Join the fun near Athol. With tons of outdoor activities and scenic camping, this is an excellent vacation spot for all kinds of travelers. There are tons of hikes and other fun activities to partake in, as well as sights to see and explore. Discover great camping spots near Athol, reviewed by campers like you.
NATURAL FEATURES Otter River State Forest was the first area acquired by the State Forest Commission in 1915 and also the first campground in the Massachusetts State Park system. Some of the forest area was cleared in the nineteenth century for small farms. After the state acquired the land, it was reforested with groves of pines which were planted by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930's. The forest of oak and hickory, northern hardwood and pines is home to numerous wild flowers and shrubs, deer, chipmunks and many species of birds. RECREATION Otter River State Forest is a popular camping and day-use facility in a beautiful area of north central Massachusetts. Its developed facilities are centered on Beaman Pond and include ball field, basketball court, volleyball court and picnic areas. Many recreation opportunities are available and include a fishing, hiking, hunting, mountain biking, and picnicking. Use the park's hiking trails or try mountain biking on the 9000 acres of the adjacent Birch Hill Wildlife Management Area. FACILITIES Otter River offers 73 campsites, three group sites, and four yurts. Comfort stations are located throughout the campground and offer hot showers and flush toilets. One comfort station is accessible, shown on the map. Each campsite is equipped with a picnic table and a fire ring. Yurts are canvas sided, cabin-like structures that can accommodate 4 to 6 people. Yurts offer bunk beds, tables with benches, and access to water and electricity. All of the yurts are accessible. (Linens and eating utensils are not provided.) NOTE: Electrical service is not sufficiently reliable for use with medical equipment. Pets are prohibited from yurts and yurt sites.
$17 - $54 / night
$47 - $70 / night
$14 - $23 / night
$34 - $47 / night
$60 - $130 / night
Very peaceful! Little hidden gem! We loved our weekend away
Had a pleasant stay at Woodford State Park. Sites near T38 have a great elevated view of the reservoir. Also a nice loop trail for those looking to do a little bit of hiking.
Autumn Hills Campground is AWESOME! It’s remotely located and the amenities and activities are amazing, something for everyone! The staff is so friendly and helpful and I can’t say enough how clean the bathrooms, laundry room and store are! The super nice owners, Adam& Jennifer are constantly making upgrades and changes and have really created a beautiful, family oriented campground! I recommend you take the virtual tour online so you can pick a sight that works for you and book it soon.
Me and my fiancé last minute booked a 4th of July trip last minute and had a wonderful time! Our site was all rocks and we were tenting but we made it work knowing we booked the trip last minute! Brought our dog and he had fun!
This was our first time visiting and my entire family enjoyed themselves so much, that we've already reserved a site for a few weeks from now. Arts and crafts, tractor rides, and of course the tubing down the river. Lots of built in entertainment for the kids! The grounds were clean, the playground was nice, and the people were all friendly. We did a late checkout for $5 extra, but the noon checkout and two dump stations would make leaving on time a non-issue as well.
Of note: We camped with friends, who were given a spot next to a large group of people (weekend prior to 4th of July is to be expected). The group were very polite and abided by quiet hours, but they were having fun and a bit loud for my buddy's 2 month of baby. They requested to move sites, and the management was super accommodating and apologetic. Helped him move his site and threw in some firewood for the troubles.
We had an excellent experience at this camp ground. The Staff and Rangers were polite and welcoming. We were able to see some boat races and played a round of disc golf on property. Once the boat races finished each day the camp was very quiet and peaceful. Had a great weekend
We had a nice weekend at Peppermint Park. This was our 2nd visit with a camper (2022 & 2024) and stayed about 20 years ago in tents.
It's family and dog friendly, has a pool, hot tub, newer playground with a sandbox, camp store with large lodge attached, horseshoe, volleyball and other outdoor game areas. There were several activities planned for father's day weekend including a BBQ food truck, BINGO, corn hole, horseshoes, and kids crafts. There is also wifi, but the signal is not great. It did save me on data usage though so I appreciated it.
There is a large number of seasonal's and everyone we interacted with was very friendly. My 11 year old granddaughter quickly made friends with some of the seasonal children. We attended BINGO, which was packed, and it was clear they are a friendly group. The grounds, pool, buildings and bathroom are all well maintained.
Our site, 111, was a nice flat grassy site with water and 20amp electric. We were sunny in the morning and got nice shade starting late in the morning. We had season sites all around us with only a few of them occupied so it was pretty quiet in our section. Sites are a bit closer together than we prefer, but do have trees and brush in between.
We were in between 2 bathroom buildings. One of them having only 1 shower, 1 toilet and sink in each side and the other had 1 shower, and 2 toilets on each side. I believe there is larger bathrooms with more showers in the lodge but we did not check them out.
Our only negative is the wood for sale is on the greener side so it takes a bit to get it going. We had the same issue 2 years ago and ended up buying lighter fluid from the store then. We did not have any with us this trip and did not want to pay camp store prices so we used sticks from the area and some match light charcoal to get it going well.
We did not venture outside of the campground this trip, but do know there are some nice ponds/lakes close by and hiking trails.
Overall it's a nice friendly campground that we will continue to visit.
Came for the boat races, very relaxing weekend
The HanscomField Fam Camp is a wooded recreational camp for military families and retirees, as well as for RV camping for active duty military on temporary orders. The campground offers RV sites, some with hookups, as well as more walk-in secluded tent sites as well as one yurt tent. The campground is peaceful and quiet, although adjacent to a very busy AFB. Proximity to the base provides access to the base exchange and other facilities, but the quiet location is a recreational retreat centered around several indoor and outdoor gathering spaces such as basketball and outdoor sports, and an indoor game and recreation room complete with crafts supplies for the kiddos and tourism info for the lical area. In the immediate vicinity are the villages of Lexington and Concord as well as the Minute Man National Park and Walden Pond, so the campground makes a great basecamp for exploration of the area’s rich culture and history. You are also not too far from Cambridge, and can easily access Boston from there if you like.
There are several clean modern bath houses, with hot showers and flush toilets. The office staff is very helpful and friendly!
Dogs are welcome too.
I loved my stay here! I just stayed 1 night passing through, the drive to the campground was gorgeous. checking in was super easy. Finding my site and the bathroom was a breeze. THE BATHROOM was the best I’ve seen camping very clean and updated and honestly gorgeous. Everyone else there was super nice and quiet. Quiet hours start at 10 but it was silent after about 9 which was so amazing. I would definitely stay again!
This is a very nice campground.
We stayed in site 64 which is set back more than 2 car lengths from the road and is pretty well surrounded with trees so it feels very private and secluded. Could see one neighboring site slightly through the trees but that neighboring site was lower down so it still felt private. It was a good sized site. Not sure if we could hear any noise from route 9 or not. If we did, it was very faint and did not disturb us.
Site 64 is across the road from a water spigot and the path to the bathrooms/showers. It was very convenient and we didn't feel like we were right by the bathrooms (no compromise to our site's privacy, no noise, etc). Our site wasn't waterfront but wasn't far from path down to reservoir.
The bathrooms are BEAUTIFUL! the nicest I've seen yet. Very clean, well stocked with toilet paper and soap- convenient shelf and hooks for toiletries/towels.
The showers are beautiful as well. There are 3 individual shower rooms that lock. Each one has a bench/chair and hooks to hang towels etc. There is also a small shelf in the actual shower for soap.
NEW for 2024: the showers do not accept quarters anymore. You need to buy tokens from the campground. It is 1 token for 5 minutes and it is 50 cents a token. The issue we encountered was that apparently people still try to put in quarters and this jams the machine. Therefore, when we put in our tokens, though we thought everything worked fine, in fact the machine did not register the tokens and we were left taking ice cold showers. When we told the office in the morning, they explained the issue and said that had we called them they could have fixed the shower. They are going to try to put some guard over the slot to prevent quarters from going in. Hopefully, this is implemented soon. They were very apologetic and gave us new tokens to replace the ones we had lost on cold showers.
The office sells wood for $6 a bundle and you can get free kindling from their leftover cuttings/sweepings. They also sell ice and some "merch"/"swag".
We really enjoyed our stay here.
We took our new to us hybrid camper out for its inaugural trip.
We chose to stay in the wooded loop of the campground and we were very happy with our site, #66. That section has about 12 sites, some big and some on the smaller side. Our site was easy to back into, even more so since no one was in the site across from us. Our site was very spacious, level and included a picnic table, fire ring, and nicely placed hookups for water and electric. We had easy access to trails that went along the river behind some of the sites with a few paths down to the river.
Everyone we encountered was friendly and respectful. There are quiet hours from 10pm-8am that are enforced. We were grateful to not have to hear loud partying going on into the night. There was car noise from nearby Rt 10 on the other side of the river, but nothing you can do about that.
We asked for assistance at the office with our first time using a pumping station at the end of the trip. We were given friendly helpful assistance and some great tips and advice for the future.
This was a nice enjoyable first visit for us. We will definitely be adding it to our list of places to visit again, but likely later in the year when we can enjoy the river and activities a bit more. We did not explore the options for bike, kayak, and canoe rentals but would like to in the future.
Had an excellent experience. The staff and owner were wicked accommodating. The fishing pond was perfect. I will be returning soon. I highly recommend this place if you have a family or simply need a place to clear your mind.
Unfortunately, this place is poorly run. The staff appears friendly at first, but if you need any help with anything, they run the other way. I agree with the previous review of the campground being underfunded. I suspect it is intentional so the greedy owner can put more money in his pocket because they charge and overcharge for everything. There are a lot of full-time, year-round rowdies that live and drink excessively here. If you want your kids exposed to that, then go for it. The outdoor pool is way too small for the number of seasonal and short-term guests. If it happens to rain while you're there, then prepare for roads to be 3 inches of mud. There is no gravel or sand on them. Sites are very close together, so there is no privacy. I do not recommend staying here. NH offers many very nice and well maintained rustic and resort style campgrounds. The only positive is decent showers.
Over looks a lake that has amazing sunsets and wildlife!
Nice and casual campground. We came here after we struck out at Saddleback (about 40 miles east of here, because they were full), and were much happier here than we would have been at Saddleback. Saddleback campers had “don’t tread on me” signs, campers here had rainbow signs. Office staff was friendly and professional and helpful.
Keyser Pond is in the Passport America program, and we paid $25 for a FHU site with that discount, so double that for normal rates. The campground is a little run down and disheveled looking, with a lot of long-termers, some with hard PVC sewer piping from their RVs. There’s a store and a rec room, sadly no book exchange though. There’s a basketball court and playground, a beach volleyball court, a little pond. There are dumpsters here, but no recycling.
Cost for non-campers to use the dump is an astonishing $40, which can’t be right, but that’s what the sign said. I’d confirm that with the office though. You can hear road noise but it wasn’t bothersome. There’s good free wifi at camp, and good cell reception with Verizon and ATT. Camp takes security seriously, with gated entry and wristbands for guests to wear. Laundry is great, open 24 hours, $1.50/wash and $0.25 per 6 min or so for dryer. Showers were hot (low pressure though) and not free, at $0.25/5 min. Sites not fully level but leveling blocks took care of it.
Military only campground. Working on improving the grounds and services available. Limited sites available off season. Summer season early May through end October.
Tom was a gem of a guy! He was very helpful, accommodating, and kind. Because we are fully self-contained and need no hook-ups, he gave us a small discount on our night. We stayed right next to a cute pond on site 69. There was a family with several smaller children who were fishing g the pond. It was so cute to hear them squeal with glee when they caught a fish.
Tom takes great care to keep the grounds and the bathrooms/showers very clean. It is obvious he takes pride in ownership.
I would stay here again and for much longer next time.
Chose this spot to give us a rest on a trip to Canada (and again to go back to Maine to complete the vacation after we had truck trouble). Chose a pull-through to save time and effort. The first time we chose site 1 (pull through). This past weekend we chose site 38 (pull through).
A few weeks ago when we visited, site 1 was close to the entry gate, but was very confusing as a pull through. I just backed the trailer in. The next morning we saw that the "pull through" had not been maintained in several seasons. Tree limbs and brush intruded on the driveway. There was no way to get a truck and trailer through that without damage.
Yesterday we tried site 38. We had to take the camp road around the entire park, then enter the "loop" section. Even the "main" roads required my wife to watch as I cleared tree trunks; it was difficult to snake our little trailer around the bends. The driveway to site 38 was a mess. Tree limbs and brush invaded the drive, and there was nowhere level on the whole site. I used a record 9 blocks to get 4 levels high on the downhill wheel. When leaving we had to go out through the adjoining site, because there was no way we'd be able to make the turn out of the site onto the 10' wide tote road because of the trees.
A surcharge which makes it $50/night for non-MA residents, plus, no dump station on site and $7 for four pieces of firewood (go to the Walmart 2 miles away instead) will have us skip this place in the future, even if it's in a convenient place.
For those looking to vacation here. There was minimal cell phone coverage with Verizon. I could check messages but wouldn't try to stream. The highway is very loud (I-90 is across the lake). There are a lot of boggy areas and swamps which, although pretty, grew a lot of mosquitoes that kept my wife indoors. A lot of sites were fairly large and private. The beach area is close to the lower sites. Bathrooms and showers were tight and needed updating, but cleaned.
We stayed here as a stopover on our way home to NJ from Maine. It's 5 min down the road from Wilmington, one of our favorite towns to visit. There are no hookups at any Vermont state parks (Molly Stark included). We stayed at site T16. It's a pull through RV site with a fire ring & picnic table. T16 is right next to bathrooms- unfortunately the map shows showers there too (there are not). We boondocked- there's a spot up top near the other bathrooms where you can fill your fresh water tank. We had a slight issue with our fresh tank overflow valve & the park worker was INCREDIBLE, helpful and so kind. I think his name was Jerry?. He came right over and even rigged up a fix for it in his workshop. We got him a 12pack as a thanks before we left :). Campground is quiet & nestled in the woods. We didn't see any bear, but it is an active bear area. Some tent sites have lean to structures as well. There's a large pavilion at the top of the campground for eating etc. If we stayed longer we would have definitely done the Mt Olga Fire-tower trail. This is no frills, primitive & refreshing camping. And yes- we would stay again!!
Love it. Good bathroom ,nice people, great lake.
We absolutely loved our 3 night stay and found the staff to be friendly and supportive. Restrooms were well maintained, sites were fairly level and private, and the overall facility was great!
The nearby town of Wilmington is classy and there are a number of micro breweries within a short distance.
This place is great. Everyone is so knowledgeable and helpful and kind. They really seem to care about what they do, and it shows. Highly recommend.
Foolhardy Hill is the nicest facility that I have ever "Camped". I used quotes, because this is NOT a "roughing it" Campground. Katie and Biddy, the host/owners, are the nicest and most accommodating. This "off the grid" place is convenient, comfortable, spotless clean and I would HIGHLY recommend a stay. I would also recommend renting the entire facility for a family reunion, off site business meeting, fishing club meeting, or just a place to meet up with a bunch of old friends... The bathrooms are clean and the showers are HOT. The pavilion provides a meeting place for groups to maybe discuss the day's catch, the one that got away, or just to meet new friends. The pavilion also has everything you will need for grilling, flat top cooking and 2+ gas burners.
I was here for fishing. Foolhardy is located centrally for the best the Deerfield River has to offer.
Pets welcome, but leave the little ones at home (unless renting the entire facility).
If I have to leave just ONE negative comment; after the shower, the mirror above the sink was VERY fogged! (Did i mention, the showers are HOT!) :-D
Staff assisted to guide us into our space. 25' travel trailer, full hookups. Lot 6, backs onto a little creek. Some old campers onsite that look to have overstayed due to condition. Nice to be at a non corporate campground, a few bruises, but overall great experience. Dog friendly, relaxed environment.
I have a special place in my heart for state parks, and this one is great!
Stayed at Wells Camp late August weather was beautiful, temp wise. We did run into a BIT of a storm (more monsoon) when we were on our way back from a brewery visit. A tree across the way had gotten struck by lightening while we were out. Unfortunately it Mass was in drought & we couldn't do a fire. Even with the heavy down pour, the site soaked it up and we had one small puddle. It was relatively quiet, except for the karaoke at a neighboring site, but hey it was his birthday weekend & it gave us entertainment. 😊🎤 We hiked pretty much all the trails in the park that weekend & did a night hike given by a guide. Definitely talking about staying again.
Frequently Asked Questions
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According to TheDyrt.com, the most popular glamping campground near Athol, MA is Otter River State Forest with a 4.1-star rating from 14 reviews.
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TheDyrt.com has all 35 glamping camping locations near Athol, MA, with real photos and reviews from campers.
