El Camino Real Historic Trail

El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro — the Royal Road of the Interior — is the oldest continuously used European road in North America, running 1,800 miles from Mexico City to Santa Fe and passing directly through the Rio Grande Valley alongside Kiva RV Park. For over 300 years, from 1598 until the Santa Fe Trail replaced it in the 1820s, this ancient road carried Franciscan missionaries, colonial governors, merchants, soldiers, and indigenous people along the Rio Grande corridor. Today it is designated a National Historic Trail, administered jointly by the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management.

The trail corridor through the Bosque area is one of the most historically intact sections of the entire route. Unlike much of the Camino Real that has been obscured by modern development, the stretch through the Bosque-Bernardo corridor retains much of its original character: wide valley bosque, the silvery Rio Grande meandering through cottonwood flats, and the open high desert terrain that Spanish travelers would recognize. Interpretive markers throughout the area tell the story of this extraordinary road and the diverse cultures that used it.

The El Camino Real International Heritage Center, located 35 miles south near Socorro, serves as the primary interpretive facility for the trail and is worth a visit for its dramatically designed building (inspired by the desert landforms) and thoughtful exhibits on the multicultural history of the road. But the trail's most evocative experience is simply walking or riding through the bosque landscape that has changed little since the first Spanish entrada passed through in 1598 — an experience available right from Kiva's property.