Growing up, my family and I (mom, stepdad, and younger twin sisters) would travel and “pop-up” camper “camp”. (For the record, our pop-up camper was hard sided, but did not have electricity or running water.)

I didn’t actually tent camp for the first time until April 2010, when friends stayed at our house to watch Buggy and Buddy while hubby and I went camping together.

I loved it and cannot wait to take the kids camping with us so I asked around to some Arizona locals, inquiring where the best Arizona campsites were. Here is what I got:

According to the website, it appears that Woods Canyon Lake has a group campsite, but there are smaller campsites in the area that take smaller size groups for camping (ie: families).

Woods Canyon Lake was by far the most popularly recommended campsite.

I have heard this is a great site for kids with amenities such as a playground, pool, jacuzzi, and lake swimming. I definitely would not call this “roughing it” as they do have bathrooms, laundry, a clubhouse and a DVD library, but have heard that it is great fun for the kids.

Temporarily closed.

This also includes Hawley Lake (another location that was told to be a good campsite!) but has a wide variety of small camp grounds in the area. I was informed that any campgrounds in the White Mountain Area is good.

(aka Arcadia)

There does not appear to be a lake in this location and is a black bear area, but still sounds like it would be a great camping location! (I think I relate camping to lakes because I come from the land of 10,000 lakes!)

This is actually the only site I have personally been too. It was great for us. The sites were large (in my opinion) and I did not feel like we were on top of our neighbors.

There was a lake that allowed swimming, fishing, and boating. The campground had bathrooms as well as showers up at the restaurant/marina. There was a store, plus we took advantage of the steamboat dinner cruise while we were there.

While I would not say this was 100% roughing it, it was great for a first time tent camper like me!

Check back again. I am hoping to check out some of these sites and will update the information as we check them out!

What is your favorite Arizona campground?