Best Equestrian Camping near Louisville, KY

Felt like we were the only people without a horse or a fishing pole! Great water for kayaking and beautiful sunsets.

Lots of raccoons in the area, so make sure your food is secure. Some of the sites are equestrian only, but they may give leeway. We reserved our primitive site ahead of time.

Good weekend trip from Louisville.

We had a pretty decent time at Taylorsville Lake. The spots were spacious, and very nice picnic tables. We did a trail which was nice and went down to a boat ramp to see the lake. You can also rent boats there as well. The bathrooms in my opinion needed a major cleaning. They were nice just not very clean. We most likely won’t visit here again but was nice to hit a Kentucky campground. I have found that camping in Kentucky is much cheaper than in Indiana. Definitely worth a checkout.

Nice campground. Not very big though. The do have some pull through sites for equestrian trailers. Good horse trails. Clean facilities.

We camped here for three days in early August and used it as a "home base" while we explored Louisville (Louisville Slugger Factory, Churchill Downs, etc.), bourbon country, etc. We also fished one evening on Taylorsville Lake, though it was a drive from our campsite, so wish the campsites were closer to the lake!

Very clean campground near the Ohio River. Offers hiking horse back riding nearby fishing in the Ohio River. Or just kicking back and relaxing.

A quiet, peaceful spot in the forest. A few horses on the trail on weekends. French Lick is 30 minutes away.

This campground has much to offer. Tent/RV spaces galore, horse sites, and primitive. Two playgrounds, heated and clean bathrooms. Access to lots of trails and activities. I will say that the two primitive sites closest to the bath house are a bit wonky but totally useable but not for large tents.

We stopped at this campground for two nights on our way down to Tennessee for the eclipse. Most of the sites were really big, and there was plenty of space and trees in between. We stayed at site P02, but I don't recommend that specific site. It was probably the worst site in the primitive camp, but I reserved it online in advance. It was far from flat, and the space provided for the picnic table was pretty much unusable. Just about every other site there looked amazing though. The primitive camp was close to the equestrian camp, and between to two campgrounds, there were only 25 sites. These 25 campsites share a bathhouse, which was very clean and quiet. This park also has an RV campground with 45 sites, but we never step foot in that part of the park.

The park is well kept and organized. There are a ton of sites to visit and see. If you like hiking or mountain biking this is for you! Horse people love it also. The campground is near the trail to the old abandoned bridge which is well worth the hike. The fire tower has a commanding view. If you are not enjoying this park, not much else in Indiana will make you happy. Extra points: experienced cavers will enjoy the number of caves. These are by permit only however and novice non cavers should take a proper class and go with experts. There are multiple show caves in the area you can get a basic tour of also.

Taylorsville Lake State Park campground is the newest in the KY state park system, and has gravel sites that have good spacing between sites. They are almost all very level which makes for easy set up. There are nice playgrounds for the kids and the roads are in excellent condition. Electrical hookups for 50 amp are available. The shower houses were amazingly clean when we visited. The park has 24 miles of trails for horseback riding, hiking, and mountain biking, although horses are the main users. The only negative that we had was nothing to do with the park, but the speed that people were driving through the campground. Some sites with sewer hook ups would have earned 5 stars. We have stayed here twice in sites 1 & 9 so our grandkids could easily access the playground.

My husband and I camped here in the May to escape Derby in Louisville. It's close enough to the city that it makes for an easy get-away. Even if you're not camping the hiking is pretty incredible and none of the trails are really to strenuous for an experienced hiker compared to other trails in the region. 

This isn't the most quite campground you're going to find. There is an RV area and a loop for tent camping, the sites are fairly close together with some only having as little as a few saplings or briars between sites. The loop itself is a bulky gravel road that is VERY NOISY when campers drive on it, or in our case... a child drives their Barbie Power Wheels up and down the road until 10pm in the dark. 

That being said.... it's close to the city. It's inexpensive and the firewood bundles are sizable. Our site didn't have a picnic bench, just a fire ring but the ground was mostly grassy and very level. It was a comfortable site and the majority of them looked pretty similar so it's hard to say there's a "best site" for privacy on the loop.  Our site was on the road leading up to the loop and those sites seem best since a few don't have campers across from them and they are spaced out slightly more than the sites on the actual loop... although you're further from water.  

*This campground does allow you to make reservations

A ton of sites to choose from

It was a good enough trip. Staff was friendly. The only spot available was in the equine section, we set up there. Those spots are too close together. There was a group next to us that was really loud and foul mouthed late into the evening. Lake can be enjoyed if you have a boat or rent one, not much shoreline accessibility.

The shower/bath house is on a European level of well-equipped. Reasonably clean(a little bit of boot muck on the floors but you should be wearing shower shoes anyway in a public facility) Self flushing toilets, air dryers for your hands.

Well thought out for handicap accessibility as far as the toilet and shower stalls. Hand sinks could be a bit lower for folks using a chair but they do have a low hand dryer and no threshold in the doorway to get over.

There are windows that look into the bathroom and although they are up high, pervs and curious kids will find a way. Campground should def. frost them but if you have the stall door shut to the space you're using you can hide your shame. A+ on the restroom space. Seriously impressed.

Very well heated on a cold morning and although I didn't use the shower there were plenty of places in the shower stall to keep your things up off of anything wet. Single use stall and there were several. Door shuts and there is also a shower curtain to keep moisture off of your things.

Outlets by the sinks for hair dryer if you bring one.

Campground has hit or miss tent spots depending on how much space you need. We had a 3 person tent, 2 hammocks and a dog and we reserved spot 8 on the primitive loop and had more than enough room. There was a fire ring(one at every site) and two picnic tables. This spot, as most of them appeared to have enough room for at least 2 very large tents and a dining fly if that's your thing.

With the brush cover during May site P10, although small, seemed to be the most private. We were at P8 and couldn't see anything at P10 though the brush.

If you are looking for privacy, although you are still going to see headlights of cars on the loop road and hear pretty much everyone else on the Primitive loop P10 probably has the most privacy as far as brush shielding you. I would say that everything on the outer part of the Primitive loop towards the back is going to be the furthest away from other people but you are still going to hear everyone else. P6, P7, P8, P10 look the best to me as far as just being chill sites with a bit more space away from others.

 All of the sites on the interior of the loop back into each other and those seemed to be more of the "party sites" the night that we stayed. A lot of competing blue tooth speaker music at very loud volumes well after the quite time of 11pm. Loud music started again at 7:58AM. It was Bollywood music, which was different and honestly kind of fun... we were already awake though.

Our site itself was fairly even although there were a lot of tree roots. No problem finding a grassy place to set up our tent however. We picked up all the trash, aside from a weird sock, left by previous campers so that aspect was a little sad... campers leaving cigarette butts and plastic water bottle caps laying around. Tree cover would be more than adequate at this site during a hot summer day. Water spigot is next to the dumpster by the shower house btw.

Bundles of wood were fairly small compared to some other campsites and unfortunately wrapped in plastic but the wood was good quality, dry, and didn't burn overly smoky. There is a nylon strap handle that will be stapled through the plastic wrap into one piece of the wood so if you want to burn that piece you'll need to pry the staples out/cut the strap off.

The woman working the registration check point, we didn't catch her name, was amazing, pleasant, helpful and gave great directions. She drove by a few times in a golf cart checking on things and didn't hassle anyone. If you ask at the check point for a map you will get a packet of papers with rules and a few different slightly blurry print outs, it's a lot of info and we found it helpful exploring a few of the points of interest in the park that you can drive to. Overall it was a fun experience and although it was louder than I expected when people did quiet down it was VERY quiet and we heard owls all night and what sounded like coyote howling in the distance.

Super good place for families!

Lovely campsite at #42. #41 and #43 have more all day shade but fear not - a young tree is growing away at the edge of #42.

Used the showers and laundry. Swam in the lake - no beach.

TMobile phones - no calls, able to text, slow website access. Couldn't work remotely from here.

I really liked this campsite. We arrived around 7 pm because I forgot to figure in the time zone changes, lol. When we arrived I looked at my printout and could actually not read which loop or campsite we were in. It appeared it was loop 3 campsite 1-10, which I read backwards. Might be helpful to make this more clear.

The campsite was very nice, clean, but a little hard to get into because it had a narrow area where the RV went. Outside of that it was great.

There was no one at the entrance Sunday or Monday during our stay so we could not get ice or firewood unless we went down the main highway a ways to the Dollar General which had ice.

We had T-Mobile and there was very spotty service. And I must say the showers were very nice, though there was no shower curtain the pressure and heat were great after driving.

So this is probably a campsite I would go back to.

Spent 2 nights in spot 12. Is 45 spots. Smaller area but cheaper than others. Quiet in Oct. leaves were turning. Lake about 1 mile away from it. Only drawback was there trash run/pick up dumpster was 3 am on Friday morning ( only time they said anyone would do it). Other than that overall good with senior discount.

Overall this is a nice campground for primitive camping. The majority of the sites are spaced out and private but unfortunately I couldn't find any pictures online of the sites so the one we got was not private. We stayed at site #4 and it is best suited for a group of friends because your neighbors are 10-15 yards away with no trees or anything in between. The biggest issue with site #4 is there is no picnic table. Luckily we were only staying one night so not a big deal but there was no mention of it on the booking website (Reserve America).

Aside from that, it is well kept and the bath house was pretty immaculate for such a full weekend. Several playgrounds nearby if you have kids to occupy.

The main overall issue is the lack of staffing. I'm not sure if it's the usual or if there is a lack of staff in general but we got in shortly after 7PM and there was no ranger or staff to be found to get firewood. No honor system or anything so we had to venture out to find some after we got our tent up because the main office was closed as well. As a heads up, the Dollar General does not sell wood nor does the new Lakecity Mart gas station. We found a large white house/business of some sort that had an honor system and it was $10 for a massive bundle of wood. Oh and when we left on Sunday, as of about noon, there still wasn't any staff anywhere in the park that we saw. Not sure what was up with that.

Some of the hiking trails were well marked and up kept but some others were not so if you aren't good with navigation, choose wisely. Biggest issue we had was with the Gazebo Loop Trail/Pioneer Trail. Several spots were overgrown and not marked so you had to guess a little bit until you ran back into a well worn trail.

Didn't do any lake activities but the water looked nice and there was a lot of activity on it. Nice boat ramps as well.

Overall a nice stay but choose your site wisely. I took several pictures of each site to help others in the future. I didn't get site 7 or 10 because they were occupied but they are pretty nice as well but 10 is slightly open and not as secluded.