Best Glamping near Anita, IA

Lake Anita State Park is just a few miles off of Interstate 80. When I decided to go to Lake Anita I had very low expectations, it surprised me.

Lake Anita has boating and fishing as its main attraction. If you like birds there are bird houses built all around the park. The lake is beautiful and the campground is built all around the lake with great views.

The tent camping is placed away from the RVs/camper trailers and everything is well kept. I highly recommend Lake Anita State Park for the relaxing environment and the easy access from the interstate.

The best feature of this park, in my opinion, is the four-mile paved recreation trail that goes around the entire 171-acre lake. Good for walking, running, or biking. The lake is beautiful, and we also saw people boating, kayaking, and fishing. Although swimming is also allowed, the beach was not the best for this activity. 

The campsites are a little too close together for our liking, however, many are shaded and have a direct view of the lake. Full hookup, electrical, and primitive sites are available. We were there on a Sunday in August and the dumpster was overflowing, likely due to a large weekend crowd; I would expect that it would be emptied on Monday. 

Lake Anita is a very nice state park about an hour west of Des Moines. There are also several picnic shelters located throughout the park and a nice playground centrally located in the playground.

Pammel Park is awesome. It is actually a State Park that is managed by the local County Conservation Board. Pammel Park has amazing trails with varied terrain and nice forests.

The campgrounds are clean with options for tenters and RVs. There are even Yurt Cabins that can be rented. Pammel Park has a great water trail for Kayakers with several launch points.

The only caution I would have is pay attention while you are hiking, there are rattlesnakes in the park. Overall I highly recommend Pammel Park. It is about a 30 minute drive from Des Moines and about 5 minutes from Winterset.

I would consider Pammel Park a secret gem even for native Iowans. Checkout Pammel Park and spend some time in the historical town of Winterset.

This is the best State Park campground in SW Iowa, it has everything anyone needs...love it here and the views are beautiful!

This state park camp site close to Carroll, Iowa was nice, but we were the only tent campers there, it seemed more like a permanent RV home site. The bathrooms while nice had no working showers, they had showers but no way to turn on the water. There was a cute frisbee golf on property, a beautiful lake, and a nice paved walking path.

Don't let the name fool you, for a city park and campground, Winterset City Park rocks. You probably didn't know that Winterset, Iowa is the birthplace of John Wayne. You may have seen the Clint Eastwood movie the "Bridges of Madison County," but you probably didn't know that the bridges are real and the movie was filmed in Winterset.

The campground is clean and there is a large space for campers/RV's and a separate spot for tents towards the back of the campground toward the park. The park itself is gorgeous and your just a few blocks away from the John Wayne Museum. If you are in Winterset the second week of October, stay for the Bridge Festival, it's a blast!

The campground is a solid 3.5, clean and well maintained. When you include all of the sites it pushes it up to a 4 star campground.

This is a small little park off the highway, we had been traveling for two days and needed to stop for the night. We followed the signs that said camping and went through a quant, however pretty vacant, little town. We got to the end of the town and found a city park that allowed camping.

Pros -- it was $10 a night, that's decent! Most places are more along this drive. It also had a magnificent playground. My kids had been cooped up for two days and needed to run off some pent up energy and this was perfect. A few neighborhood kids joined them (it was smack dab in a neighborhood) and they had a blast, all while I rested from my chair at my campsite. Lots of green grass (an improvement from the desert climate we come from) and trees for shade. It had flush toilets and free showers! There was a picnic table, electricity and a grill at every site. It was a pretty restful night.

Cons -- The bathrooms were not the cleanest. The women's bathroom stalls did not function correctly, either the door wouldn't lock or it wouldn't close. There were lots of bugs, in the restroom, in the site, all over. I didn't sit at the picnic table due to the bugs all over it so I sat in my camp chair where I found relief. I'm not one that thinks there should be no bugs in nature but there just was an abundance of them everywhere. You could hear some highway traffic and a little train traffic. The town was all but closed up. There was a gas station and a bar open. The gas station attendant wasn't super friendly.

It was a great place to lay our heads for the night, play some games, run the playground but it probably wouldn't be on my list of first places to stop. Beauty of Iowa is almost every exit shows camping!u 7

Stopped here for the night over the summer. Not many people in the tent area mid-week. Bathrooms were clean, firewood for sale, picnic tables and fire rings at every site. Dog friendly!

This is a decent state park campground but is always full. It has tent sites separated from the trailer sites. There is a park and on saturdays during the summer they do Disney movies and free popcorn. The lake is good for fishing. They have a beach and volleyball. There is also a biking trail they goes around the lake. It is close to town so if you need anything that is helpful.

This campground has both RV full hookup and electric sites very close to the lake. Campsites offer a great view of lake and close access to docks. There is an adjacent area with non- electric sites that would work for tent campIng. All sites have firepots and picnic tables. The lake is great for fishing or kayaking and there is also a beach with swimming. Bring your bikes to ride on a paved trail that goes all the way around the lake. Very clean and quiet campground!

The campsites have you packed in like sardines. It would have been nice if the mowing was all the way down to the lake instead of just a patch. Too many vehicles packed in a small area. Swimming beach was under watch for Blue Algae, etc.

We absolutely loved this campground. We stayed at #70 which was a full hookup. It backed up the playground and bathrooms. Everything was in super clean and the whole campground was very well taken care of. This might be my favorite yet!

A one night stay at a beautiful park! Tent camped next to really nice college kids. The paved trail offered great views of the lake! Brought the pup and he was happy and very context. Park was very well maintained - there will be a return trip to this gem!

This is hands down one of the best campgrounds we’ve been to in the U.S. Everything is beautifully maintained from the grass covered campsites to the clean bathrooms and free showers. Full hookup and tent campsites are plentiful with or without reservations. Beautiful lake, great walking trail, close to town and I-80, but quiet and peaceful. Can’t beat it for $11 a night.

just camped here, what a nice park. Great little beach, clean water, good for kayaking. Nice paved trail around the park. Wooded, shady at tent sites, quiet and clean. Friepits with grates for cooking.

Very clean and pretty vamp site.

Nice state park with all the amenities, but, this State Park definitely needs to be updated to accommodate the bigger and wider campers. If you like to be on top of each other, this is your campground!

Overall it was a good stay. Our campsite was the smallest we have ever had. It didn’t help that our “neighbor” parked cockeyed taking up 1/2 our site and refused to fix the issue.

It was a nice park. Saturday night they played a movie in front of our site which was a nice surprise. They offered free popcorn and had a little shop to buy other things.

Our favorite place so far! What an absolutely beautiful state park. We were in a 30 ft motorhome and had a fantastic site right by the playground which was so fun for our little girls. Very clean campground with friendly folks all around. There was firewood for purchase and we had a great time. Beautiful walking trails along the lake. Breathtaking in the fall!

We lucked out and nabbed a site right on the water on a really full weekend! It was a BEAUTIFUL view. The bathrooms/shower houses were immaculate and well kept. Solid firewood, $5 for 8 pieces. It was packed but definitely didn't feel like it. We had 5 dogs in our group and spent a lot of time on the walking trails with them!

Stayed overnight at site 48 overlooking the Lake. It was so peaceful and lovely sunset just perfect. The facilities were all very clean and in excellent condition.