Best Campgrounds near Harlan, IA

Essentially a parking lot with electric and water hookups, but only 9 minutes from downtown Omaha. Check-in at security window at Horseshoe. $40 weekday rate and $50 weekend rate. There’s a building that has bathrooms, showers and laundry.

Place is well maintained with plenty of hookups, a nice view to the park, picnic tables and a dump station. Price is now 25 dll per night. Besides the traffic noise because it's close to the hwy, the train passed at night like 4 or 5 times, so have that in mind if you light sleep.

I arrived February 28 to visit the casino and friends in town. I couldn’t figure out where to check in so I called the number on the website. Turns out the RV parking is closed for the winter. Oops. But the gentleman on the phone was very nice and said I could park overnight in the North Lot. It’s just a giant parking lot but it is level. I would definitely stay here again but I feel bad. There is truly nowhere near Omaha to camp in the winter.

I have stayed several times. Quiet. Nice. Close to town, stores, food. $15. Night in 2025. Fair. Good place for quiet, inexpensive nights. Quite a good deal.👍

I stayed here one night while I was traveling. It was a Saturday so the campground was kind of busy. People shouting and loud music. Lots of trucks with noisy exhausts coming and going all day. I'm sure it's more quiet during the week.

Some of the sites are well shaded, and you can access the water. It looked like people had been finding clams (they left the shells all over the picnic table). People were fishing here.

The power pedestals are far back from the parking pad for some reason. If you back all the way into your spot or if you have a long cord you should be fine. There was only a 50A outlet so I needed to use an adapter for my 30A camper.

There is one water spigot, and no dump station.

There are bathrooms, but no showers.

I had great T-mobile signal here (5G, 160 down and 20 up). And a somewhat decent 4G Verizon signal (70 down, 12 up).

The Guthrie County Historical Village& Museum is a 5 minute walk away. It's not open evenings or weekends but there is interesting stuff to walk around and see even when closed. The railroad cars are very cool.

This is a no-frills stop off on a road trip kind of place. The bathrooms were pretty gross and there are lights on all night so hopefully you have a blackout tent or good shades on your RV. It's nothing to write home about but it was quiet and I slept well. I would stay again

It’s a good place for camping not perfect. Has a descent size lake good for kayaking and fishing.

We only stayed here for the night but everything was perfectly fine. A little off I80 but not too far. Nice lake and incredible harvest moon the night we were there

This campsite seems nice, but with blaring Omaha heat and no trees, the heat here is absolutely brutal. It was mid July and still 96 degrees at 7:00pm, so I ended up leaving knowing it would be too hot for a comfortable night sleep. Beautiful view of the lake and short walk to the swimming beach.

Great spot! Easy on/off. Was $45 for overnight with amenities.

We opted for the free stay which was great. Nice, flat parking lot with other rv’s and tractor trailers off to the side.

Slept great. Used the casino bathrooms and really liked it for a free overnight. Casino is fun too!

Would def stay here again. Felt very safe and well lit. Noise was minimal and only came from the tractor trailers. If I had parked at the other end I wouldn’t have even heard it.

Got take out from Modern Love to bring back. Molo is amazing - all vegan and most GF too. Never pass through Omaha without a visit there. Great way to end the night.

This was the perfect place for us — just passing through on our way out to Wyoming. This camp ground is awesome all around — especially for tent campers. Absolutely beautiful views of the lake and so many open camp sites even on the 4th of July. I wish we could have spent more time here.

Clean and mostly well-kept campground. Much nicer than I had expected. Has on-site host, but we didn't see much of her/him/them. Had good cell service (ATT).

The only serious complaint I can make is that the water, while potable (so we were told), has a very, very strong iron/metallic taste. To the point that, for us, it was undrinkable.

The campsite we chose was level, concrete, and cost $20 (the site we wanted by the water had electric). Very little shade though, which made it really hot (other sites had more shade).

Other observations: 

The river current is quite fast here. I wouldn't plan on letting my kids or dogs get into the water, except to, maybe, wade at the boat ramp where it is protected from the current by small islands where the creek comes in.

They have a table near the boat ramp that, I assume, is for cleaning your caught fish. If it matters, it did not have running water.

The small dock from the boat access area felt unstable and one had to step across a couple of rocks to get to it from land, maybe because the river level was up(?).

Of the 4 bathroom/shower combination rooms in the bathhouse, only two were unlocked. That said, we were the only tent campers and the RV campers didn't seem to be using them. And they were clean and in good repair.

Our campsite was right next to the facility loading/unloading barges next to the campground. (They were unloading dried soybeans while we were there.) There are also security lights, but the light is mostly blocked by the trees at night. They start work at 7am and seem to stop at 4pm during the week. 

I would call this location reasonably quiet. But not absolutely quiet. There is noise from various sources at various times: the loading/unloading from the barges, the farming going on across the road from the campground, boats going up or down the river, and, minimally, the sound from the traffic on the highway. So not absolutely quiet, but it wasn't loud enough or continual enough to detract from the stay.

Lastly, it probably doesn't need to be said, but I didn't think of it before our stay (duh), so just a reminder. You're camping by a river (i.e., water), so there are many, many flying insects. Be sure to have insect repellent, as they are merciless.

Perfect place to get away for the weekend. Grounds are clean bathrooms are clean. Shout out to Dave the park ranger for being very generous. We drove from Davenport to stay here for Father’s Day weekend and we will definitely be back. You also can tent camp right next to the water as well. Love it!

There are no frills here just quiet and the essentials, elec, water and sewer for $25/night. Great communication. If you're traveling near it's an inexpensive place to get some rest.

We called the casino & they told us we could park in the lot for free. If you want electricity & ahowers, you can pay. We just needed a place to sleep as there are not a lot of campgrounds here. Highway was a bit noisy and a distant train was heard twice through the night. No one bothered us which was all we needed! Got a shower at a nearby truck stop. Big open lot with lots of space. Also had a dumpter I made use of (small bag of car trash).