Madison is at the far west area of Yellowstone. The sites were maybe more wide than deep from the road. The road was smooth. We were in G. There's a walk to the recycling that you can see Madison River and National Park Mountain. (That's the actual name of the mountain). The big note would be the showers. There's no showers. And then on the entry infor packet if said to go to Canyon was the closest. But mid September the Canyon campground and showers were closed. This was shown in the newspaper but I didn't double check the Madison info packet. Might be good for Yellowstone to update that. They have a dishwashing station. The bathrooms were nice. One sink was out. The bathrooms had a big heater that I awkward stood in to warm up. Sorry to the other people trying to use it. In general I recommend booking multiple camp sites during your whole Yellowstone trip, even if it's more tent set up time, it's less driving time. read more

Xanterra messed up on our friend's reservations and although the campsite was completely full, they were somehow able to finagle getting us three sites for RV/trailers for three nights. However, we weren't all in the same loop, which was pretty inconvenient for a large group traveling together. The campsites themselves were ok. There isn't much privacy between sites. No hookups. Communal bathrooms, no showers. We saw zero wildlife in the campground the entire time we stayed here. The closest campsite to the geysers (30 minutes) and the West Yellowstone entrance (45 minutes) if you don't get stuck in a bison jam! read more

We spent our first 3 nights at Canyon Campground where they have showers every day included in your price. Because I booked with the same company I automatically thought there would be showers here as well, but nope. We were directed to the river haha. Which, ended up working out ok, but we both really really were in need of a real shower after exploring all day. However, the campground was nice. The sites were nice and flat for us to set up our tent. We had water spigots nearby, picnic table, fire ring, and it was a short walk through a trail to get to the beautiful river where we took our chairs and hung out the entire afternoon in the sun on the water. read more

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Good campground! Great little camp store and everyone who worked there was awesome. Just far enough from the entrance and easy to find. Only downsides were the whole park ran out of ice and the spots felt like they were on top of each other. read more

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Over the summer I finally got to visit a bucket list National Park, Yellowstone. My friends and I camped for four nights at Madison Campground. Positives: Friendly staff, centrally located to most of the park, clean bathrooms, small convenience store, mostly quiet (having ear plugs probably also helped with that), huge trash and recycle bins, didn't get eaten by a bear or other Yellowstone inhabitant. Negatives: store was sometimes out of ice, campsites were almost on top of each other (the way the fire pits were arrange, we were maybe 10 ft from the next fire pit), our parking wasn't tucked in (it seemed like the other sites had a curved driveway, whereas our parking spots were adjacent to the main path), small lockers for food storage that is supposed to be shared amongst multiple sites. Also, their website indicated that there was a discount on the site for Interagency Annual Pass holders (I double check before, AND after we stayed) and when checking in I was told that only applied to Senior Pass (website indicates both Senior and Interagency). That was frustrating. Would it make stay somewhere else? Probably not, but it was definitely disappointing to be denied something that is listed on their website (I couldn't show them as there is literally zero service in the whole park - not just the campground). As a campground, it wasn't one of the worst, just a bit cramped compared to other places I've stayed that had more space between sites. The staff was great about canvassing the campground each day. We got a warning or two about items left out, which they were polite about just making sure we didn't have anything that might attract bears. read more

The camgrpund us centralized to everything we needed to see and do. Bathrooms are clean. No shower, the wood sold there was terrible( would not light up and was too moist to burn). Check-in was easy and the rangers were very nice and informative. read more

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The campground is great, and the Xantera staff are fantastic. Beware the NPS camp host lady. She has the disposition of a constipated rattlesnake, and twice as mean. She nearly put my wife to tears over a hammock last year (2020) and this year chewed me out when I left an ice chest outside my camper unattended as I walked to a nearby restroom. Had to turn back to deal with this power tripping hag and nearly shit my pants in the process. read more

We spent a few nights in Grant Campgound, and it has some problems the National Park Service needs to address. I don't mind the long walk or short drive to the showers and laundry. What I do mind is that the showers are closed from 9:00 p.m. until 7:00 a.m. Wanting to get an early start, we waited from 6:30 to 7:00 as a long line grew for the showers. Since they are not in the campground, they should be open 24/7 -- same with the laundry. Our tent leaked one day, and we had to dry our sleeping bags. Only they won't let you dry sleeping bags without washing them first, and there was no way we could wash and dry before the laundry closed at 9:00 p.m. Finally, there was consistently a cloud of smoke engulfing the whole campground at night. Due to a temperature inversion (or similar problem) campfire smoke hangs near the ground. The smoke was really irritating our eyes and lungs. Adding to the problem: the park was selling the worst wood that would not stay lit and was very smokey. Everyone was burning the same wood -- with disasterous results for the air quality at the campground. Tip: buy wood along the roadside, not from the park. read more

Spent two nights here in a small travel trailer. You don't have a choice on your site - you're assigned one once you arrive. The person who checked us in gave us a pull-through site that was almost too small for our truck and trailer combo, but we managed. The sites are very open, and there is no privacy at all, although the sites are quite large. Bathrooms were clean. Aside from the lack of privacy, there was really nothing wrong with Grant Campground. There are several visitor amenities located nearby, including showers and laundry. There's a general store and gas station nearby, too. We had a bull elk wander through the camp one night, and there was a trail down to Yellowstone Lake. However, we prefer smaller, more intimate campgrounds, and can easily forego some of the amenities for more quiet and privacy. So after two days, we relocated to Norris Campground, which is more centrally located, quieter and less expensive. read more

Stayed here for two nights and had a great experience. Had a pretty good amount of our own space and a cute little area to have a campfire. Also nice to have dishwashing stations. Really enjoyable experience! read more

Campground was nice and quite, tent sites were spread out. Location was good if you are interested in seeing the thermal features of yellowstone. Took almost 30 minutes to check in and the man working the register counter was very rude. Overall I would come back here again. read more

I stayed at Madison Campground in Yellowstone National Park, WY on 8/10/2009. It was my 1st time there. I was there in my R.V.: The Black Pearl. My campsite back in 2009 was $20.35 but I'm sure it's more today. Yellowstone is beautiful. read more

We spent 2 nights in Madison campground. The site was a pull through, too tight to open both awning and the slide of our 29' camper. No showers, no electricity, no water. On an early morning walk near the river, we happened upon 2 bison entering the wooded area from the field. It was a breathtaking site. This area is beautiful, and a great location for visiting Mammoth Terrace Springs, Norris Geyser Basin, and viewing elk. I'm glad we reserved our spot in advance since we were visiting in July, all of the other campgrounds were full. read more

I'll update this after our stay, but it was a real challenge finding anything about what happens when you have reservations at this campground, so sharing this info. You can call 307-242-3464 to find out if they have issued you an actual site based on your reservations. Apparently, you don't have to show up early, put your name on a list, or do anything else to ensure you have a site if you already have a reservation. You also can't choose your site, they just issue it based on availability and any special requests. We went with friends and asked for sites next to each other, which they were able to accommodate. You also can't find out your site numbers until you check in at 11am for privacy reasons. read more

This was our first experience with Madison Campground and, it was MOSTLY a good one. Madison is one of the campgrounds that allows users to make advanced reservations. Since we were sharing the trip with a daughter, a granddaughter and a grandson, and since we wanted to only have to set up camp ONCE (rather than traveling around from place to place, breaking and setting up over and over again) Hubby & I opted to make reservations and KNOW that we had a guaranteed destination at the end of our long drive. It was a good decision, because, even though we called in April for reservations for the second week in July, we could not get our 'first choice' of campgrounds but were able to secure a site at the Madison Campground for our 14 day stay. LOCATION: Madison campground is situated at Madison Junction, 14 miles from the West entrance of the park and the nice, tourist town of West Yellowstone, Montana. Drive south from the campground for 16 miles and you arrive at Old Faithful Geyser which has an excellent Visitor Center, post office, two very cool hotels (Old Faithful Inn and The Snow Lodge & cabins), several restaurants including a cafeteria, lunch counter, deli, snack bar, coffee shop and beautiful & historic Old Faithful Inn Dining Room (reservations pretty much required), gift shops, General Store and even a very limited selection of grocery and sundry items. Drive North and East from the junction for 14 miles and you will be at Norris Geyser Basin with it's amazing thermal features. Turn East at the Norris intersection and go 12 miles to get to Canyon Village (Visitor Center, general store, places to eat and some retail shopping, etc). Canyon Village is also the gateway to the wonders of the Canyon of the Yellowstone with it's picturesque waterfalls and hiking trails.So I'd rate the LOCATION as superior. The CAMPGROUND itself is quite large with several hundred sites. Some are only suitable for tent camping but many are good to excellent for trailers, motorhomes and everything in between. That can be both good AND bad. IF you like a 'quiet' camp, you should know that many campers now want to bring along the conveniences of their everyday life which can require a generator. At Madison, generator hours are 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Let's just say you may not need an alarm clock if you want to rise at 8 in the morning. During our 14 day stay most of our 'neighbors' honored the hours rigorously but, as with real life, there were a few who did not. Rudeness doesn't always stop at the park borders. CONVENIENCES: Madison Campground encourages recycling of resources. They offer almost nightly Campfire Programs by knowledgeable Park Rangers. They have flush toilets and potable water but no hot water. They vend Ice & Wood on the site. There are NO showers on site. SAFETY: (specifically Bear Safety) There is good news and bad news on this important subject. The good news is that in recent years there are more wild bears sightings than there were 20 or 30 years ago. That is ALSO the bad news, because to keep people safe from bear attacks, very VERY stringent rules must be followed in order NOT to attract bears to camp. One important component of this is use of A BEAR BOX (basically a large container made of heavy steel and with a locking mechanism that is too hard for a bear to open). On Loop C in the Madison campground there were, by our count ONLY two of these boxes on the whole loop. If there had been more soft-sided accommodations among that loop, I have doubts that there would have been enough safe storage. Fortunately, many neighbors had other means of safe storage in RVs and trailers but it seems like a valid concern. NOT ONLY for safety from bears and other wild animals but also because the Park Rangers can write tickets, assess fines and confiscate gear that is not stored properly during your stay. GENERAL SAFETY: There is absolutely NO cellphone service anywhere in the campground. The staff closes the check-in office at around 9 p.m. IF there is any emergency, there is at least one pay phone near the entrance to the camp, but I don't know any of the details about whom your request for help or assistence might reach or how long it would take for their response. Camping, even at a campground administered by Xanterra (the "authorized concessioner" in Yellowstone National Park) is unlike checking into a motel/hotel or nearly any other resort. The Camping Experience is so "individual" that every single camper does it different! It is fun and it is exhilarating and there is a sense of accomplishment and camaraderie. There is something about stepping out of your tent and being surrounded by tall whispering lodgepole pines, with a blazing blanket of stars as your ceiling and the full moon actually casting a shadow that is completely unique. I rate Madison as AVERAGE for site size, amenities and services among campgrounds in National Parks. And ABOVE AVERAGE for location. read more

We spent our first two nights in Yellowstone at Grant Campground. A very easy location to reach from the South Entrance, Grant has large campsites that are fairly open. You can easily see your neighbors through the trees, but we didn't have any problems. Decent bathrooms and dishwashing stations throughout the campground. The weather was very windy while we were here, but we had a nice stay overall. read more

We spent 3 nights this summer at Grant campground. The registration process took a few minutes and we were off to our assigned site. Our tent site was big with enough space for our 8 person tent, chairs fire ring, picnic table and a hammock. The bathrooms were fine and clean. The only drawback is the need to drive to the showers. read more

Amazing clean campground! Helpful staff and great location for access to all of Yellowstone. Blown away with the cleanliness of the bathroom, bear boxes and dish washing sink. Highly recommend! Stay in campground comes with 1 shower each day. read more

This was not my favorite campground. First of all there is zero cell service here so beware of that. The real issue we had here was the fear of bears. Everyone knows Yellowstone is Grizzy country, and you have to be bear aware. So when we were assigned a camp site without a bear locker for our food, we were concerned. Due to no cell service, we had to get back in our van and drive all the way back to the office to ask about this. The guy told us it was okay to not use a bear locker and that we could keep our food in our van - the same van we were sleeping in. Really? I informed him that at many other national parks, including Yosemite and Sequoia (which only have black bears, not even grizzly bears), it is forbidden to keep food in cars because the bears break into the vehicles and have caused massive damage. The guy's response? "Those bears are smarter. The bears at Yellowstone aren't that smart." Seriously? That's what we're going with? It was pretty unsettling. He tried reassuring us by saying that a grizzly hadn't been seen in our camp site in 2 weeks. Is that supposed to be a long time? It didn't make me feel too great. We ended up just sharing our neighbor's bear locker, since our site didn't have one. We were fortunate enough to get a site just a close walk to the beautiful lake, which was great, but besides that this wasn't a great camp site. There are no showers, only toilets, so you have to drive to a main station where you redeem a ticket for a shower. It wasn't bad, but wasn't good. Average camping. read more

We came here in mid October and made a reservation a day out. We weren't sure if we needed one or not, but better be safe than sorry! It was easy to make a reservation and when we showed up all went smoothly. We got there when it was dark, so I couldn't make a judgment call right away. I did notice that our firepit was under a tree. Not a very smart idea in my opinion! Our campsite was very flat, so it was nice for our tent we set up. We are a workable bear bin and there seemed to be ample restrooms. We didn't use the showering or laundry services. We enjoyed our stay and even though it wasn't the prettiest of places, I wouldn't attest to going back. read more