Thomas Mitchell County Park

Great little spot with lots of hiking trails. Bathrooms are clean and guests are quiet. Don’t miss grave from 1869 at top of hill on trail. Beautiful place. Wish I lived closer.

This is a sweet well-maintained campground just south of Mitchellville, Iowa off of 80. Not many sites and only a handful were occupied mid week in July. There is a little stream running along the edge of the campground. There is one bathroom building with 6 separate rooms - each with a toilet, sink and shower with warm water. Plenty of drinking water at centralized locations. There is shade at most sites when you first enter the campground and in the loop. Along the edges (inc the stream) shade is more variable. The only issue we had was a bright light that was on all night near the end of the loop. We were in site 5 and had to move our truck so it didn’t shine in all night.

Came in late, even though there were several empty spaces turns out they were reserved. Very nice camp host told us we could have a non-electric site, none of them were reserved. Bathroom/showers were clean.

Spent 2 nights tent camping here. We stayed at site 4, glad I read reviews on here. I personally would not want to be in a site beyond number 7 as it gets too close to the dump station and subsequent “sewage lagoon”

Shower house was clean, pretty quiet, and only 5 miles off the highway

I have created a space in my minivan so I'm a vamping and I have reserved the same spot for one weekend a month for the next 8 months and I am so excited to have a place to come and relax while decompressing from My crazy Life.

Thomas Mitchell park is located outside of Altoona Iowa on 197 acres. There are electric and non electric sites available. The outer loop has a creek that flows behind the sites with large stairs to get down to it. Kids were having a blast in the water. Some sites are reservable and some walk up. There is a fishing lake,playground,sand volleyball, and hiking. The main hiking trails are wide with smaller ones shooting off the sides. There is also a group site that you can hike to on the Devote trail. The camp hosts are helpful and offer firewood,which they bring to your site, on Wednesday-Sunday. It is very peaceful but we also camp Sun-We’d when there isn’t a ton of people. We will definitely camp here again.

Nice little county park just east of Des Moines with fairly easy access to I-80. Several other campers in the tent area, but very courteous and quiet. And no music! We arrived late and found a spot. LOTS of bugs and very loud peepers at dusk in the frog pond near the entrance, but they quieted down, and our bug screens worked like a charm (we sleep in our Outback on quick turnaround nights). In the morning light we did notice that we were right next to the “sewage lagoon” by the RV dump spot. We were upwind , so it wasn’t too bad. Would recommend avoiding sites 18 and 19. Overall a nice place for a quick overnight. Clean and well groomed.

Tons of open areas, lots of small trails and fast fill up camping. Ill always return here!

This place has a lot to offer and the hosts are great.  Our favorite time is in the Fall.

Great place to go tent camping, very clean and quiet. They sell firewood bundles for $5. Easy trails for the kids to go hiking and playing in the creek to cool off in the heat. There is even a pond for fishing that you can take a trail from the campsite to. 100% going to go back and camp again.

Campground is very green and shady. Many sites are creekside. Park has large playground area, hiking trails, fishing pond. Mosquitoes can get pretty bad, also poison ivy if you get into the thickets.

Perfect weather last weekend and loved the little creek to splash around in with the dogs. Loads of rock stairways to enter and edit the creek throughout the park. Also has a fishing pond however we didn't pack our poles.