Tucumcari / Route 66 KOA Journey

We stayed at Tucumcari / Route 66 KOA Journey in Tucumcari, New Mexico. (Campground Reviews listing.)

Buddy sites. We hate buddy sites. But they deliver breakfast, so there’s that.

Dates:

Check in: 2023-10-06

Check out: 2023-10-08

2 nights

Weather:

Drizzle, partly cloudy

High temps ranging between 73-74°F, lows around 43-50°F

Afternoon wind, gusts up to 26 MPH

Noise:

Nearby freeway noise

No train noise

Negligible neighbor noise

Site:

#99, pull through, concrete

Didn’t need to disconnect toad; parked behind coach

Somewhat level, a little front-to-back slope (weird for concrete)

Concrete driveway about 70 feet long by about 10 feet wide

Buddy “patios” and grass about 20 feet wide

Grass between sites about 15 feet wide

No trees

Picnic table on small concrete patio, about 25 feet by 10 feet

No fire pit

Did I mention buddy site! Do not like. (A buddy site is when our living area faces another living area.)

Clean site

Utilities:

50 amp power, conveniently located

70 PSI water, fairly conveniently located

Good sewer connection, conveniently located (1 10-foot pipe needed)

Internet (in usage priority order):

T-Mobile: 38-43 Mbps down, 3-8 Mbps up, 96-134 ms ping

Verizon: 0.05-0.3 Mbps down, 0.5-5 Mbps up, 100 ms ping

AT&T: 83-95 Mbps down, 7-10 Mbps up, 32-61 ms ping

Starlink: not used

Campground Wi-Fi: not used

Amenities:

Garbage dumpster by entrance

Package delivery to site

Cooked breakfast delivery to site

Our review on Campground Reviews:

Buddy sites, nuff said

This is an older KOA with new owners who are working on improvements. I see a lot of potential and will stay here again because it’s just so convenient to I-40, but the rates are a bit much for what it is currently. The staff here are all fantastic. Friendly, helpful, and on the ball when you report an issue. And who could argue with cooked breakfast brought right to your door? However, the biggest drawback is that most of the sites are buddy sites. They have nice, new concrete “patio” sites at the back of the park but ruined it by having them all be buddies. I cannot overstate how much I dislike buddy sites. We camped at Tucumcari KOA Journey in a Motorhome.

Tip for Other Campers: Kix on 66 was very tasty and has that whole Route 66 retro vibe going on.

The map:

An interactive map:

Our site, facing another site:

Better after they left:

The next evening, a fiver arrived in that site, which was even worse, since their door and our door were sharing the same “patio” and table (fuzzy picture from my front door cam in the morning; they left as we were getting up):

Driver sides facing each other is fine:

Empty sites:

Other sites:

Cabins:

The site was concrete, but was still a bit unlevel, surprisingly:

A nice feature of this campground is cooked breakfast delivery to the site, which we sampled:

The office:

With a couple of young cats outside:

Office:

Tucumcari Mountain behind the campsite; as mentioned yesterday, the inspiration for the Radiator Cap mountain in the Cars movie:

This campground was fine for a couple of nights stay, but we wouldn’t want to stay longer. It is under new ownership, so my main feedback would be to eliminate the buddy sites (easier said than done, of course). Or at least space out the RVs to every other site when not busy.