Best Glamping near Leavenworth, KS

We stayed for a week in Crappie Cove. We have relatives in the area and have always heard folks rave about weekends at Hillsdale lake. We are spending 3 months this summer in our RV traveling the country and this was one of the stops along our way.

Pros:

• spacious site
• lots of trees/shade
• Mostly quiet location
• great playground for kids (though not shaded)
• each site had a table and fire pit
• far enough away from the city to see stars at night. :)
• Lots of different camping loops - from primitive to full hookups.

Cons:

• NEVER saw the camp host.
• not sure the showers/toilets were cleaned in the 7 days we were there. There were always puddles everywhere in the bathroom, so much that the heat made them smell very bad. One toilet would never seem to hold water. Most of the time it was empty/clogged.
• many many cars on some sites
• standing pond of water covered in moss/algae and caused lots of bugs/mosquitoes to be around
• Shower curtains had black mold all over them

This campground has great potential and we found some other bathrooms that were actually decent on another loop, so walked there daily instead of the one in our loop.

No one at the front booth when we checked in (middle of the afternoon on a Sunday) but we had already paid, so we just proceeded to our site, which was already marked with our name and dates. We went in and out of the park every day with no issue. On the 7th day of our stay, my husband is stopped and asked where his parking permit is. No one came by our site after we checked in. No one ever asked in 7 days, not even the camp host who should monitor that stuff. We had ONE vehicle on our site and everywhere we have ever camped, one vehicle is included in your camping fee. We were told we had to pay an additional fee per day for the vehicle we used to pull our camper to the site. AFTER we had been parking there a week already and it was the day we were leaving. None of the other cars in our loop had permits in their windows or windshields.

We have stayed at many state parks across the country and this is one of the worst, in my opinion. Camp hosts were non-existent until the last minute and then they were rude. Facilities are not well maintained (on the Crappie Cove loop).

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.