Best RV Parks & Resorts near Carlinville, IL

I wanted to escape the house and go camping while on the work from home order (Covid-19 happening at the time of this review), so I headed to a very local park and campground to pitch my tent. I've been to 370 Lakeside Park many times to walk around the huge lake and to hear concerts in the summer, but I had never camped there. Still haven't. I'll explain. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, they were not so keen on having tent campers. But they were very nice and gave me the general lowdown on this "in the city" campground. Since they opened the campground, most of their campers have been RV owners, and so it is really designed for the RV camper. There is a small primitive section for group tent camping, but the majority of the sites are full hookups for RVs. Some sites are pull through and some are back in. All have picnic tables and fire pits. The park has planted some trees, but they are really just saplings, so there is no shade yet. There is a nice bathhouse with free showers for the campers and pay laundry. If you are lucky, you can get a site close to the water, but it means the walking trail is right next to your unit. Trade offs, I suppose. One couple I talked to was camping long term (I think they are permanent RV'ers) and they got a free membership to the St Peter's RecPlex recreation center with their long term spot (they said something about having to book a least a month out to get this perk). One of the downsides to this location is that it is prone to flooding. It was out of commission for most of the summer of 2019 as the entire area was flooded. But the City of St Peters did a great job getting this place back to usable with new sod, a new bathhouse, and some general sprucing up. The lake is great to walk around, about a 3 mile walk or bike on a paved trail. You can see all kinds of wildlife in and around the lake- deer, bald eagles, pelicans, ducks, snakes. In the summers they have live music in the large pavilion, and you can rent kayaks and other small boats to take out on the lake as well as bikes to ride around on. The office told me that they have 24 hour on site security also. If I really wanted to tent camp, I could rent a section of the group camping area, but $30 seemed pricey for just me, and it was very soggy to boot. Or I  could rent an RV spot, but $45 was silly when I don' t need hookups.

This park has great hiking for Illinois. The campground has 88 sites total1-85 are either 30 amp or 50 amp electric sites. These are the class A sites $20 a night, they also have about 15 Class C sites for tents with no electric for $8 a night. The campground is doing some upgrades as of October 2017 and probably will be adding more 50 amp, water and sewer to some sites. There is also intel that says they are adding more sites plus more tent camping sites.

I camped in a motorhome and did not try to fight the crowd for the shower house. It is a busy campground, but I did visit in the summer busy season, so it may have less traffic in the fall. There are great hiking trails and the scenic drive to the park by the Mississippi and Illinois rivers is worth the trip alone.

I will return here for hiking for sure! I had some good luck fishing in the river near here too.

Big things happening at Country Bend Campgrounds in Montrgromy Co, IL. This beautiful campground has many things to offer and is only a few minutes from the local drive in movie theater in Litchfield Illinois. It has a pool, swing sets, playground, cabins, ponds with stocked fish, beautiful walking trails, camping, welcome center, baseball field, volleyball, games, horseshoes, paddle boats, miniature golf, and so much more. This family run business is under new management and is welcoming new seasonal campers and day campers with competitive pricing. This beautiful campground is nestled in a scenic area in the country and is pet friendly. It has clean shower houses with warm water. We just purchased our seasonal campsite earlier in the season. Come check out this amazing campground and all it has to offer! Our rough collies will be joining us at this dog friendly campground! There is always something to do here and the owners strive to make it a family place by providing many activities on the weekends. The owners have done an amazing job on this campground and have made it one of the best campgrounds around to create that lasting experience with our children before they grow up!!!

 Our motorhome is a big rig a 42 foot diesel pusher.. They squeezed site was 7 ft wide with little gravel mostly wet grass and mud.Our 40000 lb RV was 8 1/2"ft wide. We were put in a spot by Country Bend Campground not large enough for our vehicle. Not much gravel all mud. Due to a huge tree no satellite service yet the owners stated was good for our 42 ft diesel pusher motorhome and no obstacles.We were sandwiched between two living full time people right next to us. We waited 3 hours to come in since they charge$5 an hour extra for early arrival. GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE!!$$$$ is their goal. They want you to rent their golf carts because everything is so spread out. We have been full timing for two years. This is the worst experience we ever had. No water hookup. We called Kate Tuxhorn the owner and she said sorry i forgot to tell you that you have to tap in your neighbors water. Her husband Jeff Tuxhorn has many bad reviews too.Leaving we hit that huge tree that we had no way to turn. Thousands of$ damage.

Beautiful place! We called ahead to see if they had sites available for the next two nights. Arrived just before the office closed at 5:45pm. The campground area past the office is electronically gated and registrants receive a scannable card for entry. Once we had scanned and entered through the gate they escorted us to our pull-through full-hookups site. The campsites are nice and wide, gravel like the roads, with wide grassy areas between and beautiful mature shade trees everywhere. Our site had a picnic table and a small fire ring. Full hookups worked fine.

The campground is next to a large corn field that has recently been cut; I suspect during the growing/harvest season there may be dust and noise from equipment, and perhaps overspray from any chemicals that are dusted on it. This time of year it was nice and quiet. The noise from the highway bordering both cornfield and campground, however, was loud and constant.

Bathrooms were clean and aerated by large fans which were loud but effective.

We would definitely stay here again.