Best Tent Camping near New Palestine, IN

Tent Camping Reviews near New Palestine, IN

367 Reviews of 7 New Palestine Campgrounds

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  Daisy C.

  Traveler

  Jun. 5, 2020

  Yellowwood State Forest

  Quiet, Peaceful, and Primitive

  Yellowwood state forest campground does not accept reservations. It is first come, first served. Drive up, select your site, and then go to the park office to pay using a self-pay envelope. Bring exact change(cash). Current prices are listed on the Indiana DNR website. The park office does have firewood for sale, but only during open hours, which are limited. There is no camp store, no playgrounds, and no pool. Swimming is not allowed in Yellowwood lake. Each site has a fire ring with grill grate and picnic table. There are four campground loops and a horseman’s campground. Campgrounds have vault toilets and drinking water access. I do not know if water is turned on year-round. There are no modern restrooms. Sites are wooded and fairly level. All sites are primitive. We have only tent camped at Yellowwood, so I can’t say what size travel trailers would fit in the sites. Yellowwood road changes over to gravel once you enter the state forest. It is well maintained. You can also access the forest by Jackson Creek road, but you’re on gravel for longer, and I seem to remember it being a bit rougher. We have camped at Yellowwood several times between 2011-2018. The only time we have ever seen the campground busy is over big holiday weekends like Labor Day, Memorial Day, and 4th of July. Otherwise use is light. We have several times been one of two or three campers in the loop. Several trails are nearby in the state forest, including the Tecumseh Trail. Horse trails are also available. Yellowwood lake is adjacent to the campground and there is a boat ramp, but there are limitations on boating(motor size). Check with the DNR website. Camp here if you like quiet, peaceful camping. You won’t run into a bunch of loud partiers.

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  Ginger T.

  Traveler

  Jun. 28, 2019

  Oak Ridge Camping Area — Morgan-Monroe State Forest

  Quiet, just right!

  I’ve camped here several times and have always enjoyed it. When tent camping and want something quiet and a place with great trails, this is a good place to go. Even though it’s hot outside today, there’s lots of shade and a breeze. At this campground, there are two areas of pit toilets, and a big outdoor sink. Fire wood and maps can be obtained just up the road at the new Morgan Monroe headquarters. A self pay station is set up there. You select your site, set up, then go pay. Each site has a picnic table, fire ring and plenty of room for tenting with most sites big enough for a trailer. There’s a playground at the entrance of Mason Ridge campground and a fire tower.

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  Daisy C.

  Traveler

  Jun. 8, 2020

  Oak Ridge Camping Area — Morgan-Monroe State Forest

  Off the Beaten Path

  We stayed at site 13 at Morgan-Monroe State Forest, Mason Ridge Campground in June 2020. Site 13 has a little trail that goes down to a large flooded sinkhole behind the campsite. There were lots of tree frogs singing because of the proximity to water. Mason Ridge Campground has vault toilets and drinking water available. There are outdoor sinks at the drinking water stations. There is a dumpster in the campground for trash. Mason Ridge Campground is first come, first served, self-register and pay at the park office. Bring exact change. Firewood is available to purchase, but only when the park office is open, and hours are limited. It is also allowed for campers to gather downed wood throughout the forest for campfires. Chainsaws are not allowed, so bring a handsaw and spitting axe if you want to do this. Campsites are mostly good for tents, but several of the sites would be fine for small to medium sized travel trailers and RVs. Sites are primitive, with gravel parking pads. Campfire ring, grill grate, and picnic table are at all sites. There is a dump station. There are no electric sites. Oak Ridge Campground is a second campground loop in MMSF. It only has a handful of sites but feels very secluded. Most of these sites are suited for tents only, or little teardrop campers. Oak Ridge is only open as an“overflow” campground, so only bet on it being open during summer. There is also a group campground for scout troupes and other groups. When we camped here, there was a rowdy group of car campers that came to have a bonfire and drink all night two sites down from us. They would loud and obnoxious. I do not know if this type of thing is common occurrence at this property, or if we“lucked out” that night. The rest of the folks camping there were quiet. There were no hordes of flashlight children running amuck through the campground like you get at the state parks. There is a playground and fire tower right next to the Mason Ridge campground, but both were closed due to coronavirus. There are many trails in MMSF. Good hiking. 

  Pros: sinks, feeling of seclusion, quiet(other than the one group), usually availability unless you arrive really late, long hiking trails

  Cons: limited office hours for firewood purchase, obnoxious car campers

  In summary, this campground is for those who like to“rough it” a little bit.

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• 

  Michelle M.

  Traveler

  Nov. 16, 2020

  Mounds State Park Campground

  A nice park. Electric only.

  It’s a nice park for kids. Has a nice swimming pool. Easy trails. Nice playground. $5 firewood bundles. Mostly a weekender park. It is right next to a small craft airfield do it can get noisy at times and there is little wind protection.

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  jacquelyn B.

  Traveler

  May. 24, 2023

  Timberline Family Campground

  Potato Creek State Patk

  Specious sites a bit on the awkward side regarding lay-out. The vehicle separated the tent from the picnic table and fire ring. Less than ideal. I’m told that they’ve planted additional trees. They are relatively non existent at this point. Hence, a lack of privacy . Combined with awkward site layout we seemed to be right on top of our neighbors. No place to hang hammocks, tree swings or clothesline. Just sort of a open Praire. We were visiting by staff shortly after getting settled and told to put my highly trained border-jack on a leash even though she was at the time laying on my bed inside the tent which was zipped closed. The restrooms are kept up twice per day and are extremely clean and well cared for. The fishing was great! Lots of areas to explore even just to fish off shore or bridge. Everything was a good distended away from the campground so unfortunately my grandson could not bike alone to the lake to fish.

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  GP

  Guide

  Oct. 3, 2022

  Brown County-Nashville KOA

  Great forest area

  We called for reservations less than two weeks in advance, and they only had one site left. If coming from the north-west, try to arrive before dark as the road over the hills to this place is beautiful, but narrow and forested with some trees very close to the roadway. The entrance road to the campground is quite steep. We arrived after the office had closed, so they had left an envelope taped to the door with our name and a map to our site. We were in the full-hookup, back-in RV sites connected with the cabins but they are across the street so they’re not too connected if you don’t know who’s in the cabin nearest you. Most of the other rigs in this row seemed to be long-term. We were on the end opening onto trees and the gravel cul de sac. It’s beautiful.

  Pads are gravel and we did need to use several leveling blocks on our site, which made for a doosey of a bottom step into and out of our trailer. This end of the park is very quiet, with dark skies at night for stargazing and lovely field and forest sounds. Even though the office had closed a couple of hours before, the owner Bruce came by after we had set up to make sure we were in ok. Thoughtful!

  The “patio” pad for the picnic table is 12” concrete blocks. It was mostly level, but not near the edge near our tow vehicle. Tripped a few times; these blocks should be redone.

  We needed some trailer work while we were here, so asked the owner for recommendations. The manager Ed then came by after the guy had come to be sure we were pleased with the recommendation.

  Bathrooms were a short walk up the hill to the office. Pretty good, though they often needed supplies restocked.

  We would definitely stay here again. We stayed in site 9.

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• 

  Daisy C.

  Traveler

  Jun. 1, 2020

  Taylor Ridge Campground — Brown County State Park

  Popular state park campground with lots to do

  Brown County (BC) campground is very popular and frequently full in the summer. We recently stayed in spot 203 in the Taylor Ridge loop, which is an electric site. There are many sites in the area, but this site is more private than most as it backs up to the ravine. It was a large site. All sites have fire rings with grate and picnic table. Most sites have gravel driveways but some are paved. The Indiana State Parks Reserve America site indicates the driveway grade. Our site was labeled as "slight" and required just a little bit of leveling for our trailer (small teardrop). Some sites have a much more severe grade, and some trailers looked a bit precariously parked due to the grade.

  Bathrooms are so-so in the BC campgrounds. There are vault toilets and modern restrooms with showers. Showerheads could really use a descale. Water temperature was great, not too hot or too cool. The modern restrooms were cleaned once per day, pretty thoroughly. 1-ply toilet paper.

  BC has three campground areas, Buffalo Ridge, Raccoon Ridge, and Taylor Ridge. Buffalo Ridge is pretty much an open field but has the nicest restrooms. It's also right near the entrance and campstore, so it's busy with lots of comings and goings at all hours. No shade, no privacy.

  Raccoon Ridge is semi-wooded and smaller. It is a loop off of the main road so you don't get as much traffic driving by all of the time. Taylor Ridge follows a long ridge (hence the name), so sites are mostly side by side along the main road. A drawback to this is you get the main road traffic driving by most sites. A plus to this is you don't have people to all sides of you, just left and right (for most of the sites).

  There is a mountain bike trail and a hiking trail that connect right off of the Taylor Ridge campground. You can hike for miles connecting to the various Brown County trails.

  There is a pool, inn, several playgrounds, nature center, and a fire tower in the park. Many of these things were closed due to coronavirus, but will reopen at some point.

  BC has recently redone several of its accessible sites and they looked really nice.

  BC gets four stars for me because there is a lot to do in the park and the campground isn't that bad. There are much nicer campgrounds in the region, but they don't have the other recreational amenities BC has.

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• 

  Brandie B.

  Legend

  May. 6, 2020

  Thousand Trails Indian Lakes

  Large property with lots of green space

  Indian Lakes Campground is 10 minutes east of downtown Batesville, an hour to the east of Indianapolis and an hour to the west of Cincinnati. With over 1000 sites they offer a KOA section, year round leased sites, Thousand Trails sites and individual sites. We’re a married couple in our forties traveling with two dogs and a cat in our 37 foot motorhome and members of Thousand Trails. We arrived on April 3rd, the day prior to Indiana Covid-19 stay at home restrictions. The property owners were gracious enough to allow us to extend our stay beyond the normal 14 day limit for our personal safety. We were assigned a 50 amp site with water and sewer in loop 4B. This is an open loop with very few trees for shade. Immediately across from our site is a large field about the length of a football field. We can see the lake in the distance past the recreation and pool areas. During our stay we did not access the restroom, laundry, recreation or store areas as we were practicing social distancing. We plan to make many return trips to this campground in the future. Because we were the first to stay in our site since the campground closed for the winter season we had a little site maintenance/pickup to perform but nothing too out of the norm. The noise from the highway can only be heard about once a week. On weekends there’s an increase in golf-cart users and most neighbors are respectful during quiet hours.

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• A

  Arthur P.

  Guide

  Jul. 20, 2021

  White River Campground

  Quick getaway

  Nice camp ground along the white river with several sites along the waterway. Clean, well maintained, knowledgeable and friendly staff. Paved road with level concrete sites, could be a little more spacious, but all n all laid out nicely with aluminum picnic tables, and fire ring, 50 and 30 amp hook ups along with H20, and several full hook ups. Tent camping also available. Well stocked camp store. The facilities up front by the office are very clean and have showers with hot water. They could use a bench in the shower stall for your clothing and a space To get dressed discreetly. The facility at the end of the campground dosent have showers and are adequate but not quite as nice. Campground is in a good location close to many amenities

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