Best Glamping near Oelwein, IA

Nice quiet little primitive campground next to the Wapsipinicon River. Unfortunately, when I was there the last weekend of May, the gnats were bad, and the mosquitoes were just starting to gear up. HOWEVER, take bug spray and enjoy the rustic peacefulness of this "best kept secret" for primitive and inexpensive camping sites. Beautiful location, ranger close by, wood for sale just across the bridge, fire pits and picnic tables at every site. Good for RV, trailer or tent camping… level ground and lots of shade. Primitive bathrooms, no showers or running water.

Why Should You Camp Here?

• Iowa state parks are a bargain! This one is $11 for a non-electric site, $16 for an electric site. (Rates go down to $6 and $11 from 10/1-4/30.) There is no separate park entry fee (unlike some states).

• You can rent kayaks, canoes or pedal boats near the campground at Wyth Lake. And there are 3 other nearby lakes.

• There's a small beach at Wyth Lake.

• The Cedar River is on the edge of the campground.

• You're so close to Cedar Falls and Waterloo which means there are craft breweries!

• We were only there for a night but I saw this on reserveamerica.com: "The Lake-to-State Park Bike Route is a 50 mile route connecting Pine Lake and George Wyth State Park. The route primarily utilizes county highways and established bike routes and paths once inside Cedar Falls/Waterloo." 

• We didn't do everything we could do there, because we were just passing through. Check this out: https://iowastateparks.reserveamerica.com/camping/george-wyth-state-park/r/campgroundDetails.do?contractCode=IA&parkId=610125

Amenities

• The usual fire ring and picnic table

• Dump station and potable water

• Flush toilets and running water in bathrooms along with push button showers. Ok, push button showers are not ideal. Just keep pushing that button and hopefully you'll be okay with the temperature that you can't control!

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.

This park fell short in so many ways. Having stayed in other Yogi Bear's we were expecting similar accommodations. I will say they had a lot of rain and it did affect most of the campground. We booked over the phone for two nights. It was nearly $90 for those two nights. This is pretty spendy for us but we were meeting friends there. We arrived at the campground and were given site 14. It as across from our friends cabin so it should have been good. However, we got to our site on a very poorly maintained road only to find the site did not have a fire pit or a picnic table. It was extremely tiny, barely big enough for our truck and definitely not enough room for our two tents. The site was covered in sticks and debris and there was trash bags in front of the cabin across the washed out road. We went down to voice our concern that this was just not going to work and they said to try site 13. Even worse then 14. It was a grass spot, mowed out, no place to park a vehicle, which I'm glad I left at the bottom of the hill, extremely narrow, washed out road going to site 13. There still was no picnic table but there was a fire pit. Stated this is just not going to work. We paid way too much for so little accommodations. They said they couldn't refund or move us to an electric site (we didn't need electric but the two previously mentioned sites were not going to work) without talking to their boss. After already spending 28 days in a tent, across the country, I was pretty upset that this yogi bear was so bad. They did end up moving me to site 17, which was one of the few that did not have a completely flooded fire ring. Which leads to the next things, almost all of the grounds were completely flooded. Fire rings couldn't even be seen they were so far under water. To walk to any part of the park involved getting your feet wet. The playground swings were above water making it difficult for the kids to reach them without getting really wet. There had been no attempts to move any water from the storms making it difficult to enjoy parts of the park. The pool was pretty cold but I suppose it is Wisconsin. The staff did have many events going on but if you were early, you wouldn't even know the events were going on. They showed up right on time and then had to set up. But they did do a variety of races and had a pirates and princess dance. They brought in actual hair dressers to do the little girls hair for them. That was something the girls in the group enjoyed. They also had cartoons playing in the evenings. The kids also enjoyed that. Overall, I would never return, there are so many really nice parks in Wisconsin for way less money. This was not worth it at all.