Shady Grove Campground

This is a very well maintained and popular campground on Lanier. I’ve come here since I was a kid. Tent sites are down some stairs, keep that in mind.

Lots of shade. Park is open year around now. Cam book on reserve America a year out.

Tent loop has no power or electric. You can put a tent on any site. RV sites all have 20, 30 and 50 amp service. Also all have water. No sewer in the sites. Bathrooms are all well kept and clean. RV dump station available. Lots of Deer!!

One of the most gorgeous, clean, amazing campgrounds we’ve ever stayed up.

This campground is clean and well run. I enjoyed my solo trip here. Most of the spots are full so it’s not as private, but overall I would stay again. The cell service was pretty decent also.

Nice quiet camp grounds. Each camping spot has a decent amount of room including a fire pit, grill, and picnic table. Spots are slightly uneven. There is easy access to the boat ramp and lake beach. The bathrooms are clean.

This park it just beautiful. If you love large wooded spots with great lake views and lots of deer to watch....this is your park. Located in a very nice part of Georgia with so many places to go and see. Or just relax and soak up mother nature's beauty.

We have now stayed here three times. Sites are paved, some are very level. All sites have lovely picnic / sitting areas. Most have beautiful lake views or are on the lake. Clean and quiet.

We've been to this campground twice. The first time was beautiful and we wanted to come back. We have family that lives on Lake Lanier so we are in the area a lot. Our second site was not as beautiful, but still had some decent views. 

While we weren't drinking, the campsite next to us was and the ranger was pretty aggressive with them, even, seemingly, watching from the bushes. It was very creepy and seemed too much.

As the other comments say, don't expect to drink or just put it in a different container so it doesn't look like alcohol but I can't guarantee the creepy ranger won't sit in the bushes and watch you pour your drink.

We were this weekend. It was wonderful. very quiet and very friendly organizers. All clean and very wooded. The lake was breathtaking. I highly recommend

This site was a nice distance away from the RV focused campsites at the same location. Site 52 was close to site 53 and 54 and would be a good choice if you are looking to camp with multiple families over multiple sites. Many of the other sites on the tent only loop are more spread out. With that said, site 52 was still fairly private due to the grade of the land. The site itself could fit a 5-6+ person tent or two medium tents very well. The bathhouse is a small walk from most of the camp sites. We brought water with us so we did not go looking, but the bathhouse sink seemed to be the only source for water. The best part of site 52 is the nearly perfect easterly direction of the site. On a clear day you can watch the sunrise from your tent. 

This year(2021) it seems they repaved most of the roads at the campgrounds so if you are bringing bikes or scooters it will be a smooth ride around the grounds. 

Lake Lanier a popular with fisherman so there is a good bit of motor boat noise. I did not find it to be bothersome. If you are camping with kids, it can be fun watching the boats as you sit by the lake. 

If you live in the Atlanta area and looking for a quick and simple weekend camping trip this is a nice location.

We stayed at site #82 pull through. $30/night. 30' hybrid travel trailer. We will come back here again

Pros:

• easy to level trailer
• excellent lakefront view (many of the sites have lakefront views)
• private with plenty of tree cover
• quiet
• large site area
• friendly gate person
• good cell reception with t-mobile
• clean restrooms
• good water pressure

Cons:

• 30 amp issues on pole with EMS readings. 50 amp was fine
• steep hill to get to the lake

I've camped at Shady Grove multiple times and each experience has been great. I live nearby and it's a great oasis to quickly escape the rat race in metro Atlanta. 

Originally built by the US Army Corps of Engineers, it's now operated by Forsyth County Parks and Rec. They're doing a terrific job of maintaining and upgrading the campground.

Very good to excellent mobile phone reception. Supermarkets are 10-15 minutes away.

Nice campground. If you enjoy having a beer while camping don’t come here. Beautiful day, beer in a solo cup playing cards with my wife at a picnic table.  We were not making noise, nobody complained about us.  Ranger pulls up and gave us both tickets.  We had a mandatory court appearance, turns out each ticket is $280.00. No warning, I couldn’t believe what happened. Other than that, it’s a good campground. We won’t be back.

Site 74 is easy to back in and has plenty of shade in the evening. Great views.

Lake Lanier is huge with many campgrounds to choose from.  My favorite is Shady Grove.  Sites are large.  Many with nice views. Easy to manipulate around with wide roads.  Lots to do of all water sports.   Striped Bass is a favorite for anglers.

Very shaded sites with many being waterfront. We were in site 15, 14, and my parents used the Georgia glamping company in site 16. More photos and details on the link. https://imaginecamper.com/2019/05/30/shady-grove-campground/

Trip taken Labor Day 2018. Still pregnant. I can’t complain about this trip as I barely remember it! I can confirm I had good signal on my phone as basically all we did was watch football. All the sites appear to be waterfront but ours, 87, kind of wasn’t. But it was shady and pretty. I never used the bathhouse.

Very nice wooded campground on Lake Lanier, very spacious sites, many on the lake. Water and electric with a dump station. Dump station very easy to get into. Nice playground for the kids, Over the air TV worked great. Only reason for the 4 stars is our site was not level, took some work to level our rig. Also our site needed a little TLC. I did notice them updating sites. Defiantly worth a stay

Camped at Shady Grove many times. Large clean sites with power and water. No sewer but the park does have a dump station. Many water sites.

Shady Grove is a wonderful gem of a campground. It is owned and run by Forsyth County and is beautifully maintained. Living in the North Atlanta area, this became on of our easy, go-to camp sites. Over the past couple of years, the county has been upgrading the sites and they have done a wonderful job. There is no comparison between Shady Grove and the Corps of Engineers camp grounds on Lanier. Shady Grove wins every time!

There is a nice playground that is walking distance from our favorite camp sites that the kids really love.

There is a strict no alcohol policy in the campground and it is made very clear by signage in the park.

This place is nice and beautiful place, there was little to no trash floating around the sites, and it was obvious that the rangers took pride in this camp site. When I met the ranger, I soon realized that he may have been taking his job too seriously... I felt like I was at a high school party that just got busted by the cops. The ranger was telling us full grown adults that we had to throw away all of our alcohol. He demanded that we empty our wine bottle and growlers, I dont understand why we had to waste all of that money spent on alcohol, when we could have simply put it away, and drank it on a later date after we had checked out from the camp site. I honestly felt like I was a teenager again, and this cocky ranger was a wanna be cop or something. I understand some places you are not allowed to drink, and I respect that, however, I respect it by putting the corks back into my bottles, not by pouring them out onto the grass. If they asked me to pack up my booze, I might have come back to camp another time. however the way that we were treated, I will not be back. I can find a place with just as nice of a view, with less inconsiderate rangers.

We met some friends here in the late afternoon Sunday of July 4th weekend. They already had a site (#51) which was nice with a beautiful view over the lake. The site had a nice big area with fire pit, picnic table, grill and room for a big tent. It also had a paved area down below where you can set up chairs with a great view of the water. The bath house was just a walk away. It did not have a great beach area, you have to climb or jump down the embankment but it is doable, just be mindful of young ones and pets. There is a main beach area in the campgrounds down the street but we wanted privacy for our group. The water is rocky so be careful. Once in the water we had a blast, great view of the islands in the water, boaters and jet skiers going by and nobody else on our beach. The bathrooms and showers were not great but there if you need them. They definitely don't want alcohol in the park. My friends said someone came by and told them to make sure they don't have alcohol earlier that day but I never saw one park ranger the whole time we were there. The other sites were kind of close but we got lucky and they all left earlier in the day. The sunrise was beautiful over the lake, we got to see some fireworks over across the lake at lanier world.