Site Review- Caja Del Rio- Santa Fe, New Mexico

GPS: 35.6891, -106.0942

We stayed at this location for 16 days and we would happily stay here again.

This location had at least 20 sites for boondocking that we saw, but the possibilities are endless.

The only thing that would stop you from reaching certain sites is the rough roads leading to them.

This area is heavily used for ATVs to race up and down. Due to this, some roads are deeply rutted.

Low clearance vehicles would be very limited on available sites.

If you are a low clearance vehicle, I highly recommend you keep left at the fork.

Left is a gravel road that is much more passable. Right is when you get into some rough going, but it is possible to get down.

We did.

This area is mostly dirt, with Juniper trees spread throughout.

It is a great location to watch some wildlife, especially cows, as they will just wander into your site.

They do not seem to fear humans, as a couple of them walked right up on my husband while he was outside.

We also spotted, rabbits, coyotes, and lots of birds while staying here.

During the week it was not very busy, and the sound was at a minimum. However, on weekends the ATVs and dirt bikes come out in force. They race up and down roads and through any empty campsites.

There does not seem to be any regulations in place to limit where they can go, or if there are, they are not following them.

We had several trucks who parked near our RV and used that location to offload their ATVs.

However, if you keep left at the fork like a mention before, it seems that not as many ATVs go that route.

The cleanliness of this area is something that I found disgraceful.

You can tell the area has been used as an illegal trash dumping location for a long time.

We found a bunch of broken bottles and smooshed beer cans, along with a mattress, car parts, broken pottery, and other unidentifiable objects.

It would honestly take a dumpster to clean this area. It is something I would be extremely interested in being part of, and something I wished I could do, but it would take more than just us to clean this large area of all of the trash.

It did snow at this location, but we felt comfortable that we could get out if we needed to.

Cost to Stay- $0

Length of Stay

As far as I am aware, you can stay up to 14 days at this location. Always double check for yourself though!

We had an emergency situation that caused us to stay 16 days at this site, but as soon as we were cleared to leave we did.

Cell Service

Our cell provider is Straight talk, but it runs off Verizon towers and we had 4 bars of LTE cell signal. I was able to stream videos without any issues.

Do I recommend the area?

Absolutely! It is a beautiful location. It is close to town. We would absolutely stay here again.

Tips about the area

Smith’s Animal Hospital is great if you have an animal emergency. They saved the life of our pup Marley, during our stay at this location.