Best Campgrounds near Bowling Green, FL

Didn‘t find the Main Camping area. Parked in one of the side roads. Didn’t run into anyone eventhough permit page indicated Booked out.

We went for a day trip with my husband to see the area for the future ideas and to meet the family. It was mid-March 2025, when a famous annual auto racing event spiked the hotel prices to $400-600 per night, with $200 rooms either inferior or sold out. But your campers can be parked minutes away, with all the hook ups, at around $600 per month ( not per night :)), and at about $60 per night. 

The Joy Bamboo farm has three hook up spaces for your campers, a solid spacious "dirt road" ( very clean actually :)) leading there. You can connect your camper to water, sewage, and electricity, of course. The owners visit the site often, maintain it well, and park their own (permanent) campers there, and can advise you on the perks of the area. 

The farm delivers its promise of the most pristine fresh air while walking through the acres of bamboo plants: my breathing issues were gone during the visit and stayed away the following day as well. 

At night the air on the farm got mysteriously fragrant with flowers, though the main greens growing are bamboo and several cool fruit trees. You can chill outside at a picnic table near the bamboo, the weather mid-March (our visit of this review) is ideal, but other months are reported to be very Floridian as well. 

The quiet soft rustling of Asper bamboo on the farm is an "ear bath", cleansing for the mind, the peacefulness is serene. Just strolling through rejuvenates, the dry husk under your feet serving as mulch, the tall plants shading your head.  

The bamboo is grown for a commercial use, but the inner bushes are not sprayed, ask the owner how to get a few leaves for bamboo tea :)

Such farm is exactly what puts the goodness in the concept of "eco": it is frugal, with the luxury feelings coming from the surrounding nature. 

Multiple beautiful giant lakes nearby, one is a few minutes drive away, with swimming, fishing, pristine waters, flocks of ibises, and beach conveniences (bathrooms, equipped playground, covered patio tables and benches, mature plants give shade, a huge library, and so on). There is a shallow part where the children can play in water. Boats are offered for sale and for rent throughout the region. 

A large plaza at the center of Sebring is also a few min drive away. Try their Peru Fresh place (at the City Circle) ceviche for lunch, check out Faded (a charming restorant nested in a lush exotic garden) for a special dining experience at night. 

It is wonderful hiking the trails in the pristine parks, also a few min drive away. 

If you want to make a base in the area and explore with longer drives, Miami is 3 hours away. Also a comparable drive to Orlando Universal, to Legoland, and so on. We actually drove from Miami, there is a contrasting feel of the giant metropolitan area of Greater Miami and the tranquil Sebring spot :)

Overall, we loved it

We love this place. The long and windy ride in gives you a trip back to some real Florida. The campground is well maintained and has large, level sites. We have stayed in site 1 and 11 and didn’t need blocks for either. Easy access to Richloam for some Jeeping in the woods.

This park just reopened a couple of weeks ago from the hurricanes. They are slowly bringing the sites back up to par, but it is still an awesome place. Everything is kept up, and several short trails to see The only class 2 rapids in Florida. Pretty wild.

PROS: lots of trees and shade, near river. 

CONS: right next to a highway/ large road with TONS of traffic noise. A fair amount of trash scattered around the campground, and a portapotty right on our site. Also, although it's near Little Manatee River State Park, the trails are not accessible from the campground and you can't really walk safely along the highway/big road to get to the trailhead. 

ALSO: many people staying there seem to be long-term residents-- it doesn't really cater to vacation travelers. That's fine and everyone was friendly.

Camp spots are big, flat with gravel parking areas. Power and water an each site for RV camping. Nicer (newer) bathrooms than most FL state parks. Our van is so small in our site.

Very nice staff, the showers and toilets are simple. You hear the nearby road.

People- 5 Stars Wildlife Viewing- 5 Stars Moise- Negative 10. On the weekends, the airport noise is painfully deafening and hurts your ear drums even with ear pods. Wish it could be better, but with the headaches and pain in my ears and lack of sleep here make it a no go ever!

Nice level spots. Lots to around the state park.

I stayed with 3 adults and 3 children under the age of 8. We stayed two night in 40 degree weather. This is a great place for families wanting to start out primitive camping! 

Super clean campsites and great easy trail out to the site. Very safe area. The rangers made sure there was plenty of fire wood in the wooden hut. There are trash cans at every site and campsite 1, 3 and 4 have hammock poles able to fit 3 hammocks at a time. The bathroom is a short hike with a water spout. 

Only downfall is that there is a lot of road noise throughout the entire night. Definitely took away from the “nature” experience. 

Such a great time! Highly recommend.

The campgrounds were nice but all campsites were too close to each other. The restrooms were not super neat but not terrible. The walking trails at this park were all quite small and friendly for all. We had a bear visit the garbage bin during the night, so you’ll have to pay attention to storing your food during the night.

Checked in to site 36 and discovered some very comfortable folks letting their gear go over multiple spots. They weren't happy we had actually showed up and "took their extra parking spot", so they parked blocking the road. No privacy, no barriers between spots. No wifi, no AT&T. Literally 3 yards away from their open fire, which also isn't legal in these dry conditions. When I asked for help with the site, I was told I was lucky to even have one at all. Ok......

Excited to spend a few nights in some peace and quiet and was pleasantly surprised how close to Tampa this was. All to be extremely disappointed in the fact site is literally 50 feet from an active train track with trains sounding the horn all night long. Besides the road noise felt like we were next to a freeway. Not peaceful at all. 

Great campground for any type of camping. All sites at Palmetto Ridge are full hookup and many sites are pull through. ATT WiFi is fast enough to stream YouTube and YouTube TV via my Apple TV box tethered to my iPhone.