Best Dog-Friendly Camping near Gadsden, AL

This park is located on the highest point in Alabama. It has a great camp store with most basic groceries, hotel, cabins/chalets, group lodge, restaurant with gorgeous views, pool, 6 acre lake ALONG with great hiking trails. There is also a dog park and in general this is a very pet friendly 🐶state park. (Bring the groceries you need- closest grocery store is a 20-30 min drive)and know that the restaurant is decent but it may have varying hours during off seasons.) . 🚍⛺️campground- there are two campgrounds with full hookups. The Upper campground at the top is the mountain near all the major trailheads, restaurant, camp store and pool. The Lower Campground at the bottom of the mountain is near the small lake with swimming area and walking trail around the lake. We stayed at the Upper and in February we had the whole campground to ourselves most of our 2 week stay. All the sites are updated and have water, 30/50 amp electric, sewer, picnic table and fire ring or grill. Bathrooms at upper level can be an uphill or downhill walk. *💲this state park has a $4.75 reservation fee and a 3.75% daily “resort fee” on your base campsite rate. Both of those are not deal breakers but good to know. (Especially since the pool is only open for a limited time)

🏡 there are chalets and cabins. I felt the cabins had the better views than the chalet and more private but these are smaller and more rustic. When you are making reservations for a cabin or chalet be sure to check the occupancy rate for the cabin you choose- some are limited to 2 people and look👀 at the amenities of each cabin/chalet- some are quite rustic but descriptions are given. Good news is that they do have pet friendly cabins.

🏕there are semi/primitive and backcountry style sites. ✏️Note that the semi primitive camp sites (the ones on Tower Road) don’t have a shower house for you to use- there is a bathroom available. If you plan to hike a lot and don’t want to drive your car- try to get sites on the upper part of park. (My personal pet peeve is driving daily to a trailhead when I am camping)

📌There is also a hotel with motel like rooms (near the pool and restaurant) and you can even rent an entire lodge for groups that was very attractive from the outside (this was located at top of mountain near the overlook trail-not really walking distance to pool and restaurant)

🥾hiking - 10.5 miles of hiking in the boundaries of the park with connectors to the Pinhoti. The hiking trails had spectacular views on both sides of the mountain. Hiking poles were helpful! While the .3 mile wooden boardwalk to Bald Rock is stroller and mobility challenged friendly, most of the other hikes were moderate to strenuous for the average person. For example- There is a one mile trail straight down the mountain to the lake and lower campground. That said, we loved the hiking here. Next time we plan to bring our larger back packs and do an overnight on a section of the Pinhoti. Did I mention how awesome the views were hiking?

🚵 mountain biking- there are 5 trails that are multi use... and hikers must yield to bikers on these. While we were here there was a mountain biking race. 🚴‍♀️road biking- the roads in the park had some incline...but I was glad to have my bike to roam the upper part park where we camped. (We don’t bring a tow vehicle) My husband biked outside of the park and you can decide for yourself if you would have fun road biking here after you drive UP the mountain roads to the Visitor Center. *It is 3 miles from the visitor center/park entrance to the lower campground/lake area via non park roads. 🛶- we didn’t paddle here, it was not near our campground and it is only a 6 acre lake/pond. There is a swimming/wading.

Happy Camping! Pamela and Keith

Visited Lake Guntersville State Park, for the day. After taking our granddaughter to Screaming Eagle Zip-line Adventures, located at the gorgeous Lodge, we visited the Campground…and it’s amazing! At the office, we were helped by Rocky, who was friendly and knowledgeable! We received CG info and a map, as well as rates. We are already planning our next trip to visit! The general store was stocked with necessities, as well as souvenirs. Of course we had to get some ice cream! There are several types of sites, monthly, cabins and tent camping. There are boat slips (local rentals) and a Pavilion on the water, basketball and tennis courts, playground, shady dog park, splash pad, and clean bathhouses. Firewood and ice can be purchased at the store. There are also many trails to hike and bike . It is easy to see that this SP is well maintained! The SP Lodge is worth visiting, which has a nice restaurant. LGSP has a golf course, and the quaint town is close by and has shopping and several restaurants.

Stayed at site 13, level gravel sites with picnic table on concrete pad, fire ring, FHU. Extended stays at the back of park and closer to hwy 20. There is a nice dog park, playground, covered pavilion, laundry room, dated bathroom, but clean. Shirley reserved our spot, and helped us pull through,and hook up, with our new RV! There is a little path/bridge, so We walked over to Camping World to get our bigger RV. The next morning, we had a few questions, so the Camping World service employee, came over (on a golf cart)to answer them. We decided to stay another night, and it was easy enough for Shirley to extend our reservation. If we were in the area again we would go back. There is a lot to do in the area….Talladega National Forest, Talladega SuperSpeedway and Cheaha State Park.T-Mobile was good, and paid about $30 night with Good Sam Discount. This Campground is also known as CWGS Campground of Oxford.