Best Glamping near Elizabeth, IL

Let's start with the good stuff:

• The park is beautiful. Lovely trees, lots of shade, the hiking trails are nice, well marked, and they even have an accessible trail for those with disabilities!
• There is a restaurant and gift shop on site. Gift shop sells wood if you run low or forget.
• The bathrooms and shower house are relatively clean and well kept.

Now for the not so great stuff:

• Many of the campsites are sloped and some are sloped A LOT. This isn't obvious from the booking page.

• The campground is absolutely jammed with camp sites- it's ridiculous. I've never been to a campground where the sites were so on top of one another.

• We stayed in the Sunny Crest loop and the drinking water well was broken so we had to travel to other parts of the campground for water. When carrying a 10 gallon jug full of water back, that really sucked.

• The sites that are marked as "hike in" aren't secluded and away from other sites at all, as one might expect. They are jammed in with all the others but there just isn't any parking nearby.

• It had rained the day before was went and so the road to the campgrounds was blocked off (presumably because the creek was running too high), but there was NO SIGNAGE telling us how to get there another way. There was no one in the park office or in the camping registration station to ask. We finally figured out that we had to take an emergency road/auxiliary road to get to the campground, but that was after about 30 minutes of confusion.

• The breakfast buffet at the restaurant is mid but very pricey- $50 for 2 of us.

• The quiet hours and no alcohol policy are not enforced at all. While we were there, there was a very loud group playing beer pong into the wee hours of the morning.

• About half of the fire rings don't have grill grates so bring your own or bring a camp stove (See pic). Also, when you book your site, there is no way to know if your fire ring will have a grill grate or note.

This campground is a lovely gem! Most of the camp sites are fairly secluded from one another by distance and from surrounding foliage (see pic). The exceptions would be sites 55-64 that loop around the playground. We, unfortunately, didn't know this and so had site 61. It was nice little spot with plenty of shade but I was a bit jealous of those with more secluded spots, especially since we are tent campers and all of the others on the loop were big RVs.

The pros:

- The campground hosts were lovely. Friendly but not overbearing, as some can be.

- The on site restaurant/bait shop/ boat rental was very convenient! Husband forgot to pack something and the little bait shop had what we needed. Plus, we were able to buy firewood there, too.

- Lovely scenery! The hiking trails were well maintained and there were lots of beautiful flowers, bird, and butterflies. We even saw a raccoon!

- The (and I cannot emphasize this enough) CLEANEST campground bathrooms I've ever seen! I'm not squeamish and have been camping for years so my expectations for campground bathroom cleanliness is well calibrated but these bathrooms (even the vault toilets!) were amazingly clean! There weren't even spiderwebs on the ceiling of the shower house. Just *chef's kiss*

- The water from the pump was very clean.

The cons:

-  Lack of privacy/seclusion for the 55-64 sites along the loop.

- For that same loop, since it circles the playground, if kids playing noises bother you, might want to choose a different site.

- The food at the restaurant was meh. It was fine- it was sustenance. Nothing to write home about.

- LOTS of big RVs. It wasn't an issue for us on this trip, but on other camping trips sometimes being surrounded by big RVs just isn't a great vibe.

This is the type of campground you go and check your spot out before you reserve it. Many of the tent campsites are literally on a hill. Some are very close. They really crammed them wherever they could. The amenities are excellent and the only reason I gave 3 stars, the shower/restroom was very nice and air conditioned. Potable water available. If I knew the campground was gonna be sideways I wouldn’t have reserved it, not gonna lie I was pissed when I saw it as I reserved it for 3-4 days. There’s lots of them that are on flat ground/tucked away and look excellent but it’s a gamble unless you go there beforehand to look. There’s a ford you have to cross to get to the campground but its not that bad people this isn’t Oregon Trail you won’t float away and lose an Ox and wagon wheel.

This CG is one of 6 that you have to choose from here at Scott County Park, wherein Woodside is definitely more geared for the RVs – especially the much larger ones, so if you have a very big rig, this likely is the best CG for you – with each site offering FHUs with electric, water& sewage, fire rings and picnic tables. If you wanted to tent camp here, you could, although I would recommend nearby Incahias or Sac-Fox as better for tent campers. Unlike some of the other campgrounds, Woodside is somewhat bare and desolate inside the actual campground with the land being incredibly flat, but wide open so therefore not providing much privacy or shade whatsoever. Back-in slots are spacious, hard and very level with the grounds being incredibly well-kept and impeccably clean bathroom / shower facilities with great HOT running water.

Albeit with a short hike through the forest, Woodside CG is near Cody Lake and Glynn’s Creek, which offers some decent oaring in your kayak or canoe. Sitting adjacent to Cody Lake is an eponymous community shelter than can be reserved or used on a first-come, first-served basis. There’s also a playground for the kiddos and a restroom facility that is also spartan-clean as well access to Glynn’s Creek Trailhead which is a moderate hike and further afield throughout the rest of the park, there’s no shortage of hiking / biking / horse trails. We found Woodside to be fairly quiet, although lacking in privacy without the benefit of any real brush or trees to blot out our next-door neighbors, but that said, everyone was incredibly friendly with full displays of Midwestern hospitality that this area is known for.

Scott County Park is easy to fall in love with, whether traveling solo or with a family as there is a lot that this park offers up: from fresh water catch & release lakes, combination of topographies, from woodlands, wetlands and prairie grasslands, beautiful 18-hole championship golf course, outdoor exercise areas, club house and concessions, stand-alone cabins for rent, designated dump stations and trash receptacles, numerous picnic areas, massive heated swimming pool complete with a snake-like water slide, volleyball court, ranger stations, seasonal on-site hosts, firewood available for purchase at entry stations, Walnut Grove Pioneer Village and St. Anne’s church at the park’s NW perimeter, 7 community shelters, designated picnic areas, a memorial park, equestrian area and an incredibly well-paved network of roads that allows you to easily access just about every corner of this park. Oh, and the incredibly friendly rangers that constantly patrol and keep this beautiful park in full working order were nothing short of amazing.

Happy Camping!

This was my first and probably last time camping at Cox Hollow. Let’s start with positive: easy access to the campsite I was able to park my car right by the tent. Bathrooms and showers seemed clean enough, but I would recommend wearing some sort of footwear while you shower. Now the negatives: loud and obnoxious families with screaming bratty kids, people leave food scraps so raccoons are not scared and come right up to you sniffing for food, people have zero courtesy and slam bathroom door non stop, not to mention slamming down dumpster lids literally all day and late into the evening. Oh and did I mention screaming kids? Apparently “quiet hours” are from 11pm-8am, well the noise continued almost into midnight hours and as early as 6:30am. Thumping stereos with loud music, also can’t blame dogs for barking, but we had a howler and it kept going all the time. Forget about sleeping in or enjoying the sounds of nature. I’d like try different campsite at this park, but won’t be returning to Cox Hollow.

I camped in 18 in early August. The site itself was sloped away from the road making it feel tucked into the trees. The downside was that the only flat space for the tent was very close to the fire pit. As a hammock camper, this was not a good site. The trees were far from the cleared area making a hammock hard to set up. Facilities were great and the mosquitoes we're almost non-existent. Great location for a larger group or multiple tents.

The only thing you need to be aware of: there is a train track very close. The train runs very regularly and can be loud. For me, it was the city noise I needed to fall asleep.