Best Dog-Friendly Camping near Fort Polk, LA

South Toledo Bend State Park is located near Leesville on Toledo Bend lake. The lake is known for Bass Fishing and is listed as one of the best bass fishing lakes in the country. I’ve also read that the lake has great areas for scuba diving, if you are into that. The park is not far from Fort Polk, and offers nice opportunities for camping, hiking, boating, fishing, kayaking, etc. The campsites are mostly all heavily wooded, and spacious. Plenty of room between sites. They have several waterfront sites with hookups, but the I terror sites were nice also, and most have a lake view. The park has docks for fishing and boat launch, and a fish cleaning station. Theres a nice playground too. There’s also rental cabins that looked really nice. The park was still being cleaned up from hurricane Laura, but was still very nice. The best place to camp I’ve seen around this area!

The Hunter Camp is situated just off range road. You're surrounded by wilderness. The only amenities are a vault toilet. Fort Polk is close enough for supplies, check your gate schedules. Marines were utilizing the ranges in the area, and a couple officers came though the hunter camp just exploring.

Theres a hiking trail near by, stating no motorized vehicles, but you can mountain bike, hike and ride horses. No fishing near by unless you drive to the blue hole complex further down range road.

Apparently they're allowing logging around the camp, so do a check before you go set up.

JD’s RV park is located near Fort Polk in Leesville. The park is right on the road, and you will hear the traffic. The property is just a field and could use some improvements. The road needs gravel and trash was piled up. Like most rv parks, there’s long term residents here. If you needed to be nearby the base, you could stay here for a night, but this is not a spot for a nice weekend stay. Toledo Bend lake is not far away, and I saw some nice camping areas there. This spot could be a decent place for a stay over with some clean up and improvements.

Arlington RV park is located in Leesville, close to Fort Polk. The rv park is right off the road, and you can hear cars going by easily from anywhere in the rv park. This is a true rv park, but was fairly clean and maintained compared to others in the area. This is not a place to go if you are looking to have a nice relaxing camping experience, you would want to be on the Toledo bend lake for that, but would be sufficient if you have a camper and needed to be near the base, or in Leesville for some reason. Like several rv parks, Arlington has long term residents, with a few sites for people passing through.

Pelican Acres RV park is located near Fort Polk, and Toledo Bend Lake. The RV park is right off the road, and is a better choice than several of the rv parks in the area. The sites all look fairly level, and the property was well maintained. Like most rv parks in the area, this one has a number of long term residents, but this one was a little bigger and nicer than most I saw. If you were passing through the area, or needed to be near the base, this would be a good place to stop for a day or two, but if you’re looking for a nice relaxing camp spot, you’ll want to look closer to the lake.

I was out looking for a place to camp. I drove around the park. Some RV’s had dug in their sewer hoses for a more permanent living arrangement. There were other clues that verified some were living here very long term. You could tell some sites were set up like the people had been living there longer than a year.

While the owner was very nice and friendly, I just would not feel comfortable camping around people who live there long term.

I have since found out that this happens around Military Bases frequently. The reason is because it makes more financial sense for Military Personnel to not stay in base housing. Permanent Base Housing sucks their housing allowance away quickly. However, purchasing an RV and getting into a campground enables them to keep more of that money in their pockets.

This campground is near Fort Polk. I was told by one of the Army People that works there, this is what is happening with all of the RV resorts/campgrounds in the area. I understand what’s happening better now.

However, camping in a campground around a majority of the people that live in a place long term is more like moving into an old neighborhood. It’s equivalent to going to camp in a residential trailer park. That’s not camping. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Check in was a breeze. Ample sized cement sites with picnic tables. Our 42” 5th wheel has 4 slides and the site was roomy. Hookups we’re good. We were close to dog park which was perfect. Lovely clean campground. The lodge where you register was pretty. Could be marked better as it doesn’t mention anything about registration. There is a guard shack but doesn’t seem to be managed 24/7. So it’s kind of a false sense of security. The pool is large but a long way from the rv park itself. They have a 24 hour shuttle that takes to back and forth to casino. That really is all there is to do here as Lake Charles is 44 min away. We had some people at their camper who felt they should share their music with the entire park. I realize they’re allowed to have loud music until a certain time- however when you can hear it over your TV while sitting in your camper I just think that’s rude! The laundry is very small considering the size of the park and it seemed that people from the hotel used it which I don’t understand as it’s for the RV park. They have 4 dryers only 2 working, 4 washers only 3 working. I had to wait for people to finish with washers and dryers in order to do my 2 loads. Never spent 3 hours doing laundry before. These people were definitely NOT rv’ers! They had suitcases!