Big Bend National Park

What to do depends on how mobile your DW is. If she has trouble hiking, you can drive and see a lot of the park, but it requires hiking to see the majority of the park. My ex couldn't hike, so we drove every road we could, needed 4 x 4 high clearance vehicle for some of the roads and saw a lot of the park.

Do you need fhu or can you dry camp, when are you going? There is only 1 fhu cg in the park, the Rio Grande Village. The other Rio Grande Village cg is run by the NP and is partly no generators and partly generators allowed. Chisos Basin is length restricted to about 25 ft., the road up has a couple very tight switchback. Cottonwood cg is no generators.

There are several cg's outside of the park, that are fhu, but add considerable travel time.

more information from you will get you more answers, also if you do a search on here for Big Bend NP, you will get tons of info.

The above post is good info.
Given this time of year, you'll probably want full hookups for AC - and fhu's are very few. Reserve asap for full hookups.

My wife uses a cane. Do you have a TOAD? We always stay at Rio Grande Village next to the river. Altho it is just a large, rectangular paved parking lot, it is full hookup & in the center of many sites to explore by car or RV. Ask ranger about seeing the Mexican town of Boquillas just across the river and Santa Ellina canyon.(How does one spell Ellina?)lol. On the west side of the park is the (kinda)Ghost town of Terlingua. Make sure to see the old Mexican cemetery there. The old trading post has amazing stuff.

Thanks for the information. We do not have a TOAD and was thinking about staying at Maverick Ranch and RV and renting a jeep to get around. My wife would have difficulty on trails so we will do mostly driving around.

Big Bend is a huge park and if you stay at Maverick Ranch you will be spending a long time getting into the park everyday. If that isn't an issue, fine. I would stay at Rio Grande Village but I don't know about jeep rentals.

aljam2 wrote:
Thanks for the information. We do not have a TOAD and was thinking about staying at Maverick Ranch and RV and renting a jeep to get around. My wife would have difficulty on trails so we will do mostly driving around.

We visited the west side of the park from Maverick Ranch - great park
but we stayed at the village in the park to visit the east part of the park

Jeep is a great idea but ask the rental company if it has a step to get in as Jeeps in general have a high step into them

For driving a jeep, which is better - the State Park or the National Park?

I don't believe there is RV camping at the state park, only the national park. Also, you will not find a lot of roads to do 4-wheeling; most are paved and I don't think you'll need to rent a Jeep for this trip. Depending what time of year you're going, if it's hot..and it's getting there now...don't go off-roading by yourself in Big Bend. If you break down you probably won't get cell service. Take LOTS of water and let a ranger know where you're going. It's wild country out there. :)

Here's the park's web site for lots of good information on things to do, roads, camping:

Big Bend Nat'l Park

Here's the state park's site:

Big Bend Ranch State Park