Run Park Boulevard through the boulder core and sleep at Jumbo Rocks. It's the biggest campground on the road, dropped straight into the monzogranite piles, with the short walk to Skull Rock leaving from the sites. Lock the site on Recreation.gov before you lock the van, because the campground is the part that runs out. October through May is the season and the weekends inside it go early.
Rolling in without a reservation, aim for Hidden Valley, the walk-up loop in the climbing core next to Barker Dam. It sits at the base of the routes, which is why climbers take it and why it's usually gone by Friday afternoon in season. Come midweek, come in the morning, or have a backup. For more room or a bathroom on board, size up to an RV.
Take the paved spur up to Keys View at least once, on the crest of the Little San Bernardino Mountains. The whole Coachella Valley drops away below, the San Andreas Fault running through it and the Salton Sea shining off to the left. Parking can close when it's mobbed, so go early or late.
Cottonwood and the Cholla Cactus Garden
Coming up from I-10, camp at Cottonwood by the south entrance instead. This is the Colorado Desert, low creosote and ocotillo rather than the Joshua-tree woodland up north, and the campground has what the boulder-core sites don't: drinking water, flush toilets, and a dump station that runs $5 as of August 2026. It's off I-10 at exit 168, 25 miles east of Indio, and reservations run year-round.
Cottonwood also holds the park's darkest skies, and Pinto Basin Road between here and the boulders is the least-trafficked stretch for stargazing. The Cholla Cactus Garden loop sits along that road, a quarter mile through teddy-bear cholla packed shoulder to shoulder. In a wet winter the wildflowers show here first, February into March.
When the park is full, BLM land north and south
When every loop in the park is gone, the fallback is BLM dispersed camping on the open desert north of Highway 62 and south toward I-10. There are no restrooms, water, or trash out there, you camp on the mapped flats at least 300 feet off any roadway, and a campfire needs a BLM permit. Pack everything out and stay off the private inholdings scattered through the northern map.
Black Rock, over on the Yucca Valley side, is the softer version of the same weekend, with flush toilets, water on tap, and a paved road in from town. The NPS also lists private RV parks around the gateway towns.
Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley
Palm Springs is about an hour southwest for a night with pools and shade off the desert, and those trips are on the Palm Springs campervan page. Down in the valley, Indio and Coachella are festival towns more than park bases, so that camping lives on the Indio and Coachella landers.