Manzanita.
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 30 of the next 30 nights read 15:15 UTC
- A night
- $30From, per site
- Sites
- 1814 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 13 notices
In the agency’s own words
Manzanita Campground is a small, year-round, tent-only facility with campsites that fill up very quickly. Visitors enjoy the campground for its fishing and swimming holes along Oak Creek, beautiful scenery and excellent wildlife watching. Oak Creek Canyon is very crowded, especially on weekends; to get a campsite, it is best to reserve a weekday. Keep reading
Recreation
Recreation and relaxation abound in Oak Creek Canyon. Camping, fishing, swimming, wading and hiking are some of the activities awaiting visitors. Anglers have the convenience of creekside campsites, where they can cast a line for trout. Families love driving down the road to nearby Slide Rock State Park, one of Arizona's most popular swimming spots, or trying out several nearby hiking trails.
Facilities
The campground is very easy to access and has paved parking. It is made up of single-family campsites that are fairly close together. Each site has a picnic table, campfire ring and grill. A campground host is available for visitor assistance. Firewood can be purchased on-site. Campground has 4 first-come-first-serve sites which are often occupied. Campground host is unable to "hold" any first-come-first-serve sites for customers.
Natural Features
The campground borders Oak Creek in a lush, forested riparian zone with Arizona ash and box elders, gravel beaches and stream-bed boulders. Colorful songbirds add flashes of brilliance to the trees. The creek's crystal clear waters are cool and refreshing on hot summer days.
Nearby Attractions
The well-known town of Sedona is popular for its red rock vistas, resorts and shopping. Slide Rock State Park is a great local spot for swimming and only a few minutes away. Campers can also explore the 1.8 million-acre Coconino National Forest, which boasts a spectacular variety of scenery and outdoor activities. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (928) 203-0624.
What the agency tells you
Tents only; no oversized vehicles, trailers or RVs allowed
Bring confirmation letter to the campground
Only 1 vehicle allowed per site. No additional parking available.
Everything else this campground posts · 10
No hookups available
No horses or off-road vehicles allowed; motorbikes may only be used for entering and exiting the campground
No radios or amplified devices allowed
Click here for more information on the Coconino National Forest
Don't Move Firewood: Prevent the spread of tree-killing pests by obtaining firewood near your destination and burning it on-site. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
No portable showers or toilets allowed in campground
No cutting, chopping or splitting wood within the campground
Campsites must be occupied first night of reservation
Campsite cannot be unattended more than 24 hours
The camping stay limit in Red Rock District is limited to 7 days
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 18 · 14 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Paved pads
- All
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Firewood
- Sold here
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Creek, Beach
- Fishing
- Swimming
Full this Saturdayread 15:15 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
Every one of the 14 sites on offer is taken this Saturday. 4 are free on Tue, Oct 20. read 15:15 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 12
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $30 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 5
recreation.gov availability, read 15:15 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
19 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 14 mapped sitesAll 19 records
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 14 of the 19 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| MANZANITA | 01 | type not stated | 120 ft | ||
| MANZANITA | 02 | type not stated | 132 ft | ||
| MANZANITA | 03 | type not stated | 159 ft | ||
| MANZANITA | 04 | tent only nonelectric | 53 ft | 158 ft | $30 |
| MANZANITA | 05 | tent only nonelectric | 36 ft | 183 ft | $30 |
| MANZANITA | 06 | tent only nonelectric | 36 ft | 160 ft | $30 |
| MANZANITA | 07 | tent only nonelectric | 42 ft | 144 ft | $30 |
| MANZANITA | 09 | tent only nonelectric | 27 ft | 105 ft | $30 |
| MANZANITA | 10 | tent only nonelectric | 27 ft | 82 ft | $30 |
| MANZANITA | 11 | type not stated | 60 ft | ||
| MANZANITA | 12 | tent only nonelectric | 22 ft | 51 ft | $30 |
| MANZANITA | 13 | tent only nonelectric | 22 ft | 47 ft | $30 |
| MANZANITA | 14 | tent only nonelectric | 31 ft | 47 ft | $30 |
| MANZANITA | 15 | tent only nonelectric | 33 ft | 56 ft | $30 |
| MANZANITA | 16 | tent only nonelectric | 32 ft | 69 ft | $30 |
| MANZANITA | 17 | tent only nonelectric | 32 ft | 82 ft | $30 |
| MANZANITA | 18 | tent only nonelectric | 40 ft | 105 ft | $30 |
| MANZANITA | 19 | tent only nonelectric | 53 ft | 105 ft | $30 |
| MANZANITA | Host | host pad |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It names it a host pad. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t counted as a site.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Manzanita CampgroundCoconino National Forest · 1.1 mi
Cave SpringCoconino National Forest · 3.8 mi
Pine Flat Campground WestCoconino National Forest · 4.9 miChavez CrossingCoconino National Forest · 7.0 mi
Fernow CabinCoconino National Forest · 8.0 mi
Crescent Moon RamadaCoconino National Forest · 8.6 miFrom Phoenix, take I-17 north to Exit 298 for Highway 179. Take 179 north to Sedona. Turn right (north) onto Highway 89A in Oak Creek Canyon and travel 6 miles to the campground.
From Flagstaff, take I-17 south and exit for Highway 89A toward Sedona. Travel 23 miles south on 89A (a winding mountain road) into Oak Creek Canyon. The campground is located just south of Slide Rock State Park.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Oak Creek Canyon, AZ
Typical weather
Typical October night 31°F, day 66°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 16°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
who answers for it · a letter you can send
Who answers for this land
Manzanita. is in Arizona’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Eli Crane (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneyElijah CraneU.S. Representative · Arizona’s 2nd district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationMark KellyU.S. Senator · Arizona
- Your senator, on the same appropriationRuben GallegoU.S. Senator · Arizona
No contact form we could verify, so that link is their own site. Contact is inside it. Washington office: 202-224-4521.
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Manzanita., Coconino National Forest, Arizona
Dear Elijah Crane, I’m a constituent in Arizona’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Manzanita., Coconino National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 14 of the 18 campsites the agency files at Manzanita., and every one of them is booked ahead, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 14 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Manzanita. keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Manzanita.. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Manzanita. (Coconino National Forest, Arizona) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Manzanita., Coconino National Forest, Arizona
Dear Mark Kelly, I’m a constituent in Arizona. I tried to camp at Manzanita., Coconino National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 14 of the 18 campsites the agency files at Manzanita., and every one of them is booked ahead, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 14 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Manzanita. keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Manzanita.. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Manzanita. (Coconino National Forest, Arizona) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Manzanita., Coconino National Forest, Arizona
Dear Ruben Gallego, I’m a constituent in Arizona. I tried to camp at Manzanita., Coconino National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 14 of the 18 campsites the agency files at Manzanita., and every one of them is booked ahead, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 14 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Manzanita. keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Manzanita.. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Manzanita. (Coconino National Forest, Arizona) via campanac.com