Coronado Camp Ground in Bernalillo, New Mexico
Coronado Campground outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico is a unique gem in a delightful area. Offering a variety of very pleasant sites, it is adjacent to the Coronado Historic Site and offers spectacular views of the Sandia Mountains.
The campground is situated right on the Rio Grande and some of the sites overlook this iconic river. Further, the campground is right next door to Bosque Brewing Company which offers a decent variety of food along with signature beers and seltzers.
Each of the sites for RVers has a nice shelter with a large picnic table in it. There are fire rings at these sites as well along with water and electricity. When we were there, in July of 2022, fires were prohibited.
Albuquerque
We actually are moving our home base to the Albuquerque area so we have been thoroughly exploring what there is to do around here. Of course the most obvious thing to do in the area might be the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta held every October. This iconic celebration of the hot air balloon is absolutely something to see.
But there’s so much more.
For example, the Coronado Historic Site offers one of the many places to visit New Mexico’s rich Native American history with partially-restored historic adobe ruins and cultural artifacts. You can easily walk there from any of the sites at the campground.
We also visited the Albuquerque Bio Park which is a collection of things to do. There’s a botanical garden, aquarium, zoo and more at the Bio Park. We liked it enough that we bought an annual pass. One of the things that we saw was a farm from about the 1920s.
This farm represented farming life from about a century ago and shared the experience of the farmers, who predominantly lacked any modern conveniences. However the farmers were beginning to employ mechanized tractors although electricity and other conveniences we take for granted nowadays were still something for the future.
Art is all over the place in Albuquerque with art-focused places as well as just beautiful art in the area. We found that the Bio Park alone had some really nice sculptures in it.
Food and drink
New Mexico in general celebrates the chile with chile available in and on almost everything here. While we were here we had green chile on hamburgers, salads, chicken and even got green chile seasoned bacon, which was incredible.
We have talked about the Tin Can Alley in the past which is a collection of all sorts of different foods as well as beer from Santa Fe Brewing Company.
We also went to 505 Central which is another food court in downtown Albuquerque. There’s a place there called Kukri Chicken which had really great chicken that is flavored with a twist and offers a variety of spice levels depending on your own tolerances.
Generally speaking the food in Albuquerque is really good with choices of just about anything you can imagine, but getting the local fare is the best way to go. And don’t be afraid of the green chiles.
Connectivity
While some campgrounds that offer this much space around the sites are located far from connectivity, Coronado Camp Ground offers really good wifi. Further, all the major carriers seem well represented here. Even more, there aren’t a lot of trees in Albuquerque what with being the desert so we found neighbors who had Starlink dishes and found that they worked very well.
While Albuquerque is sort of a small town it’s big enough that there are also most of the major stores that you would need. But it’s the local eateries, art galleries and attractions that make this a town well worth visiting. And with Coronado Camp Ground right in the thick of things, it’s a great home base for exploring this area.
