Best Glamping near Arab, AL

**Corinth Recreation Area– USFS **

Corinth Recreation area is located near the town of Double Springs, Alabama. The area is operated and maintained by the United State Forest Service (USFS) and can be reserved through www.recreation.gov. There are 52 total sites here and most reserved on line, there are a few sites only available as walk ins. This area is very clean and really quiet at night, the campgrounds are near the lakes edge but not lakeside. The sites are very well maintained, paved and gravel with full services including sewer. There are two RV campgrounds, Firefly and Yellowhammer. We stayed at Yellowhammer as this had more shaded sites than Firefly. There’s also a few tent only sites between the two loops. The bathrooms were clean and the staff was pleasant during our visit, we stayed five days and found so much to see near by the campground. There is very nice boat ramp on the park for easy access to Smith Lake, the beach area is also a great asset. Clean with a well-marked swimming area with bathrooms near the beach area. 

The Houston Jail (http://soloso.com/houston/) was a few miles away, this is the only surviving jail constructed from logs in 1818. It’s a historical landmark and worth the short drive to go and see. 

Natural Bridge Park (https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/alabama/natural-bridge-al/) is located in Natural Bridge, Alabama is also nearby. This rock formation is the longest sandstone natural rock bridge east of the Rocky Mountains. It’s a good hike through well marked trails and there is a small gift shop that also sells refreshments.

Dismals Canyon (https://www.dismalscanyon.com/) is thirty miles from the campground near the town of Phil Campbell, Alabama. This natural formation will make you question if you are really in Alabama. The hike is a good way to spend the day in a shaded but humid natural wonder. You can also attend a night hike to see the dismalites that only reside in a few places in the world. 

The Bankhead National Forest surrounds the entire area. The forest is huge and trying to visit the area waterfalls and trails without a plan is not recommended. Take the time to study the area maps and map the accessible roads before heading out. We actually stopped by the NSFS Office to ask for information, there was also a large map of the area there you can take a picture of that will help you with your planning. 

We had a wonderful time here at Corinth, we especially liked the campground and the deer that would come out to graze every evening. This coupled with the fireflies really made this stay memorable, we’ll be back.

They have great facilities (super clean and conveniently placed). The locals are very helpful and welcoming. They were hit by a tornado a few years back and it took out a lot of trees and cleared a lot of beautiful landscape but since then they have worked hard to bring the beauty back and it's working on a huge scale! It's a wonderful place to hike the mountains and fish, bring the camper and relax, or just pack a tent and a cooler to enjoy the veiw. The lake is gorgeous and big! The best fishing I've had in Alabama is at Guntersville St. Park!

First, I’ve stayed here many times tent camping with more than one tent on one site with no issues. We took a camper this time and met up with some family who would be staying in a tent. We set up site and hung up a hammock, and within minutes, an employee came and rudely told us our set up wasn’t allowed. We had to take down our hammock (never had that happen anywhere else before), and forced us to pay an extra $75 to rent the neighboring site for our family to set up their tent for the weekend. When they came back around, they said, “You didn’t have to move your tent, you just had to rent the extra site.” It made zero sense, especially when we had noted at reservation that we’d have more than one vehicle, a tent, a camper, and 4 adults + 3 kids. Next came check out. We waited for 3 hours for our turn to use the dump site, we were all packed up and ready to go at 9:30am. To be such a large park, more than one dump site is needed. There’s also a ton of traffic going in and out, so it wasn’t super quiet or anything. We won’t be back, it’s overrated, over priced, and run by rude people.

We visited Honeycomb a few days before Thanksgiving and had a good time.

PROs: • Beautiful views from lakefront sites • not crowded, very quiet in mid-November • hard packed gravel pad was level left-to-right, no leveling blocks under tires needed • easy driving distance to lots of local activities/attractions

CONs: • only one working bathroom/shower house…could be an issue when the campground is crowded considering their are no sewage hookups on site • sites are pretty close together, not much room for outdoor family activities • WIFI (extra charge) was very inconsistent