Best Cabin Camping near Hillsdale, KS

I was having a difficult time finding a campground with availability on our way back from Colorado since we were leaving on the Sunday before Memorial Day. We decided to stay a couple of extra days and we found sites available at this one. There are two separate campgrounds at Clinton State Park, and we stayed at campground 1. We checked in with the camp host since the office was already closed. We asked for water, electricity, and somewhere close to the bath house. I guess two out of three aren’t bad. The bath house that we were closest to was closed for the season. The open one was at least two hundred yards away. Getting up in the middle of the night, we decided to drive to it in the dark. We didn’t understand why we couldn’t get a site closer to one of the open bath houses since there were several available sites. Another disappointment was that with all of the recent rain, we had a huge puddle separating our pull-through from our picnic table and fire pit. Again, we should have asked for another site. Other than those two disappointments, it was a really good campground, especially for being a state park. The individual toilet/showers were spacious and very clean. There was shade at some of the campsites, and there were open fields for kids to play in. Although the playground was small, there were other things to do. There was a disc golf course, an archery range, hiking trails, and the lake. The lake is large, and there is a place to launch boats, canoes, kayaks, jet skis, etc. At another part of the lake, there is a huge marina for larger boats. Bering in such a remote area, you don’t have to worry about the sounds of traffic. Overall, Clinton State Park is a place you can stay where there is plenty to do. Although there is no swimming pool, other activities previously mentioned should keep you busy.

Located in east central Kansas on 2600 acre Lake LaCygne (cooling reservoir for KCPL coal-fired power plant). No swimming or skiing allowed, only fishing boats. We stayed on site 112 in View Point Loop next to some permanent residents. There’s no stay limit here so some sites are very messy. Paved roads with gravel sites having W/E, mostly 30A but a few 50A like ours. Check in at the Marina to see which ones are available at this all first come first serve cg. They even have a few FHU sites but I imagine they are all taken by the residents. Nice dump station located in the back of the park along with a few rustic cabins. We enjoyed a waterfront site but there were many 30A sites available in a more wooded setting in several different loops. There are about 113 sites here.

Let's Share COVID and a campfire song. When we booked a tent site in the KOA we didn't expect much but assumed it would work for the night while driving across the USA.  Upon arrival we were a little put off by being stuck with several other tents in a field and noticed we were expected to share our fire ring with the tent next door... this was not ok with us and we left promptly and snagged a nice spot in the nearby Blue Springs Recreation Area. Traveling during summer 2020 has been interesting and to expect strangers to share a fire ring and be crammed very close during a pandemic is not only careless but not fun. UGH

This was an interesting stay at the Worlds of Fun campground. Located on the property there are RV sites and rental cabins. All RV sites were concrete with 50/30/20 amp, water and sewer. Back-in sites on rows 1 and 3 and pull through sites on row 2.

The theme park offered discounted tickets when staying at the campground and parking for the parks was included. Worlds of Fun and Oceans of Fun are internally connected, making it easy to walk between the two.

There is a pool, hot tub, laundry and clean bathrooms with showers. The campground did attempt to improve privacy with strategically placed trees and shrubs.

Row 1 (sites 1-20) is along a busy highway with semi truck noise 24 hours a day. I recommend either paying more for the pull-through (further from the road) or the back in sites 69-82 in row 3.

Security was disappointing, as there was no gate to the campground, nor a gate around it. So our campsite (site 2) that backed up to the road was 10 feet off the public sidewalk. Reviews of this campsite on other websites mentioned some petty theft, so we kept our outdoor compartments locked (nothing was stolen).

Pros Off-season was quiet Open bathrooms were nice and well kept. Easy access to trails Lots of wildlife, vultures, deer, etc. Well marked and plenty of them spots Marina was a quick bike ride away and had a lot to offer during the season. Primate loops had some good spacing and tree cover, along with views of the lake. Inner loops not so much Potable water available year round. Was drinkable.

Cons Signs marked closed bathrooms but not the closest open bathrooms. One per campsite was still open with heat and electric. Weirdly all vaults were closed Office and hosts were unavailable so we had to leave for Casey's for firewood. While before the season, someone told us it's typically impossible to get firewood because the office is usually closed. Signs to the entrance to park and n avigation were pretty small, impossible to read at night, not lit. Electric parking pass only issued one day pass at a time. Would do the paper pass across the parking lot next time. Spacing is definitely a bit crowded for tent camping privacy this time of year. Will be curious to see how it feels in the summer/fall.

We had a fun and relaxing time and loved the woodsy feel to it. We stayed here for a weekend in July 2020 and had a great time!  It is under new ownership and they are working to remodel and renovate all areas. I got to meet one of the owners and one of the owner's kids who works there and they were very nice and very helpful.  In fact, all staff I had contact with were! We had a nice full hookup RV site with a very woodsy feel.  Well shaded, grass and trees, view of water and nice space around us. Gravel site with picnic table and fire ring.  The pool is renovated and very nice. It is very large, zero entry, up to mostly around 5 ft deep with a small area that was 9ft; there is a children's area with a sprinkler. Roads throughout campground are gravel, not paved, if that makes a difference with kids bringing scooters or bikes.  We drove around to see the rest of the campground and saw lots of sites that I'd like to camp in when we come back. The cabins look nice, too. Waved at people sitting in front of them, but did not see inside them.  I'm looking forward to go here again and excited to see the updates they make over the next year!

Note: Included in your camp fee you get 2 free daily passes per night of camping to the pool and a discounted rate for any other swimmers; so for our family with 4 we had the free passes go to the parents and paid $3 each for the kids to swim & we did this two days.  As long as you have the wrist band on you can come and go all day to the pool.

Cons: quite a bit of poison oak around the fish cleaning area, shade at the pool is at a minimum, my phone (AT&T) could not get service there.

We stayed a week at Clinton State Park’s campground at site 92 in the middle of July with our two dogs.

Pros: The park itself is very big so the sites were pretty big which is always a big plus. Sites come with a picnic table and a fairly large fire ring which we unfortunately never got to enjoy because we were here during a heat wave (100+ almost every day). The park is also at a lake so there’s a beach access area where you can go and swim or just sit by the very large lake. There’s also a marina and boat ramps for anyone who has a boat, which we sadly did not. Of course, it’s important to mention this was one of the most affordable places we’ve ever stayed, granted, it was with a non sewer site but still.

Cons: The check-in situation was not very good. We received our site number upon reservation but we didn’t receive any instructions on when and where to check-in or if anyone would even be there to check us in. We also weren’t aware we’d have to pay for a parking pass for both our RV and towed vehicle which is normally $5/day but since we were there 7 days they gave us the annual passes which came out to $50 total for both vehicles. This one obviously most likely just has to do with the time of year we were here and it’s out of the park’s control but there were SO MANY BUGS especially at night. We hung our outside string lights like normal and, as you’ll see in the photos, they were absolutely swarmed with bugs. We’ve never seen so many bugs in one place, not even close. We also, as mentioned above, stayed at a W/E only site in the Prairie Clover Campground and each campground only has one dump station (2 total for the whole park) and the one for ours was closed for construction, which we were not made aware of, so we had to drive a pretty good distance to take our honey pot to the only one that was open. The bathrooms/showers were extremely hot because of no ventilation, had a lot of bugs, and the showers only give you one temperature and one pressure level, neither of which were great, and the lights in both are on a sensor and they went off within about 5 minutes of being in there and no matter how much you motioned it wouldn’t come back on so you’re stuck showering in the dark. Lastly, our Verizon service wasn’t very good, only about 2 bars of LTE. We both work full time remotely so this was concerning but luckily with our jet pack connected to an antenna we were able to get around 3 bars of LTE which was enough for us to work off of.

Overall: This is a nice, affordable state park/campground overall, not exactly the prettiest but it’s big and offers big sites and a large lake you can enjoy. It would have been much more enjoyable to stay during a cooler time of the year when there wasn’t so many bugs and on a site that had sewer (a non sewer site was our choice to be fair) so you didn’t have to worry about the dump station situation. Also not having wi-fi or great phone service was inconvenient but we had enough to make it work. We don’t plan to spend a whole lot of time in Kansas but if we came back through anytime that’s not spring or summer we’d definitely consider staying here again.