Sunset Campground — Hotel in Beatty

We very much enjoyed our stay at Death Valley. We stayed in one of the overflow lots at Sunset Campground. Each individual parking spot was huge. You did not feel crowded in the least. Since we are self-contained we had no issues with electricity, bathrooms, etc. The park is amazing. I did not feel like I was in a different country; I felt like I was on a different planet. We visited the Borax Museum as well as the site where the Borax was mined. We did the 4-Wheel drive through Titus Canyon (amazing views). We hiked several of the trails and had a great time. All of the park's informational movies were interesting. The gift shops were nice and priced as you would expect. We climbed on the sand dunes but did not have enough fortitude to make it to the top. We did not eat in any of the restaurants but they smelled fantastic when we walked by them. During our stay my only complaint would be the blatant disregard for park rules. At the sand dunes it is clearly marked NO sliding down the dunes in sleds. We saw numerous kids and teenagers sliding down in hard plastic saucers (certainly not the fault of the children). Many of the campground guests ran generators way past the time they were to be shut down. In addition to the generators, outdoor TV's played loudly until very late. Although dogs are allowed in the campground they are NOT supposed to be on the hiking trails. This was not enforced in the least. I personally did not see anyone pick up their dog's droppings. We stayed four days and in all this time we never saw a park ranger except in the information centers. This is the first national park we have visited that did not have rangers driving around checking on things. Maybe the park doesn't have the proper staffing and/or funding. I hope this can be addressed...

We stayed there Feb 10 to the 13th. The Furnace Creek Campground was full, we could have stayed one night and then leave or move to another spot if one opened but decided to just stay at the Sunset Campground. Right above it is the Texas Creek Campground and it was available and looked a little nicer, but no generators are allowed up there. The Sunset Campground, as many have said before, is just a parking lot with clean bathrooms for $14 a night. The only thing that would have been nice is showers in those bathrooms but no luck. The one bad thing is generator noise, the people that pulled in next to us had an open air, non-inverter generator, way too loud but luckily they only used it in the morning for a few hours. The campground is convenient to a lot of places to visit and the Park Rangers guided tours are...

The location of this campsite is good as it is central to many of the main sites, and close to the Oasis resort were you can get a shower (for a mere $5 anyway...). The toilets were kept clean and with paper, but there is no soap in there so you might wish to bring a hand sanitizer. There is good provision of clean running water. The ground is very hard rubble type of material so if you're staying in a tent, bring a decent mat to lie on. You also won't be able to peg the tent but there are large rocks around to keep it weighted. Most people here were staying in RVs. $14 a night seemed a little steep for pitching a tent here but I think it's the same cost in all the national park run camp sites that have flushable toilets and running water so...