Gulpha Gorge Campground

We had an amazing stay at Gulpha Gorge in Hot Springs National Park. The setting in the gorge makes it feel like you're 100 miles away from town when it's actually just a few minutes drive.

We arrived at 11:30 on a weekday prior to Memorial Day weekend and there were plenty of spots open although we grabbed the last full-hookup site (yes full hook-up's in a national park!) with the creek behind us. The whole campground is first-come, first-serve. Self-register with credit card or cash. Even throughout the holiday weekend, there were a couple sites open at all times. The area is also a day use area so there were a lot of people around during the day but it was also a holiday weekend.

The campsites are spacious enough, not enough vegetation between sites to block the view of your neighbor but we didn't feel like we were on top of each other by any means. All but one site were over 30', even the non-hookup sites. The campground was very clean and well kept. The camp hosts were available and friendly. There are three modern bathrooms but no showers.

There are a ton of trails in the park and they are accessible from the campground and all trails are dog-friendly! It is about a 1.5 mile easy/moderate hike to town. If you prefer to drive, it takes about 3 minutes. If it hasn't rained recently, the creek in the campground can be used for swimming/wading and plenty of people had their dogs playing in the creek as well.

A few sites along a small creek and the rest arranged along a couple parallel loops. The real attraction was either a 1.4 mile hike or a short drive into the town of Hot Springs to tour the bathhouses or grab coffee or a nice dinner. The town is definitely set up for tourism which can go over the line towards kitsch, but the history of health tourism is pretty interesting. Several of the bathhouses are still open for fancy spa treatments and one has been preserved to display the wacky stuff that used to go on there. There are also several spots around where you can fill a water bottle with the mineral rich (but good tasting) spring water, once you let it cool from a boil that is.

This is a comfortable national park campground. There are actually full hookup sites! This is the most "RV park" feeling national park campground we've ever stayed in. And it's a great location. 3 minute drive to Bathhouse Row, or a 1.5 mile hike on the Dead Chief Trail.

We opted for the primitive sites to save some money. Dry camping sites with a mostly level concrete pad are $10 a night. Full-hookup sites, most of which were taken when we arrived, are $30 a night.

Nearest fresh water: Right at the campground entrance.
Nearest dump station: Right at the campground entrance, too.

We stayed in a primitive site #41 and would definitely stay here again.

Wow!!! Our favorite type of campsite: non-reservable, full-service, close to town and decent shopping, hiking opportunities right from the campsite, close to many attractions: Hot Springs NP, Garvan Woodland Gardens, some wonderful lakes, the Clinton Presidential Library and several historical civil rights sites (in nearby Little Rock,) the southern edge of the Ozark Mountains, local art & music festivals, and the list goes on.

Full hookup sites are $30 night ($15 with Golden Age or Interagency Pass) and no hookup sites are $10 (or $5 with the above passes.) There are 44 sites, the best ones are undoubtedly the full service ones along Gulpha Creek: #'s 20, 21, 23 25, 27, 28, 30, 31 & 33. Some of these sites are larger than others, but all are large enough for the biggest rig and all offer very good separation/privacy from your neighbors. Our site (#23) was unarguably the largest and best site of the lot. But you'd be hard pressed to find a bad site among those in this list.

In addition to enjoying all that the Hot Springs area had to offer, we really enjoyed just sitting on the banks of the creek reading our books!

Verizon internet speeds were among the fastest we've ever seen and we were easily able to stream HD video.

As this is a no-reservation (i.e., first come first served) campground, I recommend arriving early in the week to be assured of a site (i.e., Sunday through Wednesday,) especially during the peak family camping season. There are other private campgrounds nearby which could serve as a "Plan B" but in my opinion they are quite inferior to the National Park campground and it would be disappointing to end up in one of those if you had your heart on staying in the National Park.

This is a wonderful spot! Close to town but feels like in the middle of nowhere. Only real noise, other than the sound of the stream outside our window, was trucks using their exhaust breaks on the valley road.

Good connectivity, Full hookup sites.

The park is first come first parked, so we arrived on a Sunday midday. Found a spot no problem (needed some serious leveling though) but it was not on the stream. Camp host was walking by while we had dinner outside and said the guy across from us on the stream was leaving in the morning and we could move if we wanted to. He just had to sign our site slip...

We stayed at Gulpha Gorge CG from June, 2016- August, 2016 as trail hosts (we hiked instead of paying rent for the summer. Happy to answer questions about this if you message me! @hello_casita on Instagram).

Campground:
-FYI - in August, 2016 they started transitioning all campsites into full hookups. There will no longer be any $10 dry camping spots.
-Be sure to check for dead trees above and around your campsite. The landscaping crew has been working to remove hazardous trees, but they can only do so much. We had a tree go thru our roof the first week we were there and it was a painful process to have it fixed.

Connectivity
-The campground has great Verizon service and we were able to stream Netflix consistently without a booster.
- Most establishments downtown offer free wi-fi.

Hiking:
-You can walk into town via Dead Chief Trail > Grand Promenade. To avoid a steep hill where Dead Chief meets the Grand Promenade, take the Reserve Trail spur and road walk a few blocks to Central Avenue (aka, the main street in Hot Springs).

-You can walk to Mickey's BBQ from the campground via the Sunset Trail. Mickeys is open W-Sat 10:30-7:30pm.

-The Arlington Trail takes you to the unlocked 7th Floor outdoor pool & hot tub area at the hotel.

- If you only have time for one hike, the Goat Rock Trail is probably your best bet. It's one of the only hikes where you actually get to a vista point. A nice loop is to combine this with the Upper Dogwood trail.

Food & Drink
-DeLuca's Pizzeria is fabulous. It's expensive, but oh so delicious. And the chef/owner will come out to your table and talk to you.
-Superior Bathhouse has great beer, but crappy service & food.
-Kollective Coffee or Red Light Roastery are great for coffee/tea. Kollective has food
-The Pancake Shoppe is worth the wait, but if you don't want to wait Phil's Restaurant is a wonderful alternative.
-Maxine's has great food and beer selection. But really, really shitty service at the bar.
-The Wine Rack & Spirit's Shoppe on Albert Pike Rd. has an excellent selection of beer/wine/liquor. This is the only place we found for the good stuff. There is a craft beer shop opening downtown in Fall, 2016. FYI - you cannot buy booze in Arkansas on Sunday, but you can buy growlers from restaurants (Superior Bathhouse is your best bet for this).

Things to do
-Garvan Gardens is worth the money. I loved that place so much I bought an annual membership. If you don't want to throw down $20pp, at least go and see the Anthony Chapel by Architect Fay Jones (free access outside of the Garvan Gardens gates).

RV Repairs/Propane
-Razorback RV is the only game in town and they are AWESOME. They put on our roof and have provided lots of free advice over the phone. I would go out of my way to have my trailer fixed here.

Nice access to trails. You can hike into Hot Springs which is nice! The highway next to the campground is noisy and the sites offer little privacy.

We arrived on a Thursday and there were about 15 sites to choose from. I think we got one of the best, right on the creek and by a little water fall too. The camp hosts call into the rangers at 10 and 4 and give them the number of open sites left. We called on our way in and got the good news, though I would recommend having a plan B just in case they are filled in.

All the sites are full hook up and paved. The kiosk where you pay is simple to use and takes credit cards. The camp hosts saw us walking around looking at the available sites and gave us a lift and tour in the golf cart.

We played in the creek. We hiked the 4 mile round trip trail into town several times. We had only planned to be in the area for 3 nights, but loved the campground and the hot springs area so much we kept extending our stay, which is a great advantage to a no reservation campground.

We arrived on Thursday about 1. There were plenty of sites available including 4 along the creek. Site 36 is level and deep enough for our 32' motorhome and toad (but just barely). 50 amp/water/sewer at all sites but some don't have fire rings. Clean bathrooms but no showers. Easy access to NP downtown, hiking trails, supplies etc. Some have talked about road noise but we had windows open and didn't bother us.

Site 36 has a nice shady grass area where you can sit and watch the creek flow by. Some of the sites across the road from creekside sites may be hard to level a long trailer/motorhome but almost every site there has decent shade.

Note: if you have NPS Golden Access pass it's $15/ night. The regular annual pass doesn't get a discount 😖

There are a few things this small campground has going for is. First is the creekside location. Even if you can't get a site right next to the creek (although they are clearly the best), you can still hear the creek from all over the campground. Second is the proximity to numerous trails - even one that leads right into town. Finally, is the fact that the entire campground is first, come first serve. For people like us who don't enjoy making reservations this is such a welcome policy. We showed up on Sunday morning around 10am and easily found a creekside site.