortable desert visiting conditions, with March through May and October through November representing the ideal combination of warm-but-not-brutal days and the full park accessibility that extreme summer heat makes more logistically challenging. Winter stays are cool and can be cold at night at Joshua Tree's 4,200-foot elevation, but the dry air and winter light quality attract landscape photographers specifically. Reserve ahead for spring wildflower season in March and April and for fall weekends, when Joshua Tree draws its strongest non-summer visitor concentration.

from $69/night

Lake Tamarisk Desert Resort

19 RV Sites

Lake Tamarisk Desert Resort sits in the Chuckwalla Valley two miles north of Interstate 10 near Desert Center, California, approximately 70 miles east of Palm Springs in a stretch of the Colorado Desert that most drivers blow past on their way between Los Angeles and Phoenix without knowing what's here. The tamarisk desert resort is a member-owned, adults-only (55+) community of 150 spaces built around a private lake in one of California's most geographically isolated and undervisited corners—a place where the quiet is profound, the skies are dark, and the surrounding desert rewards those who look slowly. All 150 RV sites offer full hookups with 30 and 50-amp service, and the resort's facilities include a heated swimming pool and spa, air-conditioned clubhouse with television, WiFi, a lending library, games, and a pool table, and coin-operated laundry with hot showers. Catch-and-release fishing on the private lake, stand-up paddleboarding and kayaking on the water, and bird watching along the tamarisk-lined shore provide the primary on-site recreation, supplemented by off-highway vehicle access directly from the resort's perimeter—the Chuckwalla Valley terrain surrounding the property opens into extensive desert OHV areas without requiring a trailer and launch ramp. Well-behaved pets are welcome at no additional charge. Desert Center is one of the more quietly extraordinary spots on the Southern California desert map—a community of a few dozen residents in the Chuckwalla Valley, surrounded by Bureau of Land Management and preserve land, where the silence and the distance from ambient light create nighttime sky conditions that desert astronomers prize. The Chuckwalla Mountains rise to the south, the Eagle Mountains to the north, and the broad valley floor between them has the kind of unobstructed horizon that makes morning and evening light memorable rather than merely convenient. Resident and migratory birds—including raptors, wrens, and desert sparrows—populate the tamarisk and palo verde in numbers that surprise first-time visitors. Chuckwalla Valley Raceway, operating on the old Marine Corps Air Station desert floor nearby, hosts club racing, track days, and high-performance driving events that draw motorsport enthusiasts from across Southern California. Joshua Tree National Park is about an hour north, where the transition from the Mojave to Colorado Desert ecosystems creates the distinctive Joshua tree forests and rock formations that have made it one of the most photographed landscapes in the American West. The General Patton Memorial Museum at Chiriaco Summit preserves the history of the Desert Training Center where American forces prepared for the North Africa campaign in World War II across 18,000 square miles of this same desert. A 9-hole public golf course sits just a block from the resort property. Lake Tamarisk Desert Resort runs on the Sonoran Desert calendar, with winter from November through March delivering the mild, clear weather that makes the California low desert one of the premier snowbird destinations in the American Southwest. Summer temperatures regularly exceed 115 degrees, making the June through September period the least comfortable for extended outdoor time, though the resort's pool, shaded clubhouse, and air conditioning provide adequate relief for short summer visits. Early reservations are essential for the winter season, when the combination of warm days, cool evenings, and the resort's community atmosphere drives sustained demand from repeat guests who return year after year.

from $50/night

Silver View RV Resort

315 RV Sites

Silver View RV Resort in Bullhead City, Arizona, offers 315 full-hookup RV sites on the Colorado River with 30 and 50-amp service, cable TV, and rigs accepted to 45 feet. River view back-in, premium back-in, and pull-through categories join a pool, spa, hot tub, fitness center, and on-site dining directly across from Laughlin. Three hundred fifteen sites span premium back-in, river view back-in, and pull-through categories, all carrying water, sewer, and electric on 30 and 50-amp with cable TV and site WiFi, sized to 45 feet. The river view category is the reason most guests book here rather than inland. A general store, laundry, dump station, restrooms, showers, and personal mailboxes handle the practical side — the mailboxes point to the long-stay winter residents who fill much of the resort. An outdoor pool, spa, and hot tub and sauna anchor daily recreation, with a fitness center, clubhouse, on-site dining, walking trails, and a dog park besides. Pickleball and corn hole fill the courts. Boating runs from the river and a golf course is nearby. Pets are welcome. Bullhead City sits directly across the Colorado from Laughlin's casino resort corridor, which gives guests a genuinely unusual combination: river-view camping on the quiet Arizona bank with a full entertainment strip visible across the water and reachable in minutes. Winter is decisively the season on the lower Colorado. Book well ahead for January through March, when snowbirds fill the river corridor, and expect considerably easier availability through the summer.

from $70/night

Coachella Lakes RV Resort

352 RV Sites, 8 Cottages

Coachella Lakes RV Resort in Coachella, California, offers 352 full-hookup RV sites and eight cottages with 30 and 50-amp service, cable TV, and rigs accepted to 75 feet. Lakeside, front row, and K9 Corner back-in categories join a splash pad, hot tub, fitness center, and clubhouse in the Coachella Valley. Three hundred fifty-two sites span back-in, deluxe back-in, front row back-in, lakeside back-in, K9 Corner back-in, and pull-through categories, all carrying water, sewer, and electric on 30 and 50-amp with cable TV and site WiFi, sized to 75 feet. The K9 Corner sites are worth requesting if you travel with dogs, and lakeside is the premium outlook. Eight cottages round out the lodging. A general store, boutique shop, laundry, propane fills and exchange, restrooms, showers, and firewood handle the practical side. An outdoor pool and splash pad anchor the warm months, with a hot tub, sauna, fitness center, clubhouse, game room, craft room, and business center besides. Pickleball, billiards, ping pong, horseshoes, and corn hole fill the courts, and a lake supports fishing. Walking trails, a playground, dog park, golf cart rentals, a bar, and live music round it out. The resort also operates as a wedding venue. Pets are welcome. Coachella sits between Indio and the Salton Sea, 40 minutes from the sea itself, with Spotlight 29 Casino two miles away, Fantasy Springs seven minutes, and Palm Springs within comfortable reach. Winter is decisively the season, and April festival weeks fill the whole valley. Book well ahead.

from $49/night

Paradise RV Park (Desert Hot Springs)

89 RV Sites

Paradise RV Park in Desert Hot Springs, California, offers 89 full-hookup back-in RV sites with 20, 30, and 50-amp service and rigs accepted to 50 feet, behind a gated entrance in the Coachella Valley. A pool, fitness center, dog park, and pickleball courts serve a private desert community near Palm Springs. Eighty-nine back-in sites carry water, sewer, and electric on 20, 30, and 50-amp, sized to 50 feet, with picnic tables and BBQ pits at the sites. The 20-amp option suits smaller trailers that do not need a full pedestal. Restrooms and WiFi serve the sites, and a gated entrance controls access — which matters for the long-stay guests who make up much of the winter occupancy. Pets are welcome. An outdoor pool anchors daily recreation, with a fitness center for the rest of the day and a community fire pit for the evenings. Pickleball and bocce ball courts fill the competitive calendar, and a playground and dog park serve families and pets. The mountain and desert setting frames the property on every side. Desert Hot Springs is distinct from the valley's southern resort communities. Its famous natural mineral hot springs sustain a spa and wellness industry that operates independently of the Palm Springs tourist economy, which gives the town a quieter, more restorative character — and the hot spring access is genuinely the reason many guests choose this side of the valley. The San Jacinto Mountains rise to the south, with Palm Springs and Joshua Tree National Park both within easy reach. Winter is decisively the season in the Coachella Valley, when snowbirds fill the desert communities. Book well ahead for January through March, and expect April festival weeks to tighten availability across the entire valley.

from $65/night

Shadow Hills RV Resort

95 RV Sites, 19 Tent Sites

Shadow Hills RV Resort in Indio, California, offers 95 paved full-hookup back-in RV sites and 19 tent sites in the Coachella Valley, with 30 and 50-amp service, cable TV, and rigs accepted to 60 feet on a big-rig-friendly layout. A spa, hot tub, fitness center, business center, and library sit behind a gated entrance. Ninety-five paved back-in sites carry water, sewer, and electric on 30 and 50-amp with cable TV, sized to 60 feet. Paved sites hold up better than gravel through a desert season and make setup cleaner. Nineteen tent sites and cabins round out the accommodations. Laundry, restrooms, showers, and a snack bar handle the practical side, with a gated entrance controlling access. The amenity set is built for a long winter stay. An outdoor pool, hot tub, sauna, and spa cover daily recreation, with a fitness center, clubhouse, game room, craft room, and library for the rest. A business center serves guests working remotely, and a pond, walking trails, community fire pit, dog park, and horseshoes fill the grounds. Planned activities run through the season. Pets are welcome. Indio sits at the center of the Coachella Valley's date palm agricultural belt and hosts two of the world's most attended music festivals. Palm Springs' cosmopolitan appeal and Joshua Tree National Park's high desert are both within easy reach, and the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway and Art Museum are close. Winter is decisively the season, and April festival weeks tighten the entire valley. Book well ahead for both.

from $45/night

Emerald Desert RV Resort

97 RV Sites

Emerald Desert RV Resort in Palm Desert, California, offers 97 full-hookup back-in RV sites across 33 acres with 30 and 50-amp service, cable TV, and rigs accepted to 56 feet on a big-rig-friendly layout, open all year behind a gated entrance. Luxury, elite, premium, and deluxe categories join a pool, hot tub, spa, fitness center, and disc golf course. Ninety-seven back-in sites run in deluxe, premium, elite, and luxury categories, all carrying water, sewer, and electric on 30 and 50-amp with cable TV and site WiFi, sized to 56 feet. The four-tier structure gives real budget range within a single resort. A laundry, propane fills and exchange, restrooms, showers, RV storage, and boat storage handle the practical side. An outdoor pool, hot tub, sauna, and spa anchor the property, with a fitness center, clubhouse, craft room, pavilion, and disc golf course besides. Tennis, pickleball, bocce ball, billiards, ping pong, and horseshoes fill the courts, with a dog park and live music through the season. The resort is LGBTIQA+ friendly and operates as a wedding venue. Championship golf, concert venues, shopping, dining, wine and beer tasting, and Joshua Tree National Park are all nearby. Pets are welcome. The Coachella Valley's winter climate is the entire proposition — reliably sunny, warm, and dry from November through April when much of the country is frozen. Winter is decisively the season. January through March fills with snowbirds and festival traffic. Book well ahead, with far easier availability through the hot summer months.

from $68/night

Indian Wells

143 RV Sites

Indian Wells in Indio, California, offers 142 full-hookup RV sites with 20, 30, and 50-amp service, cable TV, and rigs accepted to 45 feet, behind a gated entrance in the Coachella Valley. Standard, premium, and pull-through full-hookup categories sit alongside a pool, hot tub and sauna, spa, fitness center, tennis courts, and an on-site casino. One hundred forty-two sites run in standard, premium, and pull-through full-hookup configurations, all carrying water, sewer, and electric on 20, 30, and 50-amp with cable TV and site WiFi, sized to 45 feet. Laundry, restrooms, and showers serve the extended winter residencies that fill the resort, and recycling is available. A gated entrance controls access. The amenity set is built for a long winter stay. An outdoor pool, hot tub, and sauna cover daily aquatic recreation, with spa services and a fitness center alongside. Tennis and sports courts, basketball, shuffleboard, and billiards fill the competitive calendar, and a clubhouse, game room, and library serve the social side. On-site dining covers meals, a casino sits on the property, and walking trails and a dog park round it out. A golf course is nearby. Pets are welcome. Indio sits in the geographic center of the Colorado Desert, 23 miles east of Palm Springs, with the Santa Rosa Mountains rising above the valley floor. The Coachella Valley's golf, tennis, and entertainment infrastructure is among the most concentrated in the Southwest. The resort is open all year, but winter is decisively the season — November through April fills with snowbirds. Book well ahead for those months, and expect festival season in April to tighten the whole valley.

from $72/night

Cathedral Palms RV Resort

62 RV Sites, 1 Onsite RV/Trailer, 1 Apartment

Cathedral Palms RV Resort in Cathedral City, California, offers 62 full-hookup RV sites and an apartment with 30 and 50-amp service and rigs accepted to 55 feet on a big-rig-friendly layout, with EV charging on site. Deluxe and water-and-electric back-ins join the Happy Camper travel trailer rental, with a pool, hot tub, and pickleball courts. Sixty-two back-in sites run in water-and-electric and deluxe full-hookup categories carrying 30 and 50-amp, sized to 55 feet, with site WiFi. EV charging is available — still uncommon at RV resorts and increasingly decisive for guests towing with an electric vehicle. The Happy Camper travel trailer rental and an apartment serve guests without a rig, with check-in for rental units at 3:00pm. A laundry, propane fills, dump station, RV storage, bike rentals, restrooms, and showers handle the practical side. An outdoor pool and hot tub and sauna anchor the property, with a clubhouse, community fire pit, and dog park besides. Pickleball, bocce ball, basketball, billiards, ping pong, and corn hole fill the competitive calendar, with biking from the property, planned activities through the season, and a golf course and national park nearby. Pets are welcome. Cathedral City sits between Palm Springs and Palm Desert in the Coachella Valley, which puts the region's golf courses, spa culture, national park access, and mid-century modern architecture all within easy reach. Winter is decisively the season in the desert. Book well ahead for January through March.

from $65/night

Grey Squirrel Resorts

19 Cottages

Grey Squirrel Resort in Fawnskin, California, has welcomed families, couples, and group retreats since the 1950s, bringing more than seven decades of mountain hospitality to a collection of 19 private cabins spread across three wooded acres on the quiet north shore of Big Bear Lake. Tucked in the small mountain community of Fawnskin—across the lake from the busier Big Bear Lake resort corridor—the resort provides an intimate and unhurried alternative to the high-traffic south shore lodging scene, giving guests direct access to San Bernardino County's premier mountain resort while preserving the peaceful forest character that defines the north shore experience. The 19 private cabins accommodate a range of group sizes and comfort preferences, offering more privacy and enclosed space than hotel rooms while maintaining the forest-immersed setting that draws visitors to Big Bear Lake in every season. On-site amenities include a pond, spa, walking trails, and wedding venue capabilities that make the property versatile for romantic retreats, family reunions, and celebration events alongside standard vacation stays. Pet-friendly policies, a general store, and Wi-Fi support extended stays, while the resort's access to golf, hiking, and mountain biking from the property ensures guests can build active itineraries without driving across the lake to the south shore infrastructure. The Fawnskin area's forest setting—ponderosa pine, white fir, and black oak woodland at approximately 7,000 feet elevation in the San Bernardino Mountains—provides a true mountain environment that contrasts sharply with the Southern California coast and desert communities that send the majority of Big Bear's visitors up the mountain. The north shore's relative quiet and the absence of the commercial density found on the south shore give Fawnskin an off-the-beaten-path character that has attracted loyal repeat guests to properties like Grey Squirrel for generations. Big Bear Mountain Resort, accessible via the south shore road around the lake, offers skiing and snowboarding in winter alongside mountain biking and lift-accessed hiking in summer, making the surrounding mountain landscape a legitimate four-season outdoor recreation destination. Big Bear Lake itself provides boating, fishing for trout and bass, kayaking, and paddleboarding from multiple marinas and launch points, and the PCT-adjacent trail system of the San Gorgonio Wilderness to the south provides backcountry hiking access to some of Southern California's highest and most dramatic mountain terrain. The Moonridge Animal Park and the Baldwin Lake Ecological Reserve provide additional nature-focused excursions in the immediate area. Grey Squirrel Resort operates year-round in Big Bear Lake's four-season mountain climate, with winter skiing season from December through March and summer's lake and mountain recreation driving the two peak demand periods. Fall's aspen and black oak color in the surrounding San Bernardino National Forest creates a third visitation surge in October, when the mountain's foliage rivals the more celebrated deciduous displays of the eastern United States. Cabin reservations for winter ski weekends and summer holidays fill months in advance, and the resort's intimate 19-cabin scale means early booking is essential for any stay during Big Bear's peak windows.

from $75/night

The Palms at River Edge

The Palms at River Edge in Ehrenberg, Arizona, delivers a family-friendly waterfront resort experience on the Colorado River in the Sonoran Desert where the Arizona-California border is defined entirely by the river's course, providing direct beach, boating, and water sports access on one of the American Southwest's most iconic waterways in a gated community environment suited to both seasonal stays and active water recreation enthusiasts. Positioned in La Paz County where the lower Colorado River corridor has developed as a winter snowbird and warm-weather water sports destination, the resort combines resort amenities with the Colorado River's recreational resources. The resort's facility is designed around the water-centric lifestyle that the Colorado River enables—a beach for swimming and launching non-motorized watercraft, a pool for independent aquatic recreation, paddle boarding, canoeing and kayaking access, fishing directly from the property's river frontage, and boating opportunities on the Colorado's broad lower channel. A gated entrance, clubhouse, recreation center, dog park, playground, general store, propane fills, and laundry serve the comprehensive residential and recreational needs of extended-stay guests, and the shuffleboard and swimming pools provide social recreation alongside the river's more active opportunities. The lower Colorado River at Ehrenberg flows through a landscape that represents the Sonoran Desert at its most dramatic geographic expression—a narrow, intensely green riparian corridor cutting through a stark, tan-and-rust desert environment where temperatures regularly exceed 110 degrees Fahrenheit in summer and the river's presence defines the zone of habitability in a landscape that would otherwise be entirely uninhabitable. The river's warm water—heated by the desert sun across hundreds of miles of Arizona and Nevada before reaching Ehrenberg—creates excellent conditions for water skiing, jet skiing, and tubing that have made the lower Colorado one of the country's most popular motorized water recreation destinations. Quartzsite, approximately 20 miles north on US-95, is one of the American Southwest's most fascinating community phenomena—a small desert town that swells from a few thousand permanent residents to several hundred thousand during the January and February gem show and winter RV rally season, creating one of the largest temporary human gatherings in the western United States in a remote desert location. The Dome Rock Mountains to the east and the Trigo Mountains to the west provide off-road recreation terrain for guests with OHV equipment, and the BLM land surrounding Ehrenberg contains extensive open desert camping and exploration opportunities. Joshua Tree National Park is accessible approximately 45 miles west through the Palo Verde Valley. The Palms at River Edge operates year-round with dramatically different seasonal characters—winter's mild desert temperatures from November through April make it ideal for snowbirds and casual water recreation, while summer's extreme desert heat concentrates activity in the early morning and evening hours with midday retreat to the pool and air-conditioned facilities. The resort's full-service infrastructure and Colorado River access give it competitive advantages over simpler Ehrenberg riverside campgrounds, and the combination of gated security, resort amenities, and direct river frontage makes it one of the more complete water recreation destinations in the lower Colorado corridor. Reservations during the Quartzsite show season fill early.