This information is from September 2022, so it’s not as current as you might want. We started this portion of our trip in Ottawa, IL after my mother’s family reunion and the destination was TRNP before heading back to Florida. THNP has 2 campgrounds, Cottonwood is in the south unit and Juniper is in the north unit.
Cottonwood has about 70 sites in 2 loops, north and south. The south loop has small areas and it would be cramped for a LE2. The north loop has larger sites, more suitable for LE2's and larger rigs.
We could not get a reservation in Cottonwood in advance, so we booked a night in Sully Creek SP, just south of Medora. We headed to Cottonwood first thing the next morning. There were not any campground hosts available when we arrived, so we proceeded to drive through the campground, we didn’t see anything large enough in the south loop and then found 3 available in the north loop. Since I always what to know what’s around the corner or over the hill, we drove around the north loop again and found 2 of the available sites were already taken. We took the 3rd spot and I walked up to the self serve check-in station and filled out some paperwork. We ran into a campground host while walking back to our site and he showed us a site that was reserved for the new shower/restroom building construction crew and said that we could use it for the next 3 nights because the crew was off for a few days. So we moved to that site and had a great stay.
We did drive to the north unit to see the Juniper campground and over all liked the north unit better, less people but also so less to see and do.
We wanted to say in Custer SP in South Dakota, but couldn’t find anything and headed to Badlands NP and dry camped for 3 nights, just off SD-240 about 9 miles south of Wall, SD and before you get to the entrance to Badlands NP. Look for a dirt road on the left and other campers a mile or so off the highway. You should also be able to see 2 or 3 radio towers several miles in the distance also on the left or east side of SD-240. Drive along the dirt road until you find something you like. A word of caution, it's very windy!
Good luck,
Mossey
Cottonwood campground - TRNP
Outside Badlands NP on SD-240