We were a bit amazed at the sheer volume of RVs in the area along the Colorado River both on the Arizona side and on the California side of the river. The towns, such as Parker and Lake Havasu City are on the Arizona side and there are only a few places to cross the river but it is wall to wall RV parks and campgrounds and wall to wall RVs on the California side. Doesn’t sound too attractive does it? But wait, there’s more.
There’s a host of activities in and around this area with small towns, shopping, restaurants, hiking trails, biking trails, boating, wildlife preserves, and many BLM camping areas. So no matter your preference you can probably find a camping spot that suits your needs.
We felt the Arizona side might have more to offer with the 4 state parks (Buckskin Mountain, River Island, Cattail Cove, and Lake Havasu City State Parks) and the access to towns and we usually prefer national or state parks to RV parks. So we decided to go visit a few of them and check them out to see if we may want to come back at stay at a different state park. You just never know.
One of our first stops was Buckskin Mountain State Park. We are currently staying at River Island State Park which is actually a secondary campground to Buckskin State Park and right next door to it so it was easy to just swing by for a quick visit.
Buckskin is about 5 miles south of Parker dam on the Arizona side (east side) of the Colorado River. It sits right on the river providing nice river views from many of the sites. There is a ranger station, cabana sites (a small parking spot in back of cabana so you probably can’t park your 40′ rig in one of these), restaurant (open seasonally), picnic area, boat ramp, arcade, playground, hiking trail, cactus garden, etc. Lots of activities which also means the potential for lots of families and children. Whether that’s good or bad is a matter of opinion.
There are plenty of sites for big rigs with some space between them but not lots of privacy.
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