Looking for the best Gillham pet-friendly camping? Finding a place to camp in Arkansas with your dog is easier than ever. Each pet-friendly spot offers quick access to one or more of Gillham's most popular destinations.
Beavers Bend State Park is located in the mountainous region of southeast Oklahoma along the shores of Broken Bow Lake and the Mountain Fork River. Guests traveling down the winding roads through the forests of pine and hardwood trees will find adventure, beautiful scenery and plenty of activities inside this state park. The scenic beauty of Beavers Bend State Park makes it one of Oklahoma's most popular areas.
Towering timbers, crystal clear waters and rugged terrain make this state park an outdoor lover's paradise. Visitors to Beavers Bend State Park will enjoy hiking, biking, boating, fishing, water skiing, nature center activities, river float trips, canoeing, horseback riding and much more. Trout streams are stocked year-round and the park features two catch-and-release trophy areas. Escape into the serenity of nature and follow the Mountain Fork River as it flows from the base of Broken Bow Lake through the park below. This area provides visitors with spectacular views, as well as excellent canoeing and fishing opportunities.
Nestled among the trees and alongside the Mountain Fork River are rustic and modern cabins, RV sites and tent campsites, as well as two group camps. This 3,482-acre park offers 47 cabins with kitchenettes, plus 393 campsites and over 50 tent sites spread over eight camping areas. All RV and tent sites are available for online reservations. Waste dump stations are available. Leashed pets are welcome in the park and there are cabins with one and two bedrooms that allow pets for a small nightly fee.
Beavers Bend State Park also offers the Beavers Bend Lodge, situated along the shores of Broken Bow Lake. Every room within the lodge features amazing views of the water. The lodge offers four suites, a great room with a stone fireplace and a conference room. Guests at the lodge are served free continental breakfast in the great room each morning. The lodge can be contacted at the phone number above, by calling toll-free at 800-435-5514, via fax at 580-494-6177 or through email at lview@travelok.com.
$20 - $40 / night
Located in a scenic setting in the beautiful Ouachita Mountains, Lake Greeson and the Little Missouri River create a destination for outdoor recreation. Situated on Lake Greeson, Daisy State Park is a popular place for fishing and kayaking with rentals available. Lake tours offer views of magnificent rock formations that you may not otherwise see. The Little Missouri River also offers impressive fishing for trout and excellent floating in the spring. Other activities include ATV riding on the Bear Cycle Trail. Daisy is near Crater of Diamonds State Park which makes a great day trip from your campsite. There are three YURTs, 100 campsites (26 Class A, 56 Class B, and 18 tent sites), picnic areas, a pavilion, launch ramps, and a playground.
$15 - $50 / night
Scenic 25-acre lake in remote mountain setting.The Civilian Conservation Corps developed the Shady Lake Recreation Area in 1937. The Shady Lake Trail traverses Saline Creek and passes the historic Shady Lake Dam. It continues along the eastern edge of the campground. The trail is ideal for day hiking. Mountain bikers may also use the trail. Individual campsite temporary closings: For your safety, the following campsites are closed while being evaluated for risk of flooding: B12, B14, B18, B20, B21, C1, C2, C3, C4, D4, D6, D8, D10
$23 / night
This recreation area is part of Broken Bow Lake
Little Coon Creek Campground is located on Gillham Lake in southwestern Arkansas on the Cossatot River. The rugged terrain around the lake creates stunning views and provides for many opportunities for boating, fishing, hunting, and swimming.
Visitors enjoy the lake for its vast boating opportunities, and a boat ramp is provided for easy water access. Anglers will find smallmouth, largemouth, and spotted bass, saugeye, crappie, channel and flathead catfish and various species of sunfish in the river. Fly fishing is also a popular pastime. Hunting is allowed north of Little Coon Creek Park and on the eastern shore of the lake. Check with the Arkansas Game and Fish for Season Dates and Regulations. Lake maps are also available from any Park Attendant at the lake.
Visitors enjoy the lake for its vast boating opportunities, and a boat ramp is provided for easy water access. Anglers will find smallmouth, largemouth, and spotted bass, saugeye, crappie, channel and flathead catfish and various species of sunfish in the river. Fly fishing is also a popular pastime. Hunting is allowed north of Little Coon Creek Park and on the eastern shore of the lake. Check with the Arkansas Game and Fish for Season Dates and Regulations. Lake maps are also available from any Park Attendant at the lake.
Gillham Lake spans 1,370 surface acres and boasts 36 miles of shoreline. The Dam was completed in 1975 and stems from the Cossatot River, which has been designated as a National Wild and Scenic River.
The Cossatot River State Park-Natural Area and the Queen Wilhelmina State Park are both within driving distance just north of Gillham Lake. Both of these attractions offer great scenery, hiking, and interpretive programs that are fun for all ages.
$30 / night
$25 / night
We stayed at AD10. It was a back in spot with an extremely high break over angle. The spot itself was fairly level but getting in and out is a pain. I recommend AD12 which is almost a direct back in from the road. The campground itself is very nice, but it is very winding with all the trees and spots slotted together. If you get a spot in the front near the road, there is a lot of through traffic for people going to or leaving the lakeside. The back of the campground was much quieter near the pull through sites. The dump site was directly across the street from the campground but you have to go down the road and either make a tight left turn or go further down and turn around. Bathrooms were not too far away, they were private, clean and AC. Not a lot of street lights throughout the campground made things nice and quiet at night. The site had okay Verizon cell service, around 10-20 mbps. The T-mobile service was much better around 50-60 mbps. Lots of activities to do around the park, there is the lake, plenty of hiking trails. The parking pass situation can get a little confusing at other areas of the park, but basically if you register your vehicle plate when you make the reservation, you are all set for your stay. It's a quick drive to Hochatown where there are things to do but depending on when you go it can be extremely busy. Broken Bow itself was about a 30 minute drive depending on traffic and there were more things to do, eat, and see. The traffic going back and forth between Hochatown and Broken Bow is quite busy and almost makes you not want to go anywhere. It causes a pain point when trying to get from the Stephens Gap area of the park to the main area of Beavers Bend, where you have to leave, hit 3 lights, wait 30 minutes, just to go 5 miles.Overall it’s a good campground but I might recommend staying at the other area of the park just for convenience sake, getting in and getting out.
I keep coming back here to dig for diamonds. There are cheaper campgrounds in the area, but the State Park grounds are top notch. Very level camper pads, stable power and water and everything is well maintained. There are multiple bath “houses” — single shower room style privacy, not a large room with curtains. A playground in the sites for kids to play on also.
The only downsides that come to mind are the iffy WiFi (the reservation system is pretty accurate on which sites have “good” WiFi and which do not) that is decent for casual web browsing but not likely to be streaming possible. And then a mixed pro/com is that satellite connections (direct or Starlink) is going to be rough due to the wooded aspect of the sites — although the trees do help keep the camper cooler. 🤷🏻♂️
Right off of Forest road51220, large area to park and camp all by yourself. stream is 40 feet away with a swimming hole. Very private
This is a quiet campground with plenty of shaded and nearly perfectly level pull ins. Power is consistent. Water pressure fluctuates from good to high — regulator necessary. Wifi is spotty, but the reservation center is pretty accurate on strength of WiFi at various sites. The site we are in right now, WiFi is sketchy.
In cool weather, a walk to the diamond field would be fine. In hot weather, no way.
Stopped in for a couple of nights. Power and water with a great view of the lake. Staff were wonderful and helpful. Would stay again if ever in the area.
With so many trails that you can access just by walking out of the camp site. This is my favorite spot to camp in Oklahoma
Had a very relaxing time with the family here. The campsite is very clean and the lake is beautiful. All of the staff are great!! Only negative thing was the bathrooms. Heater looked to be on and it was pretty hot inside.
We drove slowly back and forth along the road exactly where the coordinates lead us to but there is no vehicle access to the forest there. It’s completely overgrown
The river and creek merging was so beautiful! It was a beautiful drive there. But whoever was there before me trashed it out. It’s sad.
This was on my wifes bucket list, didnt find any diamonds, got dirty but had fun and got dirty. Sites and bath house were nice , full hook ups
Beautiful and lush and QUIET. I love it. Asphalt and gravel sites. Clean bathrooms. Water and electric only. Gorgeous 3 mile hike around the lake. I hear it’s a fishing lake but we don’t fish. Enjoyed the scenery and peace. Would come again and again. Don’t forget the ice, there’s nothing close. Site 33 looks to be my fav.
This camp is ideally located in the Crater of Diamonds State Park with easy access to the Visitors Center by foot or car. The campsites are well maintained and adequately situated to afford some privacy. There are 6 individual bathrooms with toilet, sink and shower, in the bathouse nearest to us that are modern and clean. The shower was "almost" hot.
The only negative is that the adjacent site's fire ring is too close to our back window and the smoke from a fire could enter our window.
This is our second stay at this park and we would definitely return.
We stayed in Daisy for the Eclipse weekend and expected this place to be crawling with people, so we were so happy to see it was still amazingly clean and quiet. We stayed in walk-in site #67, which was at the very end of the paved path from the parking lot. The site had a very level and massive gravel tent pad, as well as firepit, picnic table and lantern post. The hill in/out is quite steep, but the pavement makes it easy to haul with wagon, and I've rarely seen multiple water spigots in a walk-in area like that. Our neighbors were a little closer than we're used to for walk-ins, but we had glorious views of the lake and very little traffic walking past our site, which is a blessing when you have two somewhat barky dogs. The camp store sold firewood, ice and souvenirs and they were super-friendly, and one of the rangers even helped load the firewood in the car for me. My only complaint is that there's only one hiking trail in the park, and it's just a very short nature trail and doesn't really give you a good view of the lake or anything. However, there were many beautiful trails to be had within a 30-40 minute drive of the park.
We went for the 4/8/24 eclipse and really liked this campground. $20 for water, electricity and trash can at every site. According to neighbor, this is usually low use, but it was fully booked for the eclipse. The only downsides were flies and small bathrooms. (2 stalls) But running water and a small shower.
This campground was fantastic! I jumped on it, it was the last campground with availability in the Path of Totality for the Solar Eclipse. Sites are at perfect price points, you can get water/50a sites for $25/night, pretty darn good. Would stay again
The River front sites are the best with FHU's. Taking advantage of the river is the most popular thing to do. There is a golf course nearby too. On site museum at the park visitor's center. I enjoyed the Beaver Creek hike. My biggest complaint would be they put the campsites directly on the river, so if you want to walk along the river, you feel like your in someone's site.
As of 2023 this campground is under new management.
I have a CDL and back stuff all day. Don't try to pull in. Back in off the Buck Mountain
I did not stay at this campground (I was driving the scenic byway), but I stopped for "scouting purposes". It seems very nice, the vault toilet was locked? But otherwise, a well kept dry campground with many sites and good views. Also, the pricing on here is incorrect; USFS website says $8/night for singles, $14/night for doubles (can't beat those prices honestly). Will stay if I pass this way again!
Good secluded spot for Privacy
We only stayed one night enroute home to NW Arkansas. We had stayed at one of the sites on the river side of the park, but this was our first on the lake side.
We had a pull-though site with full hookups. As we were only one of three campers, the campground was very quiet. The pull-through sites are fairly close together and I wonder how noisy they would be during peak season.
The facilities were nice, but no hot water in the showers...brisk!!
Lots of deer (friendly...I would guess the guests feed them). We would stay here again as a short term solution...probably not a long-term option for us.
We loved this park. It was beautiful, but the signs were a bit confusing and we came in the dark so we parked where we thought our spot was. Well, it wasn’t our spot and we had to move at 8:30 at night. There’s also no service (at least for T-Mobile). Loved the trails and the restaurant.
Could not find. find. The grid cordinates lead to someones private cabin. Tucked in middles of residential cabin colmunity. It is national forest borders but private lots.
This park is awesome for multiple reasons. The lodge is fantastic, great food and great views with a friendly welcoming staff. The views (worthy of mention again) are top notch, with some incredible sunsets. The mini train and mini golf were closed for the season but it looked like a great time. The bath house was clean, warm (it was cold AF outside), and had great water pressure. The town of Mena was a short scenic drive away, with a brewery and a couple restaurants worth checking out.
Now, the reason for the downgrade to 4 stars. The campsite layout is…weird. It’s like most of the sites were designed for a motorcoach to drive into, not for a travel trailer to back into. For example most of the camp amenities are on the utility side of the trailer when backed in, as opposed to the party side. Some of the sites are reeeeeally close together, as others have mentioned. I might even go so far as to say that if we would have kept our original site it might have garnered a 3 star review. The back rows have the amenities on the rear of the rv, which I actually kinda liked. Yes there is no sewer…but it’s a state park that’s expected.
I have a 30ft Class C which is probably the largest vehicle you would want to drive down the dirt road to this site. There is a clearing near the Ouachita Trail with a fire pit and plenty of space to park. You're in the middle of nowhere and it's gorgeous!
No water or electric, but for boondockers or self contained rv camping, it’s great. Only downside for me was zero T-Mobile service.
We camped at Fern Circle. It was a lot people going to the bathrooms. Too touristy they also need to be educated about copperheads in the area . Watched a lot of people walk there in the dark without lights with their kids. Found a copperhead near campsite 12 A lady almost stepped on it and didn’t know what that it was poisonous or a copperhead. Other than that we had fun!
Camping near Gillham, Arkansas, offers a mix of beautiful scenery and outdoor activities. Whether you're looking for a peaceful getaway or an adventure-filled trip, there are plenty of campgrounds to choose from.
Camping near Gillham, Arkansas, has something for everyone, from families to RV enthusiasts. Just remember to check the specifics of each campground to ensure a smooth and enjoyable experience!
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is the most popular dog-friendly campsite near Gillham, AR?
According to TheDyrt.com, the most popular dog-friendly campground near Gillham, AR is Beavers Bend State Park Campground with a 4.5-star rating from 55 reviews.
What is the best site to find dog-friendly camping near Gillham, AR?
TheDyrt.com has all 99 dog-friendly camping locations near Gillham, AR, with real photos and reviews from campers.
