Tamarisk Grove Campground

Tamarisk Grove campground provides essential shelter (shade/wind), restrooms and yes, showers for travellers en route to and from the nearby Republic of Slowjamastan. **DO NOT fill water jugs here. Potable water for drinking and cooking is available at the Tamarisk Grove campground shop, or at other locations (Ocotillo Wells). Reminder to have water for your K9 companions too. Please to remember, there are NO water fountains at Dublandia, Palmerstan, Trivialand or DonSam Wadi. Tamarisk Campground may be your last stop for water. As an important reminder, do not feed the Raccoons.

Be aware, if renting a cabin, there are no beds, no electricity, no water. It's just a shelter, and I'm not sure where 8 people would go. It fits 4 comfortably. If you're on the inside loop,, there is no privacy as all the fire rings are on the inside,, very close to one another. There is only cell service and wifi in certain places. The best part was the large bathroom which was clean and has private stalls.. It is across the street from Cactus Loop trail, which is beautiful (pics). If you go past mid-March, you will likely miss the superbloom.

We initially booked our reservation on the California State Park website. We have a 32' Class A motorhome and even specified that in the reservation form. However, when we arrived, we found out that the maximum length was only 21'! The website did NOT flag us as being too big. Luckily, we applied the new math and was able to squeeze 32' into a 21' site. The campground was quaint with lots of Tamerisk trees. The cabins are very basic with bunk beds. Most of these sites are really small and too close together. It doesn't leave a lot of privacy if that's what you're looking for. The Cactus and Yaqui Well trails were nice. You can go across the road and start at the trailhead. There is a Starlink and router mounted on the restroom building. We were able to use our RV wifi range finder to tap into it.

Like all of Anza Borrego Desert State Park’s facilities, the bathrooms, campground, and individual campsites are clean and well maintained. Each campsite has a little shelter over the picnic table, and there are showers (operated via token). HOWEVER, if you want to camp here, I would skip the cabins and use a tent or RV. The cabins are theoretically nice if you’re not in the mood to set up a tent and you want a bit of additional insulation from the wind, and if you’re prepared for the fact that they are literally just shelters with no water, electricity, beds (there are wooden platforms where you can set up a sleeping pad), etc. The only place for a double bed is kind of up in an attic area that can only be accessed via ladder. Unfortunately, after the sun set we discovered that this little attic area was home to many, many crevice weaver spiders. These are mostly harmless, but there were a lot and we didn’t really want to bunk with them, so we ended up getting a hotel room in town. This is obviously something that is way out of the park’s control - a remote wood cabin is basically an Architectural Digest dream home for spiders, of course they all want to live there! But I wanted to provide a heads up for future campers. At minimum, bring a tent as a backup and check for spiders emerging early in the night so you have time and energy to set up the tent if needed. Also, there is a bit of road noise and noise from wind blowing through the trees (amplified due to being in a valley). Overall, the park has done what it can to make this a nice spot… just proceed with careful attention to your shelter situation.

Please consider avoiding this campsite until the tamarisk trees are removed. These trees are not native to California and are highly invasive in desert environments, outcompeting native plants by consuming large amounts of water and increasing soil salinity. We visited the nearby Yaqui Well and saw firsthand how dry it is—native plants are struggling to survive. I understand that tamarisk trees look lovely and provide shade, but they consume an enormous amount of water, making it even harder for native plants and animals to survive. With the climate getting hotter and drier every year, preserving what little water remains is more important than ever.