Gowen Fld, ID

I contacted the FamCamp office at Gowen Field, Boise, ID last week and made a reservation for the 14 through the 18 of May. Full hook-ups for $15/night. Sites are all back-in but I am adept at backing trailers with little or no problems. I'll report back after we return home.

Arrived early afternoon on 14 May. Checked in at Bldg 720 per Directory guidance. Friendly staff in the office. Proceeded to assigned pad. All pads are concrete with large volcanic gravel between pads. The showers and bathrooms for the campground are located in Bldg 720 (fitness center open 24/7) about 100 yards away. The camping spots are located within a couple of blocks of the commercial airport which is shared with Gowen Field. Fortunately, Boise airport is not real busy so aircraft noise isn't real bad - but it is there.

Base access was easy and we didn't have any issues coming and going. There is a very small Exchange on base that is only open Monday - Friday until 5:00 PM. I would definitely stay there again when in the Boise area.

I dropped in without a reservations July and found 3 vacant spots so I set up "camp" for the night putting up my motorcycle-friendly popup camper. I found both laundry facilities closed at 2200. A fellow retiree there for a couple of days pointed out the nearest toilet facilities were in the Billeting Office/Base Gym (laundry does have facilities}.. It is open 24 hours and campers can use the showers but you have to bring your own towels. Equipment is free to use too.

The next morning I went to the Billeting Office to pay for my night's camping. After a short discussion about my not having a reservation the Office Manager advised that since I was a "dry camper", and the computers were down, she would not charge me for my day of camping. But she did reiterate that RESERVATIONS ARE REQUIRED.

We just got here for a 3-week stay. We have been moving a lot and staying at places that don't allow packages. We called ahead to verify the mailing address listed in the directory and were told absolutely no mail or packages of any kind. I recently learned Amazon will happily ship to General Delivery, and we stopped by the airport post office to inquire. They said only the central post office handles GD, so we went there to register. The person who helped us said there's no need to use the USPS form to sign up for General Delivery. Just send mail to:

NAME
General Delivery
BOISE, ID 83707-9999

They will hold mail for 10 days before returning it. Had we known this earlier we'd have ordered the stuff we needed days ago so that it was ready when we arrived. It's also a 20-minute drive when there's downtown traffic instead of 7 mins to the airport location. We're just happy to be able to receive mail at this point.

The sites are the same concrete pads with some scratch-your-head touches that make you wonder if they consulted an RVer before they went to work. For one there is a large bollard protecting the electrical box which also blocks slides and baggage doors. They also planted a nice tree directly behind the pad. Without it I could put the back wheels on the end of the pad and have enough room in front to park our towed. As it is we have to park on the lava rocks between sites, and we were unable to get the sewer drain in between the two MH valves. I have my rear valve about 3' away with my 15' hose making a few curves. I'll add a review when we leave, but I think this is going to be an OK stop with a very good price ($15/night).

As an update, it turns out Amazon's system corrected itself into a problem. When it auto corrected "PO Box General Delivery" to read just "General Delivery," the system didn't recognize it as a USPS-only address. Our packages shipped UPS and were unable to be delivered to the Post Office. Fortunately the UPS office at the airport is much closer to the RV park than the central post office, making our pickup a lot faster.

I tried contacting Amazon, but the customer service rep didn't know what General Delivery was. Consequently they kept reading irrelevant answers from their script containing USPS as a keyword. I think I need to add "PO Box" to the address and force it to stick there, but I couldn't get official confirmation from Amazon. If I need to order anything else, I'll try the new address and update again if it works.