Pancho Villa Campground

Lots of interesting history and bldg. Columbus very small but a couple of good restaurants. Sites level some odd hookups at some of the sites. Camp hosts and rangers helpful. Bathrooms were nice Hot showers. No AT&T. Borderland Cafe and library have free WiFi

If you like the desert and not a lot of people then this is your campground. The rates vary from primitive ($4) to site with water ($10) to site with water and electric ($14) per night. It is adjacent to the very small town of Columbus, New Mexico and approximately 3 miles from the Mexican town of Puerto Palomas, Chihuahua which seems to be a safe afternoon adventure.There are two museums in town: 1. at the campground that centers around General Pershing's foray into Mexico and 2. a railroad and cowboy museum across the street from the campground. There are several nice restaurants in town but they are all closed by 6pm.

This state park is nothing fancy, but the price, clean restrooms and pull thru sites make it a winner to us. Here are the PROS: they do have a total of 63 sites: 6 are water only, 57 water/electric sites incl 8 are 50 amps and 49 sites with 30 amps. Of all the sites in the park there are only 6 reservable sites (30 amp/water). The rest are first come first serve. We were here for a Thursday and Friday night in January and the park never completely filled up. There is a double sided dump site with non-potable flush water avaiable. The park has 2 comfort stations aka bath houses. The one I checked out was clean, well maintained and had 2 showers + 2 toilets on the ladies side. The price is $14 for the electric/water sites and $10 for the water sites only. It was pretty quiet at night, but the road to the Palomas border crossing runs along the eastern side of the campground. We stayed in site 41 on the west side and slept well. To us one of the cool things was that the park/campground includes a museum commemorating the raid on Columbus and Camp Furlong on 9 March 1916 by Pancho Villa (a mexican general) and the pursuit by the US Army under General Pershing started here too. In the middle of the campground are still some of the surviving buildings of Camp Furlong like the judge advocate office (Jag) incl the jail and the Camp Furlong HQ. Other historical "leftovers" are a ramp used to grease the first vehicles to ever be used by the Army, a marker for the Army's first ever airfield.... So it is camping in the middle of history.
Now a few CONS, not deal breakers to us, but some people might look at them as negatives: first this place is in the desert: it is often windy and and the ground is packed dirt/gravel. It can and will get a bit dusty. The layout is a to say the least confusing. Without a map of the Park it is kind of hard to get the picture. There is a map available af the office. I will post a picture (on the second page, make a screenshot and blow it up, if there are no actual map available). Only 6 sites are reservable and the reservation site charges an extra $4 PER DAY, if you choose to do so. There is one gas station in town (it does have diesel) and a Family Dollar store (3.5 miles down the road, right at the border). I have seen 2 restaurants, the old train depot (that is now a history museum too) plus I have seen signs for the library, an American Legion post plus the post office. So come prepared, stocked up with food and a full tank since the next town with stores/gas stations in Deming and about 30 miles north of here and there is nothing, but a border patrol check point (every car going north is stopped) between Columbus and Deming.
THINGS TO DO: As in things to do other than the two museums there is not much. I walked along the dirt roads in a big loop in the desert around the town, but that is it. There is short trail in the park that leads to the top of the one and only little hill for miles. Also noteworthy is that said hill is also a botanical garden covered in desert plants with clearly marked trails to the top. The other option is to drive down to the border and walk across. We did, we parked on the shoulder of a side street along the Family Dollar. The parking lot across that said side street is a pay lot ($5). We walked across, never got checked going to Mexico. On the way back we had our passports scanned on the Americsn side. We do not speak spanish, but had no problems. We went to the Pink House (they have coupons for free drinks at the museum of the State Park). The food was okay (we live in Texas, lol), the service was good and the atmosphere was nice and clean. The wandering Mariachis during lunch were fun. The Pink House is one huge souvenir and handicrafts store intermixed with the restaurant. Not as cheap as in a not so touristy setting, but not as much as the same meal in the states. They and the pharmacy we visted took dollars. There are plenty of dentist offices in town too - no appointments needed. We felt perfectly safe in the few blocks we wandered through.
At the campground the cell service during the day worked okay for streaming (we use a Verizon hot spot, but have no booster) to watch the morning news and the internet was fine too. But at night we gave up on streaming and used our antenna with the build in booster - we got about 6 stations in english and 6-8 in spanish. The internet was way slower at night. Here are the numbers from 9 pm on a January Friday night: download at 1.48 Mbps and the upload was 10.1 Mbps according to the speed test.

Museum was closed groceries only to be found at the border crossing a few miles away a family dollar clean bathrooms but showers closed Border wall lights up the night sky

Stopped here for one night on our way east across the US. Not very convenient to anything other than crossing over to Mexico which is just 4 miles south. We mistakenly reserved a site (63) that had water hookup only. There were some FCFS sites that had water and electric that were available so we moved.

Read some on-line reviews about a very cool restaurant/giftshop in Puerto Palomas, MX called The Pink Store, so we hopped on our bikes and road across the border, ate a wonderful dinner, shopped, and road back. Easy peasy.

Pretty much the middle of nowhere! But the campground is clean and the sites are well spread out. Easy in and out for our 40 foot fifth wheel. Most sites have electric and water. Some only 30 amp and some only water. There is a small playground, a short walking trail and a dump station.
Very interesting and well-done museum about the Pancho Villa raid of 1916, although it does have limited hours.

I was pleasantly surprised by how nice this campground was after driving through pretty sparse terrain along 9. Nice campsites, spread out. Clean facilities, even have a shower but I couldn’t get it to run hot. Some road noise and lights from the border at night but for $10, I’ll take it.

Sites are far apart and spacious. Bathrooms are spotless. Host was very nice. Nothing much to do. There are only half a dozen First Come First Serve sites when in the past it had been all or mainly FCFS.

We stayed here for three nights in mid-March of 2022. I had reserved online, so the price is my average with the reservation fee. Our site was a nice pull through with a wind wall in front of it (gets windy here!). We had a nice view and I loved the desert landscaping here. They really put a lot of work into making this a nice, clean with cool desert landscaping. The visitor center was awesome - camphost working the center gave us a wonderful tour and explained a lot of the history. Am uploading our video of the campground / park here on Campendium. Would definitely stay again!

We stayed four nights here in site #60 which was a water only site. Nice large site with firepit and picnic table no pavilion however.

We were here right after monsoon season so the mosquitos in the evening and morning were serious enough to get you inside the camper early.

Great staff at the park kept everything clean and very courteous to answer any border crossing questions you had.

Shower houses were recently remodeled and were in excellent condition and cleaned twice daily by staff.

Nice trail and signage inside the campground explaining the history of the old Army fort which shared the same location.

We did see three rattlesnakes on our walks around the grounds so be careful.