Best Glamping near Dunmor, KY

I was tent camping with my family Thursday-Saturday while visiting Mammoth Cave.

The good: the tent campground has spacious, level sites. The sites are located in a grove of pine trees, which makes for well shaded sites with a pleasant surface of soft pine straw to pitch your tents. A few sites had trees suitable for hanging hammocks if you enjoy that. There are toilets and sinks in the park office near the primitive campsites. There is a swimming beach and boat ramp on Nolin Lake nearby. Convenient to Mammoth Cave NP and fishing and hiking opportunities abound.

The bad: the shower house is in the RV campground and too far away to be a convenient walk. You have to drive there which is a pain with kids. There were few shower stalls and they were not kept clean. The park staff were very friendly but just overworked. Thursday night we were kept awake by loud campers and campground staff weren’t around to enforce quiet hours. Quiet hours do not start until 11 PM which is not ideal for campers with young children. The park started filling up on Friday and Saturday and was obviously very crowded on the weekend. Seems like a "party spot" for locals. 

We might return here but perhaps would choose to camp during the week or during a less busy time of year.

My husband and I, along with our dog Frank, found site P27 using Google Maps Satellite view and saw that it was juuuuust far enough away from the RVs to feel like we were camping in the woods. 

The site itself doesn't allow you to have a vehicle at site and the short wooded trail to the site does get incredibly muddy when it rains heavily. However, your vehicle is close enough but you can't see it easily due to the wooded area between the site and the rest of the campground/parking lots. I felt that aspect made this site all the better. HOWEVER, you will be carrying your firewood into the site if you buy it at the campsite store so keep that in mind depending on your physical abilities. P27 wouldn't be very convenient for strollers and definitely not wheelchair friendly unfortunately. 

The site itself is mostly rock and gravel as you look towards the lake with the rear portion of the site turning to the wooded area. There is decent enough shade for your tent and a friends tent if you're using 1 to 4 person set ups... but the tents will be CLOSE. 

There isn't a great hammock set up option at this site. We had two with us and could only hang one, the trees were fairly young and on the edge of a small drop off to the rocky beach. That was a decent spot to hang a hammock but a double with adults would be detrimental to the trees perhaps. 

There is a picnic bench that is staked to the rock with a chain so you have limited options of moving that closer to the fire pit or further away. Table was in great shape. 

The bath house was super nice but a bit of a walk from this site. Toddlers wouldn't be stoked on it more than likely. 

We visited Halloween weekend and there was a huge thunderstorm for the majority of the two nights we spent here. The site got incredibly muddy by the fire pit, like... boots sticking in the mud wet Ky clay. 

All that aside, we will be camping here. The RV section was packed and they had trick or treating for the kids but we couldn't hear any of it from this site. Waking up in the morning to the fog on the lake was super beautiful. Watching people fish from their boats Sunday morning and walking the shoreline looking for cool rocks... it's a great campsite. It's an awesome tent site and everyone that worked at the campground was great. A young man came to check on us because of the thunderstorm as well. 

*tent stakes work just fine at this site. It's not just a rock outcropping.

Nice campground but very loud due to interstate. Made it less than enjoyable sitting by the beautiful fire pit provided. Had higher expectations for KOA based on other experiences but should have researched to know how close the highway was.

Convenient to stores and restaurants. Laundry open 24/7 ($2.50). Campstore has most of what you need but you are less than a couple miles from most other places.

Campsites are long and ideal for bigger rigs, but our little 25’ would have been too far back from the pad in order to reach the sewer, even with two hoses, so we disconnected the camper and parked the TV behind the camper. This enabled us to parked the camper on the most level part of the gravel spot without leveling boards and be able to step out on to the concrete pad. We are only here a couple days, so we’ll pump out before leaving. An inconvenience but not a deal breaker.

Looks like a new pool being built near the front!

It is under new ownership at this time. It is not worth the price you pay for a KOA. It is extremely run down. None of the amenities are kept up such as the kids playground, mini golf course and campsite extras. Some of the campsites have wheels for fire pits while others have nice stone pits. Some of the campsites have picnic tables while others have nice patio tables and chairs. You are greeted at the nature trail by dumped trash and a dumped Seadoo. It is very noisy due to it’s proximity to the interstate. The sewer hookups are damaged in several sites. I would recommend you check out Beach Bend until they can get this campground up to KOA standards. I’m not sure what drugs the 4 star reviewers were taken but it is definitely not 4 stars.