Rio Grande Village (Big Bend, TX)

Great campground. Good services. Highly recommend.

Great campground and spacious

Great spot that is not really next to people, there’s trees between the campsites

Information regarding what to expect & what we found did not match. Of particular note was the inability to use US currency for purchases within the park, yet both showers & laundry required US currency to use? That's really messed up.
Camp hosts were very friendly & accommodating with me (I'm 75) but were rude and very short with my son (he's 51) showing a distinct bias that was difficult to understand.
All National Park Rangers we encountered were both friendly and courteous.
While all the visitor centers were clean & well maintained, the restrooms clearly needed attention, both for cleanliness, but especially maintenance; they were run down & poorly lit. There really was no excuse for those poor conditions; they weren't over-used by campers & clearly have not had any budget allocated to keeping those facilities anywhere near the level of the visitor centers.

The campsite is clean and during this time of year extremely quiet. It was beautiful and the people were kind. Overall it was an excellent experience

Loved the nature walk.

Beautiful campground. Dark skies. In January, cool at night, warm during day.

We are not unbiased as we LOVE this campground and park. We are sorry for the reduction in generator hours as we are most often gone before 8am. The evening hours are fine. It was cold most of the time we were there so, selfishly, it would have been nice to turn on the generator prior to 8am. We hate the reservation only system, not only here but throughout the park system. People are turned away where there are empty campsites. We preferred it when there was a mix of sites. This is not our first time to express our displeasure with this system.

We have been saddened to see the cane overtaking the water on the Rio Grande Nature trail that leaves from the campground. We have incredible pictures of a green heron fishing right by the bench on the boardwalk. We understand this is not part of the campground but wanted you to know our feelings.

The reservation system is very poor. My wife and I are full-timers and do not plan way ahead, as many full-timers do. There are no FF sites available. Also the reserved sites that are not occupied on the first night as well as not occupied for the whole time are not available for others waiting for spaces. We have seen numerous reserved sites not occupied for days, and checking availability yields nothing. Your rules state that unoccupied reserved sites are cancelled and should be available, but this is not the case. This should be enforced to enable others to enjoy the area. You also would be making more revenue by charging the campers who do not cancel or change their reservations and renting the sites to campers waiting for a spot. Please consider the many full-timers out there.

Beautiful location and well managed as far as we could tell. The staff in the store could be a little more friendly but whatever. Showers in store cost a couple of dollars for 5 minutes - 4 of the five minutes the water is cold. I know its a remote area and having showers is a not an easy offer, but heating water should not be a big problem in this day and age. Overall we love Big Bend and we are grateful for Rio Grand Village. NPS should try to manage this location vs contracting it out (just a suggestion).