Zilpo Campground

Quiet, less utilized campground on Cave Run Lake. Campsites have more privacy and are more primitive. There is a bathhouse, but it is not regularly maintained. This campground is perfect for kayaking and fishing. Some of the campsites have private beaches.

Stay 6 nights, very peaceful and quite place, this time of year! Campground empty, no one there. Beautiful sites, large, all fine gravel and paved pull offs, very nice! Bathrooms could use a update, easily Lot’s of bug in May, but huge amount of ticks 🕷️ Campground sets back off main road about 10 miles, so no traffic noise at all. Has boat lunch, beach, camp store, 2 dump stations, 7 loops host at most of them, very nice people. We had great time, will defiantly be back to stay again!

Great spot! Clean bathrooms and showers, large spacious spots and a gorgeous lake. Highly recommend!

Nice primitive cabin with luxury

Stayed at cabin D11. Nicely maintained.  A bit on the small side but good for a place to lay your head. This cabin is directly opposite the restrooms for this loop. Cabin is about 10 x 20. The front room has two chairs a bench and table and the air conditioner. The second room has four single bunk beds.

The grounds around the cabin are nice with gravel area for setting up an outdoor kitchen or tent or lounge chairs.

We’re very familiar with twin knobs. Zilpo is the backwoods cousin. A bit more remote, but we found the campground to be fantastic. It is more densely wooded than twin knobs. The sites are generally just as good, but there is more variety between primitive/hookup/cabins. The beach is not quite as big, but plenty big, and wasn’t crowded over July 4 weekend. The beach store has bare essentials. There doesn’t seem to be ranger programming. Not all the loops have showers in the bathroom buildings.

A lovely campground that is well-maintained and very peaceful. We opted for a site with electricity and it had a nice level pad for our trailer and truck, a fire ring, a picnic table and post for our lantern. The campground itself is quite large, taking up the whole peninsula, there are not many public areas to access the beach for swimming, but there are a few moderate to easy hiking trails and during our visit other than ice and firewood there was nothing available as the store was closed. We were at our campsite at the beginning of May, and I will say be very careful as I pulled more ticks off of myself and my dog than I ever have in my life, so be sure to triple check.

We love it here! We camp here every year! The bathrooms and showers are clean! The people are friendly!

Took my son on a 3 day trip and stayed on site G17. It was on a high place with great drainage (it rained quite a few times). Well kept and the tent pad was gravel. The bath house had good hot water for showers, and for its age, very well kept. We took our jon boat out on the lake and had a blast! The scenery was breathtaking, from the drive up the mountain to the park, all the way down to the lake. Great fall trip to say the least. Very much recommended

Just returned from Zilpo today. Camp was clean and quiet, bathrooms were clean but the ladies shower was broken. Camp site was shaded and well kept. Overall I enjoyed my time here.

Bathroom facilities leave a little to be desired (out of order equipment, bad lighting) but all that can be forgiven in favor of the setting. All sites here are private and wooded--you won't hear much from the folks beside you as they're going to be 50-100 yards away through decently thick woods. Peaceful, quiet, great star gazing. Lake is clean and great for swimming. Each site is covered in level, dense grade gravel (no muddy rainy mornings) and feature a MASSIVE picnic table and heavy cast iron fire pit.

Really, I can't recommend this place enough for people who value separation and space in their camping trips.

Deep in the woods after a windy drive through the forest. We stayed in H loop site 34 so this review is only about that loop. Each campsite is nestled into the forest with full shade and ample privacy spacing between sites. Peaceful and quiet. Clean campground and shower houses, great facilities including a dump station. We stayed for one night in October 2020 and really wished we had stayed longer. Beautiful fall colors. We will return.

We originally were going to stay at Twin Knobs Campbrougnd, but after some research, we decided to switch the reservation to Zilpo. Having recently moved to Kentucky from California was so happy to get to camp in another season besides summer. All the spots in the H Loop seemed like they would be great for a visit, but after walking around the whole section, we found H 26. It was a double spot with easy access to the lake and set up a beach fire for the night. The only issue was the bathroom nearest to us was shut down, but it really wasn't that much farther. Amazing seeing the Milky Way one evening.

One of my wife and I favorite spot! Great campground with great views of lake and easy way to the beach.

The site I m at H37 is perfect site for tent camp which is a step below road level give you a necessary privacy you look and shade while you are camping . Only downside picnic table broken . The shower room is ok to do its job but which might need some maintenance. As two of 3 showers were broken .

Great spot right on the water

It’s peaceful and the area we were in was not too close to each other. They have spots for tents, campers and they also have cabins. It’s surrounded by a huge lake with fishing and a boat ramp. You do have to make sure you have all your supplies, the closest store is 30 to 40 minutes away.

This is the third time camping at Zilpo this summer. This time I went with my sister and two young nephews. I went back to campsite E-12 since I knew the bath house was close and the water spicket was across the road. Didn’t include pics of the campsite because you can see them in another review. Great spot for children, the E-Loop wasn’t too loud or disturb them from sleeping. As always we saw wild turkey, deer, and a baby alligator snapping turtle. I included a pic of the overlook from the Zilpo Campground Trail.

This time we camped at H-36. This spot was a double and had plenty of space for 5 tents. It was set in a beautifully shaded area. The water pump was right next to the site. The bath house was a very short walk away. There was a path from the site that lead right down to Cave Run Lake and we were able to swim, kayak fish (although we didn’t catch anything), and hang out on the shore without really leaving the campsite. There aren’t any campsites directly to the right or left, the only neighbor is across the road. The campsite had a fire pit with a grill that can be lowered or raised to cook on. It had three lateen poles and two picnic tables.

The website to reserve campsites needs a lot of work but otherwise it was a great weekend of camping. E-12 was close enough to the bathrooms that it wasn’t a bad walk but we didn’t have to smell anything. Water pump was across from the campsite. Plenty of space for four tents. Sturdy pic-nic table. Fire pit with a grill connected. Two poles to with four hooks each to hang lanterns or bags. We tied a line across it and hung our towels and wet clothes. The camp ground sits next to Cave Run Lake. There is a place to launch a boat and a nice beach area for swimming. They have a store next to the beach but we didn’t go in. “Billy” did chase away from the beach after hours though. The check in station sells ice and fire wood. We saw plenty of rabbits, a wild turkey, and a deer got about 20 feet from out camp site.

Are you looking for a real camping experience? Sure you are or you wouldn't be reading this. Zilpo Campground is nestled in the Daniel Boone National forest, so there's plenty of wildlife. Also the fishing is amazing . You can literally walk straight from your campsite to the Lake and bank fish.

Nice campsite in general, but a few tips I would like to make:

-C10 had NO shade, we put up lots of tarps. Most other sites had shade thanks to trees. This site also did not have any kind of "view" of the lake despite being very close to water.

-Water spigot by us did not work. Bathrooms in the C loop were closed the first day we were there... So getting water was not easy that first day!

• Ticks were bad (not the campsites fault at all - just sayin', bring the deet!)

• Beaches are closed. Beach/boat ramp area had a nice sunset view though. We found a small path that led to a rocky area by the lake and swam there.

-Trigger warning: you will see LOTS of confederate flags driving to this campsite.

We were a large group (16 people) and reserved grounds at Zilpo for a 4 day trip. We wanted to ensure we were close, so we chose H loop sites 35, 37, and 38. 35 and 38 are right next to each other, so it was easy to walk between the two, and 37 was rather secluded and used primarily as overfill sleeping grounds.

Overall, the campsite was great. We went during the end of August and it was really quiet. The lake was a muddy and murky, but that's typical for a man-made lake. The showers had no warm water, but we'll take a cold shower over no shower.

Electric hookups worked perfectly. Two people brought electric vehicles and were able to plug into the TT-30 outlet and reported no issues the entire trip.

There was cell coverage for all the major cell phone providers, which was a negative in our opinion. But that's totally your preference and I don't take that into my star rating.

One of the best campgrounds in Ky. Plenty of room, quiet, lots to do!

We stayed on the H loop and I'd highly recommend that.  We were in site 27 or 29, can't remember but both on the lake. We had access to the lake from our campsite and our own little private beach!  Sites are spread out so lots of privacy.  No electric at our site but wasn't a huge deal and worth the trade off to have such a private site on the water.  Bathhouse was nice and as clean as can be expected.   The drive to the park is gorgeous.   You are pretty far from any stores or anything like that so make sure to stock up.  Rented a pontoon boat one day and there is a little boat dock near the H loop so I got the boat and was able to pick up the rest of the family at the dock and then drop them off before returning the boat.  The fireflies at night were amazing.  Will return to this campground someday.