The best TENT SITES camping near
Cockeysville , MARYLAND

Campgrounds closed until early 2021

We went for Father’s Day a few years ago. Nice camping experience had a fishing pond sites were level and no problems

My family lives near Greenbelt National Park and we have hiked the five-mile perimeter trail dozens of times with our dogs. However, this park has a serious bug problem. Most  of the time, we return home from our hikes only to find ticks on at least one of us! 

We were excited to finally tent camp at Greenbelt two years ago for my wife's 30th and had a memorable time around the campfire, but were disappointed the next day that chiggers and ticks had once again swarmed us on our hike. Enjoy the camping but wear bug repellent and stay out of the tall grasses!

Close to Hershey World, nice campground mid week nice and few campers. Nice staff, trash pickup at site, friendly escort. Check-in process very through, be prepared with drivers license and plate number. Site was spacious, clean and trees between sites so you don't feel crowded in. Would recommend.

We stayed at site D72 for 4 days. The sites are quiet, very spacious, level, and heavily wooded with 50A service, water and sewer hookup. D Loop is for RVs, A, B, C& E are tents only. AT&T 5 MB/s w/o booster(1 bar), 8 MB/s with it(2 bars). There is no satellite coverage due to the heavy tree canopy. OTA TV was descent using an external omni antenna. There is no WiFi. There is a very nice network of trails, most if not all were leashed dog friendly.

Stayed one night in September and had a nice level gravel site with fire pit, picnic table and bath house. Greeted by a friendly and helpful camp host as we backed into our site for our maiden voyage. Clean bath house and amenities. Stayed in site 25 with water spigot nearby. Dumpsters for garbage not a far drive and dump station as you leave the park was convenient.

Riding through catoctin mountain park to get to the campground is almost worth it alone staying. My wife and I just stayed one night with our 2 dogs. We met the hosts as we pulled in to our site, very friendly and accommodating. Some of the sites can be backed up to one another or right aide of each other, but there's a number of sites that are more private than others to make it a great experience. Typically, I prefer dispersed or primitive camping over campgrounds, but this place gets the exception. The roads around catoctin mtn Park and Cunningham falls make for a great way to spend a weekend. Lots of trails around the campground and even a few right on premises. Overall, I hope to make it back before the close up next month, if not I'll be coming back next year.

The individual campsites are decent for a light camping experience. The hiking trails are great. The rivers for kayaking a real nice. Would recommend. Only warning is unless you rent 2-3 campsites you will be close to other campers as the campsites are in groups of three right next to eachother.

Staff is very friendly. Bathhouse is clean but ran out of toilet paper often; they supposedly clean 3 times a day since COVID but we didn’t see that happening on a regular schedule while we were there.

We loved that our site had a path directly to the bathhouse. This meant there wasn’t any foot traffic from people wanting to shower or use the restrooms. Easy access to the utility sink for dishes, too!

There seemed to be a lot of campers in the surrounding lots and still, everyone was quiet between the quiet hours.

Our specific site was supposed to have a tent pad but there wasnt a spot cleared for our tent and we had to move the heavy picnic table so we weren’t putting up our tent on top of the fire ring. We also had to use a paper plate to rake as many rocks and gravel from the site so we could put up our tent without ripping it.

We bought their firewood for $5/crate and it was really wet. It was challenging to get a fire going, which was frustrating. Ended up not being able to have a fire the last morning there and gave away our leftover firewood.

Probably my biggest complaint is that several times, the park maintenance truck drove down the loop where we camped. Our kids are running around and playing and the only vehicle that sped past every time was the park crew vehicle. All other vehicles (belonging to visitors) were respectful and drove slowly. It surprises me that with families camping here, they wouldn’t be more cautious.

All in all: for our first time camping here, it was a decent experience. I don’t know that we’d go there again, but it was a fun one-and-done trip.

Nice small campsite in MD not too far from DC. One negative was that when it rains it really flushes through the grounds. We had a site on the lower end of the loop and our site was hard to set up as we arrived during a storm and it was very wet even after the rain died down. Another negative was after the storm for the next few days we heard trees falling nearby. Where we were hiking. 😬 The positives are as others have pointed out there is a huge park for kids- it’s not within walking distance for little kids but it’s a very short drive by the entrance to the park. There’s also another small park on the loop. The restrooms were central and well maintained. We found a small river and swimming hole at the bottom of the hill off to the side opposite the cabins/park. All sites had a picnic table and fire ring. Firewood available from camp host. Hiking poles would have been good for the trails when we had a kid in a pack on our back. Overall a nice close small campground.