Best Dog-Friendly Camping near Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area

Eagle’s Nest RV Park is a little slice of heaven located just 1500 feet from Kentucky Lake and 10 minutes from Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area. The park is clean and well maintained and offers free boat parking. It has a picnic pavilion, laundry room, bath house and is has a convenience store and great restaurants nearby. We stay here each year that we come to Paris, TN for the annual catfish fry and to enjoy the area attractions. It’s a nice, quiet campground with plenty of space between RV’s. Each pad is concrete and has its own patio and plenty of shade trees. Highly recommended.

Hillman Ferry is the northernmost full service campground in the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area and is an excellent base camp for exploring the LBL and other recreation opportunities in the area. And are there ever choices! To start, Hillman Ferry sits on Kentucky Lake and has many sites right on the water and it’s own boat ramp for those with boats. Lake Barkley is about 5 miles to the east and offers just as much water recreation - both lakes are massive impoundments and f the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. The campground has sites ranging from primitive to full hookup and offers a camp store, lots of space for kids to play and enjoy the water and is relatively close to town for fuel, Highway access and other activities in the LBL like the bison and elk prairie, nature center, planetarium 1850’s farm and hiking and OHV trails. The LBL is HUGE and we loved our stay and can’t wait to come again to explore more of the region. Hillman Ferry is highly recommended!

Campsite Review

I wound up staying at five different campsites within the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area, and this was my favorite. That largely is due to them having showers and canoe and kayak rentals, but hey – when you’re here in the summer, that’s what you want! Actually, Energy Lakes has the most amenities of all the campgrounds – including ice and firewood to buy and some additional common areas like a designated swim area (no lifeguard, but I imagine this makes it easier to keep an eye on kids) and basketball and volleyball courts. The only downside to this place is the lack of boat ramps, which is also surprising considering more primitive sites in the area offer those. I guess that’s the trade off – showers for no boat ramp. Luckily there are ample spots around the rec area in the park if you need to launch your boat. I would highly recommend a reservation here given it’s the most popular campsite in the park and only a few spots will get you truly “lakeside”. It is $10/hr for the boat rentals.

Product Review

As a Ranger for TheDyrt, I am given products to test from time to time. Today I was testing out the Showers Pass Waterproof Socks. You can watch the video review here. I didn't think there was any way someone could make a sock waterproof. I thought it would be more like a dry sack shrunk to mini proportions with some fitting elastic and it would be called a 'sock'. But here's Showers Pass, this Pacific Northwest-based company (I heard it rains there a lot) making this coolmax inner lined comfortable foot shield. Like, how?

I did a few bike rides in these, and the coolmax liner is definitely necessary since the socks are thicker to give you that water protection and in summer heat (it was about 90 degrees most of the days I was in this campground park) I was sweating everywhere. Energy Lakes has canoe rentals so I left my shoes in my car and dragged out a boat into the water and went for a paddle around the lake. It's a super cool feeling to walk into water just wearing socks and not get wet. It's like a wet-suit for your feet.

I did try to soak my feet, see if there was a "breaking point" for these guys. No surprise really, but if you walk into water that goes above the sock line on your leg, water is going to seep in since you've now completely submerged your sock and the elastic holding them against your leg really shouldn't be designed to be airtight, since then you'd have all kinds of other issues going on with the comfort and breathability of this sock. I imagine the majority of people using these aren't canoeing, they're bike riding and so unless you're trying to pedal through a waist deep puddle, I think you're going to be ok.

I do canoe a lot and these are my new favorite accessory. What I think is really promising about their performance too is since these socks were designed for activity, portages would still be enough for these socks to handle. Seriously Showers Pass how did you make these so freaking comfy and waterproof!?

As KOAs go, this is one of The nicer ones! There is actually grass, not gravel, around the sites. There are trees and flowers and it is quite pleasant. With KOA you expect water, electric and sewer hookups. Clean shower/bathroom facilities and usually a pool. This place has that. Along with a small store, fishing lake, propane filling station. A dog park would be nice for the pups, but the do have a large grass area for walking them on lead. Internet connection is spotty! The spaces are a little close, but not as bad as some, and we were on an end site, so we had more room.

Prizer Point KOA and Marina is your basic camp away from home with all those modern conveniences.

Water all around (peninsula) so water sports of course. A swimming pool, playground, bouncy/jumpy thing, pedal car area, dog park, the list goes on.

The Rv style sites were very well situated on the water side loop, realize there is not much privacy. The primitive camp area looked a little frolorn and long in the grass, plus it is a walk to entertainment and the water. There is new construction going on, so reservation maybe easier to get. And there you are , Reserve ahead for prime locations, they are booked through August on the weekends.