Best Equestrian Camping near Wilmington, DE

What a clean, quiet, well cared for campground!!  I saw some negative comments on another site and was very surprised.  The sites are sufficiently large.  Certainly one can see other campers but check the site map and you can certainly find sites more private than others.

   VERY dog friendly.  They have an off leash dog area and swimming  area.  The trails are nice, wooded, uncrowded.   Cross the street and you can access the canal trail surrounded by protected land.  Great for walking/biking combined with canal traffic watching.  We walked the dogs along trail and saw 1 other person. Another day we drove along the dirt roads along the canal and saw 2 other vehicles the whole time.

Easy to ride into Wilmington as well as very close to the Brandywine area.

Do yourself a favor and visit Hagley Museum!

I  definitely recommend this campground!

I’m sure one point in time this use to be a 4-5 star campground. It is a far stretch from that today.

PROS:

AT&T / Cricket cell service Paved loops good for bicycles

CONS:

The large pool you see in pictures, is not operating.

The kayak/canoe rentals is not operating.

It is prohibited to take a swim in the lake.

A majority of the campsites are small and stacked right on top of each-other. Ours, C15, was a rocky terrain making it difficult for our children to walk around.

Loop A has many parking pads that are on a significant sloop making it very difficult to level your camper/rv

The bathrooms don’t seem to be well maintained or cleaned.

No camp store

No place to buy firewood

THE WORST PART - The park rangers are on the boarder-line of harassment. They constantly patrol the area and seek out reasons to write tickets. We have witnessed them rummaging around peoples campsites when they were away from their sites. It doesn’t take much to do something wrong. Your vehicle tires must be on the pavement pad, they cannot be touching the grass. If your vehicle cannot fit it must go in “over flow parking” which isn’t close by. Any evidence of alcohol is surly a fine.

NEARBY ATTRACTIONS: Hopewell Furnace Historical Site Birdsboro Preserve St. Peters Classic Auto Mall Museum Ryerss Farm for aged equestrians

Lums Pond State Park is a medium sized campground 18 miles south of Wilmington, DE. As we were visiting family in Wilmington, it was important to us to find a park that was a reasonable driving distance from the city and Lums Pond is the closest state park and public campground.

We enjoyed Lums Pond for what it was- a safe and reasonably quiet place to park. The showers were decent and the cell service was good (we have Verizon). The park itself can feel a little crowded depending on what site you have- we actually enjoyed site #46, which was out in a field, over site #33, which was more on the forested side but felt a lot more crowded.

While this isn’t a place we would necessarily choose to spend our time outside of visiting family, it was very convenient and clean. The park is staffed for most of the day at the general store so questions were answered quickly.

They had an odd rule about us not being able to dump our cassette toilet in the bathroom, which we hadn’t run into before, but we were able to use the dump station- we don’t have chemicals in our toilet so this wasn’t a problem we had come across before. Site #33 also had a lot of garbage in the forest behind it, which added to the reasons why we didn’t like that site as much as #46- considering the rules that were intended to keep the park clean, it did feel like parts of the park were a little neglected despite the overall appearance of being well cared for.

All in all, we found this stay to be perfectly average and would stay again if we had to, but would also not necessarily recommend this park to friends or family unless they were visiting somebody in the area.

This PA state park felt, upon first impression, very tightly spaced and had an overall crowded feel in loop C, the only dog friendly electric loop. The sites that aren’t ADA have more space between them than we did.  Our site C41 was full hookup as are several others (1-7, 39-47). This is an ADA site, there are several of them. Perhaps this is why it’s crowded so they could fit extra ADA sites? They are very level and have paved pads, but also a paved picnic pad, and paved fire ring pad. Non ADA full hookup sites appeared to be the nicest though they were narrow and some weren’t level side to side. There were a lot of rocks embedded in the ground around and on many sites. Non ADA sites have only a paved pad for the RV. The picnic table and fire ring were behind our RV and when sitting at them, we were within view of sites 37, 39, and 40. I felt like I was in a townhouse setting. Non ADA sites varied as to where picnic and fire rings were set. Also many sites looked like there was quite a drop off at the edge of the already narrow pad so that you had a big step down off your last RV step. Site C42 is ADA and is a nice, semi private, spacious site. Though I’d choose from sites  #1-7 next time. ALL parking pads are 45’ long.

Loop B has a mix of electric and non electric but doesn’t allow pets. That loop was more spacious and had trees between some  sites so it felt  more private. The sites appeared level. There are Yurts and mini cabins outside Loop C that had lots of space around them. Loop A is a pet loop but no electric. However, it’s closed now for what appears to be renovations. Loop D is non electric, no pets.

The campground had no vacancy on this particular weekend. One car allowed per site and most had to park perpendicular. Sites were short (45’ long). 2nd cars are $5 a night but wouldn’t fit in most sites.

The day use areas have frisbee golf, boat rentals, fishing, hunting, hiking, and a pool that overlooks the lake. Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site is adjacent to the park but was not fully open due to covid. It’s a large state park. The pool was nice looking but not open until Memorial Day. Boat rentals are available weekends in May and Sept. and daily all summer. These amenities were far from the campground and would require driving your car. Hiking trails were plentiful but most were labeled as “more difficult.”  Horse back riding is allowed on some trails. I didn’t see any trails that started at the campground loops. 

Overall, it’s an adequate campground but not my favorite.

I understand why it is so difficult to get a reservation at Lums Pond.  I don't know if it's the host campers or the management, but they're definitely doing something right.  

I have to say, Jim, the host camper by us was fantastic.  As it was our first trip after a long winter, I managed to forget to put the anode back in our water heater.  I went over and sheepishly asked him if I could borrow a 1 1/2" socket.  He not only lent us a socket, but asked if I needed help, and if I had teflon tape (which I did) and was willing to lend a hand.

The site was fairly level, side-to-side, so I really only needed to level front to back.  That was a bonus.

Our daughter really enjoyed the playground (which was excellent, by my standards). The only complaint I have is that the kiddie swings seem to be modeled after the seasickness machine that they had on Mythbusters (https://archive.org/details/MythBusters..Season.3..480p576P..DVDripHDTV..X265HEVC..O69..FIXED/Mythbusters+-+S03E26+-+Seasickness+-+Kill+or+Cure.mkv).  I could only go on the swing with her for a little bit before I started to turn green.  Other than that?  She fought us about leaving the playground, and really would have been content if that was all we did.

I took her older cousins to  the fishing pier, and we didn't even get a nibble, but I think it was too cold for panfish that close to shore.

The trails were well marked, and the day we took a hike, we ended up on the equestrian trail that runs all the way around the pond.  It was a long, but easy hike.

The bath house was absolutely immaculate, and the design made even my public-bathroom-phobic sister-in-law comfortable and at ease.

All in all, it was a fantastic trip, and I hope to go back soon.