homolovi ruins state park

We were a little disappointed that the ruins are that, mostly ruble. Homolovi II site is worth the walk around and listening to the tour guide. Homolovi I site, nothing there but pottery chips and ruble strewn around the site. Not worth visiting this site. The campground is nice and bathrooms were well maintained by the volunteer host.

Full disclosure - I love all things history and archeology. If it's not your thing, you probably won't enjoy this place too much.My family and I live about an hour and a half from Homolovi. We have passed by for years and never stopped. My wife and I decided it was "now or never." It was a great stop! The ranger we visited with obviously has a great passion for this place. He was more than willing to answer any question we had a supply information. We drove to the main site since we had limited time. It was an interesting spot! There are pottery pieces everywhere and, unfortunately, people like to set them in piles thinking they are helping rather than just leaving them alone. Thinking about the people that inhabited this place makes one admire their tenacity to make a living on this barren piece of ground.There were other things to see that we did not have time to view. Understand, this is not Mesa Verde, but the story of the Hopi people who lived here needs to be told. It is peaceful and a reflective sort of place. We will definitely be back. It was a wonderful, though too brief, time. If you are in this area, you need to see this place,

The Visitor's Center has many displays and the Anasazi Ruins are open for viewing. The park is only about 5 miles northest of Winslow, AZ and well worth the detour. There is nearby camping,hiking,picnic areas and a gift shop.

Don't miss this place. It was amazing. The reviews just did not do it justice. A chance to see Ancestral Puebloan culture & experience a quiet I've never experienced. Sit on mesas & look out over hundreds of miles on unspoiled land. Nature at its finest.

We always look for a new place to explore on our trip from Illinois to Phoenix. We were quite surprised with this park, the ruins are amazing and definitely a great history leasson.

We visited this park on Thanksgiving Day and we were the only visitors. The park manager was on duty and he was a treasure trove of accurate and helpful information. Truly a don't miss experience in Winslow if you're at all interested in Hopi history and southwest culture.

The ranger was exceptionally helpful and we got there right at closing as did several other folks. It was going to be a cold night on Dec.1st. We had a great site near the bathrooms. The camp host is SO helpful and very nice also. We set up our tent and had a huge fire and ate dinner. Lovely ! The bathrooms have LOTS of hot water and electric heaters so they are very toasty. The ruins are wonderful...not sure what some folks were expecting...these are ruins...duh ! There are walks to be had in the area and at certain times of the year they have tours...we weren't lucky enough to be there for that.The trains and the highway are noisy but that is just the breaks...they put the park where the ruins are ...not going to move them LOL ! Now for the excitement. There are wild burros, lots of coyotes, jackrabbits galore...and....we had a cougar visit our tent at approx 2 AM ! Yep....it rubbed against the tent and went around it two times then left. In the AM I looked for and found the tracks. I took a pic and showed it to a local in town and he said there have been more sightings. Very exciting !!

What a fabulous experience we had. Visited the park in Oct 2014 the Saturday of the month they offer the 3 hour tour to see the petroglyphs. The tour was stupendous and it takes you places you would not normally see if entering the park and walking around on your own. A lot of Hopi history here. After the tour we visited within the park one of the ruins yet to be excavated and as we walked around strewn about were thousands upon thousands of Hopi pottery shards. Each visitor who walked the area before us in respect for the Hopi had brushed off the sand and dirt from the shard and placed them on rocks for other visitors to enjoy. We found a beautiful shard too and did the same. It was quite the spiritual experience!

Stayed here at the end of October, only 4 of the sites were occupied. Peaceful and still. I could understand why others had settled here long ago. Very cold at night, in the morning the restrooms had a heater running. Just a hour drive up A87 from here to the Hopi Mesas.

The ruins are enough to set your imagination on fire. Reconstruct the private family quarters and the large, rectangular kiva in your mind. Imagine what life was like in those times. You can walk the skinny path down to the river as would have been done every day for water. The resident ranger can identify all the plant materials in the area and give a much greater understanding of the peoples and the place. While the sites require walking, the paths are easy, and there is car access quite close.

After all the budget cuts and relocation of artifacts and backfilling, the site is again open to the public. It is a nice site and Homolovi I and II are open. Many years ago, another Homolovi site was open with Kokopelli petroglyphs that were amazing. It is a shame that this cannot happen again. In addition, there is much more of the site that has been tarped and backfilled. On a positive note about 50% of the exposed shards still remain scattered about which is extremely unique to a such a public site. There are a few excavated rooms but for the most part imagination needs to be your guide. If you want to get a fuller view of some reconstructed ruins, you should make a note to tour some other public sites in the Southwest. It is astonishing that the government spends millions on discretionary unnecessary items while continually shortchanging the history and remnants of the native American ancestral heritage.

This was my first trip to AZ and we decided to tent camp the last week of June, 2014. I think of the four campgrounds we visited, I found Homolovi the most interesting and well worth a visit. I spent weeks looking through pictures on Homolovi State Park website and through campsitephotos.com. In the end we decided on Site #18 for a reservation. This campground rarely seems to fill up based on my checking out different dates, but I think a reservation is always a good idea to ensure you get the site you want. The campground is a short distance from I-40 making it convenient. There are two loops with inside and outside sites and a few “dry” sites for tents, maybe 6 or so. Each site has a picnic table and fire grill. There are a few small trees, but they offer little by way of shade. You have to remember you are camping in a desert and that is part of the beauty of the whole experience. A number of sites which have electricity also have tent pads which consist of a sandy area enclosed with wood. The problem I saw with most of these is that they work well for a small tent, but a not a family-sized tent. Site #18 which we chose worked great for our 10” x 14” tent, since there is a larger sandy area next to the asphalt drive that is free of desert plants and without the wood enclosure. We arrived around 6 pm and although it was not considered high winds for the desert, we did struggle a bit with getting the tent up. However, as it approached dusk the winds suddenly died down and the rest of the setting up went much quicker. There were more RVs here than tents, but I think tent camping works as long as you check on wind gusts. The night we camped there were probably four of us in tents. I would have liked to have spent two nights, but I was concerned that if we left the tent up, the winds which pick up as the day goes on, might have damaged it. Since we only booked one night, this was not an issue. There was a fire ban due to drought conditions at the end of June, but this did not pose much of a problem since we always pack a camp stove. Probably the thing that sets Homolovi apart IMO is the gorgeous views across the desert and the absolutely unreal view of the stars at night. We spent two nights in Sedona and even did the Evening Sky Tour and honestly, I felt nothing compared to the jaw-dropping views of the Milky Way at Homolovi. I must have stood outside for an hour just looking at the night sky. From this same site we were at, you can also see the lights of Winslow, AZ in the distance. And even though it was mid-summer, the evenings are so cool. I will also comment on the showers, as that is sort of a hang-up of mine. Out of four campgrounds we stayed at in northern AZ, Homolovi by far had the cleanest and best shower facility. There are two individual rooms, attached to the restroom area, which can be locked. They are extremely roomy, have a nice wooden bench, a sink, hooks for towels or clothes, and a tiled shower with a tiled shelve for your toiletries. It is not a pay shower and you control the water temperature. By the time we had taken showers and were packed up the next morning at 9:30 am, the campground was deserted. We did stop by the visitor center/museum which is a bit small, but informative and has souvenirs and restrooms with wonderful lighted walls (you have to check these out). There are also ancient sites you can visit for a small fee. We toured Homolovi II which has a paved path to the top and only took us about an hour to walk from the car and back. There is an auto walking tour that you can download from the website which I listened to before leaving home and would have been very informative, but we could not get it to work (problem on our end). They do have signs at various stops along the way, however, that provide information. There are also wonderful pottery shards scattered throughout the site that you can pick up and look at, but must be replaced where you found them. I read that this is a sacred site to the Hopi People and it is illegal to take anything (big time fines and prison time). It’s all about respect. Also, if you visit in the summer, bring plenty of sun protection and lots of water. The only shade at Homolovi II is a small open pavilion, part way up the hill. All in all, we had a wonderful visit. I will miss the cool summer evenings and gorgeous view of the stars and the desert. We will definitely be back. Highly recommend.Pros: Gorgeous views of desert and Milky Way, cool at night, clean restrooms/showers, historical sites to visit, convenient to I-40 and close to Petrified Forest Ntl. Park.Cons: Nothing comes to mind.

Campground sites are well spaced apart. I enjoy that desolate feeling being out in the open wilderness and you get that here. Plus, there is electric & water hookup which I really like. The campground sits in a depression and best views are to the west/southwest. I have two dogs and it was rough for them as there were burrs everywhere. That is sometimes the case in the desert terrain.

This has a great settinv and provides a great place to walk and experience what it was like to be there as an ancient. The sad part is a lot of the ruins had to be covered up again because there were not enough funds to maintain the site. They were covered up again to protect them for future generations. A reminder of how our government wastes money but does not care to spend it on our heritage. We need to care for these treasures not bury them.

It's worth a couple hour stop if you are interested native american culture. Pick up the guide pamphlet at the visitors center for a more detailed explanation. The only place I have been that had more artifacts littering the ground was in the Valley of Kings in Egypt. Base on the variety of pottery styles the site was inhabited for a long period of time. There is no shade and this is desert so be prepared with water hats, and sunscreen.