Best Tent Camping near Clinton Lake

This campground is on the northwest side of Clinton Lake.  All the activities one would associate with a lake like boat ramps, beach, hiking/biking trails, full hook-up sites, tent camping, playgrounds, etc.  The small town of Clinton is nearby and has a small store for items you may forget.  It's our go to when we go to Clinton Lake.

Camp host was friendly. Very few primitive sites so we tent camped on an electric site. Clean facilities.

The fivestar loop is decent for tent camping. The sites were fairly small and jammed next to each other, and half of them didn't have great tree cover, but they all have a nice firepit and picnic table.  It was super duper windy off of the lake for us, so be ready for wind.  Bathrooms were nice and clean and the staff were very nice.

We have tent camped here often. Most of the sites are spacious. It's not unusual to find a site with no neighbors. The campground is uphill from the lake but the are hiking trails to the lake as well as other trails around the park. Vault toilets and flush toilets with showers are available. They could be better maintained. Overall it is a nice quiet campground for a quick getaway. Also, very close to Lawrence.

Campground is great overall, with a walkable trail just past the showers, clean restrooms and easy to access sites. There are only 3 basic tent sites, making it hard to nab. #4 had a decent amount of privacy, however most other electric sites do not. As an electric site, there was not a lot of ground space for tents, we settled on gravel with reflectix to buffer the ground. Check in was easy, and in walking distance. Site was pretty noisy, even after hours, a few kids running around with speakers on blast definitely were less than optimal.

Most KOA campgrounds I have been to are exceptional with great sites for all types of camping. However, there are a couple of them that have one or two sites that leave you scratching your head. We were supposed to camp at site 18, but it was not level and had tire ruts all the way to the back of the site. There was nowhere to set up our tent without it being uncomfortable throughout the night. With that said, we moved over to site 19, which was level. The tent sites are small for the tenters and there is little to no shade. 

The good things about the sites are that they have water and electricity. There is even a night light and a place to charge your electronic devices. There is a fire ring but no lantern hanger. 

The bath house is modern and up to date; however, the shower dressing area has got to be the smallest I have EVER seen at a campground. I estimated the dressing area to be about 18” x 24”. I’m not a math whiz, but even I can figure out that an average sized person would have difficulty moving around in the dressing area. 

I might give it a higher rating if we were camping in an RV or even in our teardrop camper, but another problem was the noise. I was warned that there would be a train passing through, and the person I spoke to offered to throw in a pair of ear plugs and a night mask. Now I know why. There was a light from a nearby cabin lighting the whole tenting area, and the trains were one right behind the other… ALL NIGHT LONG!!!!! Every thirty minutes or so(could have been every twenty minutes, but I’m not sure), a train passed by. It wouldn’t be so bad, but it was LOUD!!!!!!! 

We were on our way to Colorado, and the next time we are passing through, I will make sure to skip this campground.

The campsite was okay. It was a busy weekend and we were not in a preferred spot, but it was wooded. The ranger at the gate was horrid. He was rude, yelled at each person coming through. He was especially annoyed at me for wearing a mask. He wasn’t and was within 3 feet. Lawrence is a college town with high rates of covid across the campus. He is talking one on one with these kids several times a day! He seriously grabbed my phone out of my hand when I asked him not to. The dump station has pooling sewer water and the water was not working. The park lacks maintenance, and it could be cut backs due to covid. Clinton lake it nice, but beware if heading out for camping.

UPDATE--I ended up with Covid a week later. Pretty sure it was my interaction with the park ranger that did it.

Getting to the state park off I 29 and through the countryside was easy as the route had Weston Bend SP signage. We followed the SP signs to the campground(CG) where the gate was not manned so we headed to get water, but someone was sitting in the dump station waiting for another person to arrive so we went around this one-loop CG to see if there was a convenient spigot. There are spigots but with a larger rig, you will block the road, and/or you will be on a hill. We went back around and the person moved so we could get water. After that, we headed to pull through site 28 with electric(50/30/20 AMP) only. The site is long but has a 1/4 moon turn so we had to pull back around to get better positioned on the pad so we could disconnect our 39’ 5th wheel and F450 for our 3-night stay. There were tree branches overhead that we could not avoid. RVers next to us in site 30 had just arrived as well and were having trouble getting their travel trailer unhitched and leveled due to the pad’s slight incline and unlevel asphalt. They got their trailer positioned so they could get somewhat level. We got a solid two bars on both Verizon and T-Mobile. Due to our proximity to Kansas City, we got a lot of OTA channels. A satellite connection would be iffy in most sites here due to the number of mature trees. The trees in a lot of sites would also scrape the top of larger rigs. There’s a variety of sites with most being good for regular trailers versus tall rigs, and tent sites. They have a nice shower house with 1 washer and 1 dryer both for$1.50. There are also vaulted toilets here and there. There’s a 1.7-acre fenced dog park that includes one large area for large dogs and two other areas with one dedicated to smaller dogs. The dog area is at the front park entrance away from the campground and it would be a long walk to get there, so we drove up. There are a lot of hiking trails here plus an old tobacco barn that’s worth a look.

This is a charming little campground, and I do not use the word“charming” often. It is charming because it has so many quaint relics of the past, including the town itself. At the entrance to the campground, there is a building covered with old signs, hubcaps, etc. As a photographer, I couldn’t be happier to have the opportunity begin taking pictures immediately. As we drove down the road to our campsite, we came across such oddities as a bicycle halfway up a windmill, an old original train depot with an antique threshing machine next to it, and more. The campsites are flat and fairly spacious. We were lucky that the campground was not at full capacity because many of the sites are in pairs. Our pull-through site was within inches of the adjacent pull-through site. Although there was no picnic table at our site, we could have used one on the adjacent site, and we brought our own table. The site did have a fire pit, but we arrived late and didn’t have time to worry about getting wood. There are seasonal and permanent campers at the campground, and you have to reserve early during peak seasons. I talked to one person at the campground and he said that it was booked up one time when he wanted to stay. Although the site we got was gravel and pull-through, there are sites without power by the creek, in case you want to tent camp or just don’t need hookups. The bath house was clean, and the owner told me that it is sanitized every day. The shower stalls are spacious and there is hot water. There is a playground for kids and activities for older people—basketball, corn hole, etc. The only drawback is that you can hear trains passing through during the night about three or four times. It didn’t bother me since I love the sound of trains, but it does wake you up since the tracks are so close to the campground. The town is within walking distance of the campground, and it is worth walking(or driving) to it. The buildings are interesting architecturally, and the town is known for antiques. Overall, I really liked this campground. It may not have all of the amenities of the larger campgrounds, but it is quiet(except for the trains) and peaceful.

Pne of the closest to the Kansas city metro lots of glamping