Best Cabin Camping near Topeka, KS

When camping in Kansas you must try the Rocky Ford Campground in Tuttle State Park River Pond Area. This is a great shaded area with water views and full hookups. There are great secluded sites or sites you can camp next to friends or family. There are huge cottonwood trees that are wrapped with green vines during the summer months that guide you through the park. Make sure and put your food away at night or the raccoons will be dining at your table during the night. Site #44 is our favorite spot to hang the hammock and relax after biking or hiking the trails.

Rolling hills and lots of green with many of trails and recreational facilities including more unusual things like archery. Lake is surprisingly big, good wildlife and birding. Popular place for bike and road races, that’s what brought us here. Camp sites have pretty trees but most sites aren’t so shady. Also has cabins.

Our site was $56.78 We were in Site# 59 The check in was at 12pm but the office was closed until 3:30pm so we grabbed our sheet left out front and got ourselves to our site.

We had Full hook- up with a gravel pull-through.
We travel towing a 14 foot trailer and were able to fit both in our pull through site along with my jeep (although the Jeep had to be parked straight across the front of our site to fit in). Also we were right on the highway.

The site was easy to level.
Our site was not shaded and without any trees. The most FRUSTRATING part is that this was a buddy site (that is NO WHERE on their website). We have rescue dogs and don’t want to share our space with neighbors we don’t know. Literally no one wants to Kumbaya by the fireside with complete strangers. Therefore our trip went from one week originally to two nights. We would have left the next day but the husband wanted to see the Evel Knievel museum.

The lot does not have a concrete patio but has a picnic table and fire grate.

They have a community fire pit with multiple swings around it. They sell wood for $6 a bundle.

They do not provide garbage service at your site so you must walk to garbage dumpster at the entrance.

You are allowed to ride personal golf carts. They do not provide golf cart rentals. There is really not a need to have a Golf cart because it is a smaller campground.

They do have a saltwater Swimming pool. They have a catch and release fishing pond.

There is a Playground. They also offer a weight room and an adorable activities room with air hockey, a library, & a pool table. There is also a scenic walking trail. The trail is almost a mile and they’ve kept it mowed and easy to identify.

They have a basic general store. There is not a snack bar/restaurant on site.

The streets are gravel so not great for riding bikes.

They have cabins for rent and a tent area (electric & primitive options).

They have 2 shower houses. The shower house in the main barn has individual shower/toilet/sink areas. The shower house in the park has the typical stalls. These are kept very clean.

There is a laundry facility in both shower houses. It is a cash only facility.

They have a fenced in dog park which is unfortunately located in the front of the park away from RV sites.

Some fun things to do outside of the campground are the Evel Knievel museum and Brown vs. Board of Education historical park.

Staff are very kind. I would definitely stay here in the future but will know to secure a site that isn’t shared with others

Beautiful campgrounds with so many activities available! The general store is super helpful, as they sell firewood and ice, and have kayak and canoe rentals. There are a few swim beaches, and plenty of sand to sit in and relax. Our actual campsite was great and came equipped with a firepit and picnic table, and we could walk to the lakeshore. We will be back!

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.

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.

Campground Review

We stayed at the Topeka / Capital City KOA campground for one night on our way home during a 3-week road trip. We had a water / electric pull-through site around the middle of the campground. It’s a small campground for a KOA, but still has all of the great amenities that you expect from a KOA: extremely clean bathhouses, nice playground for the kids, beautiful pool and connected pavilion, small fishing pond, etc. The campground hosts were very friendly and helpful and the atmosphere was quiet and peaceful. The kids really liked playing on the playground as we got the pop-up situated, but we did not have the chance to check out the pool since we were only there for one night. Everyone enjoyed taking a nice stroll around the decorative pond and fishing pond (which are separate) that night, and we saw a bunch of frogs, fish jumping, and two ducks that followed us around for a while.

My husband and I got up early and took the rods to the fishing pond prior to packing up and heading out in the morning. Though the fishing is usually pretty limited, we still really enjoy having a small fishing pond at a campground. It’s nice to be able to walk to something in the morning or before bed and get some relaxing fishing in. The fish we caught (about 1/2 a dozen bluegill and 1/2 a dozen bass) were all pretty small, but still fun and they’ll be a decent size in a few years.

Product Review

As a Ranger for The Dyrt, I occasionally receive products to test or gift cards for new companies to check out. Prior to heading out on our 3-week road trip, I received a gift card to Roanline.com, which is an e-commerce company specializing in outdoor clothing and accessories for men and women. The company is based in North Carolina, and the first thing you notice when you hit the website is the focus on high quality outdoor clothing brands, some of which I had never heard of before. I love supporting new, smaller outdoor clothing brands, especially niche brands like Parks Project that prints high-quality t-shirts representing our National Parks or Free Fly who makes high performance, bamboo based clothing popular with the flyfishing crowd. The website is stylish and easy-to-use, and I like the clean interface that allows you to filter by just about anything you can think of. The ordering process was straight-forward, I received a pleasant confirmation email, and my order arrived even earlier than expected - which is exactly what you want with an online retailer! Roanline went above and beyond with order fulfillment with the package presentation, which I did not expect. My order came wrapped in a ribbon with a hand-written letter from the fulfillment team. Who does that in 2017? Great online retailers that want to let you know that they appreciate your business! Shopping at Roanline was a great experience, and I have added additional items to my Christmas wishlist for myself and others, so they definitely have a return customer.

My favorite purchase from Roanline was the women's Free Fly Bamboo Shade Hoody. I'm glad that I ordered a small because the shirt is pretty long for me (I'm 5'2" so I'm on the edge of petite in terms of sizing). I really love the design of the shirt, with thumb holes and a hood that inlcudes neck cover. The shirt has UPF 50+ sun protection, which made it perfect for flyfishing in the rocky mountain parks (Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Rocky Mountain National, etc) where the elevation is high and the sun exposure is certainly more than I'm used to. This quickly became my go-to flyfishing shirt, and it will stay that way for most trips as I would much rather wear long sleeves than lather on a ton of sunscreen. The material is extremely comfortable, so much so that I even wore it to sleep at night a few times when it was very cold in Yellowstone - very cozy. I also love the color of the shirt, and the overall fit is nearly perfect (just a bit long, as I mentioned, but I'm sure that's perfect for most women). And as you can see from the photos, clearly this shirt is lucky as it helped me land this MONSTER at a campground fishing pond... but seriously, this is the nicest and most comfortable fishing shirt I've ever owned, and I will be looking to purchase at least one more!

The is a nice clean Kansas State Park. Lots of shady spots. Easy access to walking trails and water activities. Fire pits and picnic tables at every site. Most sites are only water and electric. There are only a half dozen or so full hook up sites and they are generally always full during camping season. There are two dump stations on site. This park is close to home for us and we camp here often.

This was one of our favorite Kansas State Parks. At the end of May, it was almost empty. We had our pick of sites. We got a prime tree shaded spot on the water. In fairness, most sites are on the water or have a water view. Spectacular sunsets.

There was only 1 small bath house open while we were there, but it was clean and the shower was hot. It was one of those push button kind that only stayed on for a min. Not a problem to just keep pushing.

We road bikes, but the cold spring winds made kayaking impossible. In the summer, I can see why this place would be a fun destination. Swimming, boating, fishing, horses, archery, wide open spaces.

The roads within the park are not the best. Also, online reservations must be made 48 hrs in advance, otherwise, its day by day.

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.

Bath and showers were clean. Campsite was gravel with full hookups. Had to level the camper ever so slightly. Small amount of highway noise. Good cell service signal. Friendly staff.

We had a wonderful stay! Wonderful pull through spots, great views, and closer to the boat ramp!