I always obsess over finding good places to stay when traveling. I don’t need luxury – what I really want is something that helps capture the character of the place I’m visiting. Tripadvisor has never let me down when it comes to hotels, even if you sometimes need to read between the lines, but it can be harder to sort through other people’s expectations and experiences with different campgrounds. I thought I’d include some periodic posts dedicated to lodging and camping, so here’s an installment on where we stayed on our Feb trip to Joshua Tree.
Because we’d be arriving on the later side after the long drive from the Bay Area, we opted to stay in a hotel in 29 Palms our first night. The 29 Palms Inn was great! We stayed in one of the adobe cottages, which consist of a cottage-style room with a private sun patio and a fireplace. They are situated right on the Oasis of Mara, the birthplace of 29 Palms, and are not more than a half-mile or so from the Park visitor’s center. The restaurant was tasty (light breakfast included) and uses vegetables from their garden. The inn’s grounds were great for watching birds at the oasis and sunrise over the desert.
Our next two nights we camped at one of the
Park’s family campgrounds. I had wanted to book a site at Indian Cove to be a little more central, but when I made reservations in late December, Saturday was already booked. There are some first-come, first-serve campgrounds in the park, but with our long drive, I didn’t want to risk it. We ended up staying at the Black Rock Campground, which if a little further from the main park entrance, did have the advantage of being close to our route out of town the day we left, and they have the most 
amenities of campgrounds in the park (I have to say, I am a fan of access to potable water). Some campsites were pretty large, but with nothing but a few Joshua trees for buffer, it did get a little noisy from some of the nearby campers. Not so noisy you couldn’t hear the coyotes crying in the early evening, though. There are some mid-range hiking trails in the area of the campground, but we didn’t check them out this trip. We did discover that Sam’s Market (and pizza and Indian food…) a few miles down the road in the town of Joshua Tree, had a good beer selection and other supplies, such as firewood.