Saguaros keep watch from the hills above Canyon Lake as you paddle out to The Point (see campground 22).

INTRODUCTION

       HOW TO USE THIS GUIDEBOOK

      Menasha Ridge Press welcomes you to Best Tent Camping: Arizona. Whether you’re new to camping or you’ve been sleeping in your portable shelter over decades of outdoor adventures, please review the following information. It explains how we have worked with the author to organize this book and how you can make the best use of it.

       CHOOSING THE TOP 50

      Because we’ve written this book with car campers in mind, we’ve chosen to include only campgrounds that you can drive to, with the exception of one boat-access-only campground. Another book entirely could be written about the best backpacking camps in Arizona, but we haven’t included any of those here. Rather, we’ve included only official public campgrounds, striving for an equal balance of the developed and undeveloped. One of us must have her shower every day and the other would be perfectly happy to hang out in the woods for weeks, so we think we represent both ends of the spectrum.

      When we told other campers we were writing this book, smiles would cross their faces as they thought about their personal favorite places to pitch a tent. More often than not, if they chose to share their secret with us (knowing that we might reveal it to the public), they knew of a great location on public land with no more amenities than a fire ring and a great view.

      A startlingly high proportion of Arizona is public land, belonging to the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), the Bureau of Land Management, or the State of Arizona, and most of this is open to dispersed camping: choose your own spot off