Looking for tent camping near Colchester? Finding a place to camp in Illinois with your tent has never been easier. Whether you're looking for a quiet, dispersed site or an established camgpround with amenities, The Dyrt makes it easy to find the perfect place to pitch your tent.
$6 / night
This recreation area is part of Mississippi River - Pools 11-22
Guide
We stayed in mid-November when a lot of places are closed. They had electricity and the dump station was operating, but the water hookups were shut off and the bath house was closed for the winter. Water was available at a hydrant across from the bath house, but lacked a garden hose thread, so you could only fill water jugs. The roads are very narrow and in need of repair. Fee was $18.
Guide
Nice campground, we have camped there on several occasions. Tent, pop up, and travel trailer. Shower house is a little bit of a walk but not terrible. Bout a 3 block walk to several bars/restaurant a caseys gas station. Everyone was friendly. Would recommend.
Traveler
Stopped here overnight in late August. Only a few other campers on a Sunday so nice and quiet. Typical midwest tent camping on dirt, lots of mosquitoes, pit toilets.
Traveler
Clean bathrooms, friendly staff, nice park across street for walking dog. Very cool old metal playground equipment.
Guide
Praire Lake Campground has 3 facilities on the lake. FAMILY camp for Rv, Tentand cabins. 1. 84 sites with Electric or 19 have FHU. 2. Primitive Camp has seven three-sided shelters to camp near or in for a fee of $6 per night 3. Group camp area. A separate location has the equestrian campground, Questing Hills, with 51 electric sites.
Guide
We stayed here at the beginning of May last year. We thought it was a pretty good camp ground, but didn’t realize how different it would be the second time around a little later in the season. It was noisy and packed, tenters taking up more room than they should’ve, and no one to tell them not to. We had a camper set up close to us and taken over three sites. It was even uneven terrain than we remembered where we were set up, more dirt than grass. The bathrooms smelled heavily like urine and were not clean. When we left to dump the dump we had to switch to the other dump station because the hose threading was so bad. Even the other one wasn’t great, but we had to make it work. We will not be back, unless we try at the beginning of the season when it’s less busy and things aren’t as dirty. Even then, I don’t know if we want to battle the uneven sites.
Guide
Love to swim in the pool, play in the bags tournaments, enjoy the fundraiser in July for St. Jude Children’s Hospital, mini golf, basketball and theme weekends. My favorite is the chili cook off and Halloween weekends are a blast!!
Guide
Level grass tent sites. Shade of trees. Electric outlets at sites. Water accessible. Bath house kept very clean. Plenty of hot water for showers. Picnic table & fire ring at site. Economical. Laundry. Ice bags available. Picnic shelter with sides, 3 picnic tables, small mini fridge, electric lights & outlets, ceiling fan, portable fan, water and deep sink available for campers to use.
Guide
They are spending a lot on this campground. New restrooms, traveled all pads, trimmed trees, new playground equipment. It is a hidden gem. If you are on I 74 great place to stay. We will be back. A lot of events scheduled. Cabins being put in.
TravelerAt one time this campground was a KOA campground so if you are familiar with KOA, you know the basic layout. We stayed here in our tent and while the tent area was closed for receding new grass the owner let us stay in a grassy area under the trees near the office. It was a great stsy and the restrooms and pool were nice and clean. We enjoyed ourselves and cooled off in the hot weather.
Scout
Friendly staff. Kayak and Pontoon to rent. Trails go all over the entire park! Clean showering facilities. Our furnished cabin faced the lake it was an incredible view. We had fun fishing and sitting by the campfire in the evenings. Overall definitely worth the 5 stars!!!! Thanks Ryan and all of the staff out there! We will revisit soon.
Traveler
Nice little campground in Iowa. We stayed for three nights, there's vault toilets, and the fire rings are tiered and really nice. It's wooded and tucked away. There's a lot of nice little trails and a couple lakes. There's a $10 a night fee on the honor system so I would not consider it free. We would come back.
Guide
Pleasant campground with 2 loops. Clean bathrooms with showers. Choice of full hookup or just electric on outer perimeters of each loop. Small fishing lake. 2 campground host sites with wood and ice for sale.
TravelerWe have been here 3 Xs over the pas years as a stop over while traveling. They only have vault toilets, but clean. This time no water due to water break.issue. just a nice place on a beautiful lake. Nice for bird watching.
Guidehttps://camp.exploremoreil.com/ 84 electric RV sites all reservable except 21 First Come sites. 18 sites are full hookup. Several 50 amp sites but majority are 30 amp. Modern Shower house and 7 Vault toilet buildings. Newer Campground so Shade Trees are smaller still. Have camped here 4 times past 3 years. Like the quite agricultural Illinois environment but suggest shopping for your needs prior to leaving larger cities as most of the few small towns are limited to a Bar and Dollar store.
Guide
I stayed at the RV section right next to the rodeo arena. Full hookups for only $20 per night with a self-service registration box. I forgot to count but looked like maybe 20 spots max. I was here mid-November in town for work and there was no more than four other campers at any point. Pretty basic surroundings though. There's barrel trash cans, didn't see a dumpster. Didn't see any toilet or shower buildings. Hardly any trees near the sites. Decent playground close by though, and a heavily wooded park with trails beyond that.
Traveler
This site was so much better than what I was expecting! My friend, Kari, her 3 Doodles, my Beagle, and I camped out the first night in the group section, because there's hardly anyone there and we got there too late in the day to actually start hiking. In the morning, we loaded up our packs, put the little packs on the dogs (they have to carry their own food and water), and headed up the Red Oak Backpacking Trail. I don't know if we started at the beginning or not, but we parked by a little wooden bridge and the hill to start off our adventure kinda kicked my ass a little bit. After we made it up the initial incline, the landscape was beautiful and varied from flat areas to valleys and some creeks (which I was very thankful for after a few hours in 90° and 25 lbs on my back). We ended up setting up camp at a spot we thought was nice just before it got dark, because we didn't know where or how much further the primitive hike-in campsites were. The next day, we figured it out, but we wouldn't have made it there before dark. Towards the end, there were stairs built into the earth that were way too difficult to manage when your legs are jelly and your pack is heavy, so it was almost easier trying to take the side of the stairs and make your own little path, so just a heads up there. We had so much fun the whole time and I can't wait to go back for some snow camping later this year (they are open year round)!!!
Scout
We stayed labor day weekend. Just pulled in and gave them our $12 a night. No electricity or water in our site. Clean bathrooms. Cheap wood for fires. Really nice fire pits with attached grill. There is a lake here too. Lots of boats. We didn't fish. Beach is closed but the water looked pretty gross. We changed our minds and decided to stay an extra night because it was so peaceful!
GuideAlways a great experience at spring lake. Fishing, boat rentals, convenience store and shower house are all great. Beautiful and we’ll maintained.
ScoutNice campground with a decent sized fishing pond. Campground host is super friendly! They ran over when we pulled in and helped guide us into our site. We stayed at site 2 which is a little smaller than we would’ve liked but it is all concrete and has full hook ups. Did not do any fishing so can’t comment on that. Did go to the creamery nearby. If you stay here and don’t visit the creamery, you’re definitely missing out!
GuideDelabar is nice and quiet; I think that there were only two of us camped here on May 14. Several of the water spigots don't work. At least one of the electrical 110V hookups doesn't work. But with so few people, it wasn't a problem to find working electricity to recharge my phone. Water was annoying. More annoying was the lack of showers.
Other than that, Delabar is nice and picturesque.
GuideI tent-camped at Driftwood during a bike tour along the Mississippi River Trail. The showers and restroom were impressively clean. The hosts could not have made me feel more welcome.
GuideWe spent two nights here enjoying the beautiful panoramic view of Lake Allison. The campground is small and in a bit of a noisy part of town, but still very pleasant! There is a shooting range not far from the campground across the lake and we would hear shooting off and on. It wasn’t obnoxious, just not as peaceful as we like. There is also some traffic noise from the street near by. Our sight sat far enough away from the road so that noise didn’t bother us, but if you need full hookups and have a larger trailer, you will be closer to the road. There are two bathroom/shower houses on each side of campground. One is newer and has individual private locking shower/toilet areas. We preferred that one, but the older one was just as clean and nice. The campground staff was extremely friendly and helpful. Some of the sights at the campground could be very challenging for bigger rvs, some very uneven and small spots, but the staff are very helpful in directing you towards a good site suited for you. Overall we very much liked this campground and will be back!
GuideGood level sites with full hookups, gravel. Older facilities with new helpful managers. A number of sites had old rigs on them.
ScoutCalled to see if there was a site available for a tent late evening and left message. Received call back with in mins and a spot was available. Arrived and staff was very friendly and helpful. Set me right up next to restroom and helped me out with getting my external batteries and Bluetooth for helmet charged. I’d stay again.
GuideWe stopped here for a night on both ends of our trip to Southern Illinois. The campground was recently turned into a KOA. The new owners made significant improvements, including a brand new shower house, new playground equipment, mini golf, pool, and laundry. The grounds are lovely and well-maintained and the location is super quiet and peaceful. There was a pretty little pond and a dog run. Plenty of pull-through sites and FHU options, as well as cabin rentals. The hosts were delightful and really accommodating. Will definitely return!
Traveler
This campground use to be a great place to camp until it got new owners. They no longer offer tent camping and they completely shut it off from the public. My family has been going there for generations including having family reunions there. That place helped so many parents and kids get thru their summer breaks. Now you can't step foot on the property without having rented an rv spit.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is the most popular tent campsite near Colchester, IL?
According to TheDyrt.com, the most popular tent campground near Colchester, IL is Spring Lake Campground with a 5-star rating from 2 reviews.
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TheDyrt.com has all 7 tent camping locations near Colchester, IL, with real photos and reviews from campers.
