Valley of Fire dispersed camping?

[Roadworthy]

We're heading to see the Valley of Fire, northeast of Las Vegas, and we're thinking of spending the night in the area. I've been researching, and apparently there are camping areas, but it sounds like there are camping fees. The sites I saw didn't give a specific price, just a range for Nevada State Parks, but it sounds like we could end up paying $22-32 if we get a camping spot with hookups, and there may be a day usage fee on top of that, per vehicle.

I'd love any tips anyone has to share. We were just going to drive through, and pull over once in a while and walk short distances to where we thought we could see some cool stuff. We have little kids and no hiking gear, so that's about as adventurous as we'll get. ;-) But if it's going to cost a lot, I'm wondering if we can just drive past on highway 169 and just pull over at scenic overlooks or something. I don't mind paying $5 to enter the park, but we've got two vehicles, and if it's more than $5 each, that's more than our budget can handle right now.

If there's anywhere reasonably easy to pull off with a motorhome (towing a utility trailer) and a car, where we can camp for free, I'd love to hear about it. Most of the blog posts and reviews I'm finding are from people who camped in the campgrounds or hiked and camped in tents.

Thanks!

 

[rvwandering]

It does get expensive to visit the park. The entrance fee is $10.00 per vehicle then $20.00 to $30.00 on top of that for camping. The park is very scenic so even if you don't camp it's a nice place to visit. There are two boondocking spots on Hwy 169 that I know of - Snowbird Mesa and Government Wash
Government Wash is in Lake Mead Recreation Area so you'll need to have an America the Beautiful pass or pay the entrance fee if you want to camp at the wash.

 

[Roadworthy]

Thank you so much for the information! It was really helpful. I really want to go into the Valley of Fire park, but $20 just to drive through is too much right now. The Snowbird Mesa looks like a good spot. For sure if we don't stay there this time, we'll stay there the next time we go through. If I can find a free parking spot between Boulder City and Kingman, then Snowbird Mesa will be a perfect stopping point, and we'll be all set!

At the moment we're having a hard time finding the right route. We want to go through Kingman and avoid Las Vegas, but it seems impossible without paying to go past Lake Mead, or go WAY out of our way. And we don't want to drive more than an hour or two, because with little kids it turns out to be waaaaay longer than that. Having lots of cash for rv parks would make this leg of the trip more enjoyable, that's for sure.

 

[dragonflyinthesky]

Roadworthy, never been there and no advice but...we traveled extensively with our kids in vans, trucks and tents and it was wonderful learning experiences for them and memories for us. Both kids grown, still talk about our adventures and still camp.

 

[Van-Tramp]

There is a large Boondocking area just North of Valley of Fire on Hwy 169 at Sandmine Rd: https://maps.google.com/?ll=36.480553,-114.450738&spn=0.011128,0.019934&t=h&z=16

See Google Maps satellite view and you can even see a few dozen RVs there. I topped in two years ago and there must have been 100+ RVs. It has a helluva a view too.

You may want to consider parking the RV and trailer there (approach from the North) and take the toad into the park to save the extra $5 per vehicle cost.

 

[blars]

IIRC there is a BLM camping area near US93 between Boulder and Kingman, on the east side. I was going too fast to turn into it, so I did not add it to freecampsites.net.