Best Cabin Camping near Rainbow City, AL

Desoto State Park is a beautiful park with great hiking and waterfalls. The primitive camping area has a keyed gate. Make sure you arrive during business hours so they can get you registered and give you a key. They will also give you a big card with your last name on it that you will put on the campsite ledger board once you have driven through the primitive area and picked from available sites. This ledger board is halfway along the gravel road once you have let yourself through the gate and is also where the common area is. In the common area there are pit toilets, a large covered pavilion, rentable cabins, picnic tables and stone fire rings. Campsites are well marked, each has a trash can (not bear proof since no bears), and a stone fire ring. At registration you will also receive the gate code for the improved RV park so that you can use the showers and do laundry. When you leave you can put your gate key in a Dropbox outside the office.

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

This park has it all in terms of overnight amenities. You can stay in a motel style room, log cabins, chalets, backcountry sites, wall tents, improved campsites and primitive campsites. Whatever you're looking for, this place probably has it and all in a beautiful setting. We stayed here while visiting Little River Canyon and it was a good location for our needs.

The park also has a near little nature center with cool interpretive programs. The improved campsites have hook ups (water, sewer and electric), picnic tables, fire rings and large gravel pads with plenty of room. There are a number of wonderful hiking options here as well. It's a little pricey, especially with the convenience fee and the 13% lodging tax but you get what you pay for and this place is NICE.

Want total privacy with the every kitchen supply, shampoos, comfy beds, wood for the fire pit, coffee and plenty of amusements provided? Almost 100 perfect reviews and very reasonable prices ensure you are lucky to book this cozy tiny barn.  Great movie selection, oldie classic records for the victrola, hammock, outdoor dining furniture , rockers on a covered porch plus several trails thru the lovely 10 acres of farmland gives plenty to do. The private setting in the woods is less than a mile from a highway only 40-40 minutes to Birmingham in an area of lovely rolling hills and horse farms. Perfect safety & rest from a trip on Highway 20 or 59 with a loaded car. Kids & adults love the precious moose and bear decor. Book this if you can!

We had a two day primitive camping trip at site P109. Nicely shaded site. Water spigot between out site and P107. It had stone fire rings. No picnic grill. Only problem for me was very rocky terrain. The primitive campgrounds only have toilets, if you want a shower you will have to purchase a shower pass for improved campground bath house. Looking at surrounding sites I believe P108 and P120would have been great sites. P108 for a great sunset and P120 for a great sunrise. We stayed in Cabin 3 next two nights. Cabins 1-4 &16 are in one area and provide the best views. For a great sunset view from your patio while cooking out or just chilling, choose cabin 1. There are lots of hiking trails and 3 waterfalls in the park. There is a rich history with the Civilian Conservation Corps here and if you want to learn more there is a quest that begins at the store and takes you around the park. The CCC built the observation bunk house, the custodian cabin and garage, the water reservoir, several cabins, Cheaha lake and the bath house at the lake. All built by hand in the 1930s. An amazing place with amazing views and an amazing history.

This was our first time staying at Desoto after being here previously to hike. Desoto State Park Campground is a large campground with 94 full hookup sites, 16 primitive tent sites, and 2 primitive backcountry sites. All sites with hook ups also included cable hook ups. All the sites are gravel and most sites are wooded with lots of shade. The sites are a little sloped, so have leveling equipment ready. The sites vary from small and close together in the pull through area, to medium size with plenty of separation for some privacy. All style sites include a picnic table and fire ring. 

Check-in is at the camp store if you arrive during store hours or at the lodge if you arrive after hours. We stayed on site 15, which had a little sun in the morning and complete shade in the afternoon. This site does have a little slope in it, which was no problem for leveling our trailer, but our friends that were with us and in a tent had to deal with setting up on a little slope. 

The bathhouse is centrally located, newer, and cleaned daily. There are also laundry machines available between the men’s and women’s area.. 

Firewood, ice, limited grocery items, and lots of souvenirs were available at the camp store. There is a full grocery store less than 15 minutes away. 

We found ok to limited cell phone service with Verizon throughout the property. The state park did have wi-fi near the camp store. 

The park has lots of hiking to enjoy the outdoors, a few smaller waterfalls along some of the trails, a zipline and sky bridge course(for a fee), and a large waterfall a short 5 minute drive from the campground. The river above the large waterfall is also available for kayaking and canoeing, and a small outfitter rents boats if you need one. 

The state park is located in a very outdoorsy area with various activities to take inn. We look forward to visiting here again.

Desoto State Park is on top of Lookout Mountain about 8 miles northeast of Fort Payne, In Northeast Alabama. DeSoto Falls - also part of DeSoto State Park - is located about 7 miles north of the park near Mentone, Alabama. The Campground has 94 full-hookup tent and RV sites. Most are Back-In Sites, with a few Pull-Thru. All sites have water, & electric, and sewer. They are about 16 feet by 60 feet deep with 50/30 Amp Service, Cable TV.
There are picnic tables and Grills on each site. There are two large bathroom/shower buildings with coin-operated laundry. There is a Wi-fi hotspots at each bathhouse (wifi does not reach to every campsite) There are also Primitive Camping sites for tents as well as two back country campsites with shelters. Along with camping, Kayaking, fishing, hiking, biking, cycling, rappelling, bouldering and picnicking are popular.