Cottonwood Campground (ND)

Beautiful campground, great jumping-off point to the park.

The campground was clean and well maintained. It wasn't crowded even though it was full. I wish they had some way of releasing reserved sites that no one shows up for. I saw several people driving around and everything said "reserved" but there were at least five sites that were empty.

The location was perfect. Just be cautious when camping during the bison rut. We had a bull come through our camp site early in the morning. The same one pushed us out of the river bed the day before.

The weather was really hot which forced us indoors a lot. The park was beautiful. The only change if suggest is to add a bench for dry clothes in the shower room. Older people need to sit to dress after a shower

We stayed five nights in the Cottonwood Campground. Great camp site along the Little Missouri and so much to do! We hiked the Jones Creek Trail with our 35 year old son and two grandkids ages 12 and 8. Beautiful badlands landscape with bison and feral horse sitings. Went to Medora for dinner and The Medora Musical and had a lot of fun. There’s the new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, which is a beautiful building with lots of great interactive displays that kept the kids busy for hours. Really loved this park!

We had room for three 1-3 person tents as well as an 8 person tent. The ground was pretty flat with mostly dry dirt and small rocks. It didn’t affect the comfortability much at all though. We drove a short bus, roughly the size of your average RV and had more than enough space to park. Bathroom and water access were comfortably close, and the site came with a table and grill. There were almost no bugs nearby in late July. It’s a pretty dry site, no swimming opportunities in the river or any surrounding water, however there’s swimming in Medora just outside the park and the drive into the park is beautiful. Saw several bison and a herd of wild horses on the way in. Highly recommend the campground and site.

Of all the sites in our loop ours was probably the one that needed the most leveling. On the positive side, the sites were well spaced out and the clean restrooms were within easy walking distance. For entertainment all you need is patience because on several occasions we had bison wandering through our loop and in one case through our campsite.

It was fun to wake up in the morning and find a lone bison feeding <50 yards away. Our campsite, away from the river, had very little shade, but it mattered little as we spent the day exploring the park.

Great campground!

Cottonwood is a great campsite. The sites are all fairly private, with a great amount of space. The restrooms were very clean and nice and accessible. There aren’t a lot of amenities, but we knew that and it was very peaceful and comfortable. We loved our stay there.