Best Tent Camping near Mabelvale, AR

Definitely my favorite park in Arkansas so far. It’s a really big park at the lake with lots to do. I was there in the fall so I didn’t do any lake stuff but still had a great time tent camping. There’s a nice hiking trail to explore. Also, the bathrooms were the cleanest I’ve ever seen at a state park. All the tent sites have a gravel pad, grill, picnic table and fire ring. There are also walk in tent sites on the peninsula which are nice and quiet. If you get one at the end I’d say it’s probably 200 meters to the parking lot and bathrooms. I peeked into one of the cabins and they look really nice. They also have camper cabins that have heat/air but no bathroom. In all there are 93 RV/tent sites, 8 cabins and 4 camper cabins. The park is also near Hot Springs so there is lots to do.

We tent camped here in August, 2018 and in spite of the rain we had a beautiful experience. The tent sites are a small walk from the parking lot, and the parks provide a baggage cart on wheels to bring your stuff down. The site was on a small peninsula on the lake with trails to walk down to the lake, or even set up chairs. The staff was friendly, bathrooms clean and nice. We rented a kayak for a couple of hours and it was very peaceful (cheap too!). We hiked the 4 mile hike and misjudged our time, so hiked some in darkness, but it was a nice easy hike.

This was our family’s second camping trip in a tent and our first Fall/cold weather experience.

We arrived well after midnight and had no trouble finding our reservation and tent site. The campground is well-lit, the tent pad was level and clean, and the bathrooms were incredibly clean. It’s also very close to the national park and Bathhouse Row.

The highlight though (especially for our kids) was the staff, especially Emmitt. He showed our kids where to find quartz (our son is obsessed with finding rocks), provided great suggestions for things to do in town, and even gifted our kids a neat piece of crystal (which was probably the highlight of the trip for them!).

We are now hooker on tent camping, in large part thanks to our great experience here. We’ll be back for sure!

We stayed here only as an overnight on our trip cross-country trip, but overall nice campground. It is about 20 min off the main highway. Things close up early here and once off main highway there really is nothing as you drive to the park. Make sure you come in with all of your supplies otherwise you will be driving back out a ways for groceries, supplies, etc. Everyone there was very friendly- families, seniors, etc. We were late check-ins and they were extremely accommodating by placing our paperwork on the check-in board for us. Even in the dark our site was easy to find. They offer RV, cabin rentals, and tent sites. We tent camp and the pad was of good size with a fire ring, picnic table and pea gravel. Most all of the tent sites are located with tree shade above them (note: not enough trees that you could hang hammocks or tarps though). There is a small pond that looked as though they allow family fishing in. "Grandpa's Griddle" is a small kitchen on site that they offer home-cooked breakfast to be purchased from in the morning. Mostly simple items: biscuits & gravy, breakfast sandwiches, eggs & bacon, etc. The restrooms / showers were all very clean. We did not go in to the National Park, but it looked very pretty from what we could see. The view of the mountains in the morning was very pretty to wake up to.

Pandemic note: Even though the pandemic was still going on (visited on 5/28/20-5/29/20), no one was really wearing masks here. We did since we were traveling but were the only ones I saw.

The photos are of the pond and some of the super cute vintage RVs that we saw there.

I would recommend staying here.