Best Glamping near Vinton, 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!

Very well kept campground! Bathrooms and entire area was really in perfect shape. One of the cleanest showers and bathrooms I have seen. $10 for tent, $16 for electric - how can you go wrong?

Only issue is that the spots are pretty close together. Around 2:30am there was so much smoke in our van from nearby campfires that I woke up sick and my dog threw up all over the bed. At 3am we decided we needed to move to an electric site because it was too much to have the windows open. I felt really bad for anyone in a tent. I coughed all the next day.

The campground was not that busy so there is no way I would stay here on a busy holiday weekend due to the spots being too close. If a few people make a fire you better shut down all your windows. No sleeping in the cool, night air here.

But this is an issue at other places too. Just never experienced anything on this level before. Esp considering no one in our section even had a fire going.

I wish campgrounds would start banning these fires. But that’s a topic for a later date.

Other than that it was a great spot.

This review is for the Wallaby cabin. This cabin supposedly has a bathroom with a shower, 3 beds and a kitchenette. The bathroom has a shower so small it is difficult not to rinse one's hair while applying shampoo. There is no sink in this room for brushing teeth, washing hands or face, etc. There is no mirror either, or hooks for towels or washcloths or clothes. There is also no heater. The cabin has no closet or any place to hang any clothes. There were several bugs crawling on the ceiling. The wall A/C could not help but spew dust, as it was coated with that on the filter and cover. The trash can had a clean bag, which occupants are required to leave in dumpster at checkout. When removing the bag, the stuck-on mess under it was appalling. The bed in each loft area had obviously been used and not changed, as the covers were in disarray and the bottom sheets not clean. The main bed has a zipped on plastic cover which the loose fitting fitted sheet will not stay on, causing occupants to end up sleeping on plastic. We purchased a blanket to go over it for the next night. We would not have stayed more than one night but, as we had reserved 3, it is not refundable. The tv is to the side of the immovable chairs, so that one must have head turned completely to one side to watch. The cabin has such a slant that a ball will roll by itself to the entrance side. All this for more than$350 for 3 night stay.

This place is huge. We pulled in very late on a Weds night / Thursday morning. Self registration at the front. Looked like a decent amount of folks here but we didn’t drive very far into the park. If you take a look at the PDF maps on their website you can see how vast the places is with 122 spots! Bummed we needed to keep driving the next day- was very tempted to stay another night.

Shower house and bathrooms were really nice! Wasn’t expecting to want to take a shower but couldn’t pass up the opportunity when we saw them. Very hot water.

There are picnic benches everywhere and fire pits. 10/10 - would stay again!