Best Tent Camping near Tupelo, MS

We tent camped at Tishomingo and it was beautiful. Not only did it have nice campgrounds but the trails along the river were awesome!

We had one of the primitive tent sites. It was great and hardly anyone else was at the park. Too cold for the water when we went. Bathrooms could have been nicer but better than nothing.

We have camped at several MS state parks near Memphis (Tishomingo, Wall Doxey) and have left feeling like MS didn’t have a lot to offer, but Tombigbee State Park is great. There is a video included in the post which includes the entire campground area. I hope you find it helpful. Additionally, here is a basic overview of pros and cons:

Pros:

1. All sites close to the bathhouse
2. Most sites with full hook up including sewer and 30/50 amp plugs. (see pics)
3. Multiple updated playgrounds
4. Very affordable. $24 a night for a full hook up site.
5. Very walkable. Small campground with access to amenities by foot.
6. Disc golf course is very fun. It is has an interesting layout in the woods so it is much like a hike.
7. The park is near Tupelo, MS and there is a Dollar General right at the entrance to the park.
8. If you are primitive camping, the tent camping area is outstanding. (see pic) There are picnic tables, elevated tent platforms, places for hammocks, a porch swing and bench around a raised fire pit. If you are primitive camping, it is a great place.
9. There are several docks for fishing and there were signs for the option of boating with a trolling motor, but no one was boating while we were there.
10. The park office was not open while we were here, but it did look updated
11. Great for young kids because the campground is small with a flat loop that is easy for bike riding, skating, or scooters. It is easy to see the kids from your campsite and not worry about them getting lost
12. frequent monitoring by the park rangers. Appears that this park is very well taken care of.

Cons:

1. Absolutely no shade on the playground.
2. Inside loop spots are mostly close together. very little privacy.
3. We were not able to view the inside of the bathhouse.
4. only 20 sites and only 4 tent camping areas and were without water or electric.
5. No SP swag so no stickers, patches, shirts, etc.

This is an A+ for the price, amenities and location to our home base of Memphis. We will definitely be back.

We stayed at two cabins at Elliot Branch in August with some friends.  It is a short drive to Bear Creek if you want to kayak or canoe, but the cabins are on lakefront property and you can just jump in!  

The cabins are clean and quiet.  They have a full kitchen, bathroom, and ours slept two in a double bed, but there is room in the living area for cots or sleeping on the couch if you wanted.  The couches are huge, and the cabins have cable.  WiFi is also available, though it is slow.

The campsites are also nice.  We drove through the area, scouting out where we want to tent camp in the future.

There is a lot of history here and a lot ot learn about Native Americans, geology, plants, animals, etc. Great park for a weekend or a whole week. We mostly did hiking and canoeing, also lots of fishing. Great hiking trails for kids since there are a lot of neat geologic features, bridges, etc. to keep their attention during a hike.

Yay: This park has a lot of extras like playing fields, kayak rentals, ranger programs, educational signage (history and nature), etc. We stayed at a tent site near the little lake and it was just lovely. There are also adorable cabins to rent.

**Nay: some campsites are a little crowded but nothing unusual.  **

Surprise: absolutely beautiful old stonework, bridge, buildings, etc. add so much to the natural scenery!

I had never really heard about this wonderful place until it was suggested to me on a comment asking about finding the elusive Hellbender salamander. Tucked in the northeast corner of Mississippi are the foothills of the Appalachian Mountain Range. You all know how much I love mountains. So we had to go check it out. And I'm so glad we did.

The landscape is like no other you'll find in MS. The various rock formations, trails and creeks that make up the park provide numerous opportunities for exploring all aspects of this well kept secret. The park is also steeped in a rich history of the Native Americans who once walked the lands and the Civilian Conservation Corps who constructed the park. If you're into geology, the rock formations are pretty fascinating.

Whether you're a small kid or a kid trapped in an adult's body like myself, you'll find something to do here. The pictures in the link will give you an idea of what to look forward to along with a few nearby spots. My only minimal complaint was that the standard campsites were a little too close together, in my opinion. Otherwise, I was uber impressed.

Things to do:

Tent camp - Standard & Primitive

RV or Car/Truck camping

Hammock camping

Group camping & Family Cabins

Fishing, Hiking, Kayaking, Canoeing, Rock Climbing (with permit), Bike Riding, Herping, Birding, Disc Golf or just plain Relaxing

Amenities:

Power connections at all camping slots with the exception of the primitive sites

Bathroom and Shower facilities

Pavillions

Picnic tables & grills

Park office

(You can view my photos via FB on Crazy Camping Chick.)

Camped for two weeks in mid fall, October 2020. Full hookups, clean bath house. Family friendly. It is dated though. Play area available, small and quant. Roads are drivable of course but need to be funded, come on Mississippi and step up.. 15-20 minutes from a supercenter on West Main Street in Tupelo. Tupelo is lovely and where we actually live. This is the nearest campground my children 13, 10, and 4 stay at. The 4yo loves is, hiking and bike riding is what the older kids do. Nice lake for fishing, no swimming or wake.

Site we stayed at was level, and fully shaded.

We've camped here twice in the last several months.  Both times we camped in tents and had a great time.  The grounds are well kept, and the park ranger is especially helpful.  There are hiking trails and plenty of places to fish off the bank.  The lake is beautiful.  We used the restrooms and showers and had no problems.  They were clean and well stocked with toilet tissue and paper towels.  The park is close to Tupelo and easy to get to.

Tombigbee SP

Elvis was born in Tupelo, Mississippi and Tombigbee SP is a good spot to base your exploration out of.

I overnighted here enroute to Alabama. It wasn’t the best maintained or newest park , however it was small and quiet. Something that had me confused my first time around the loop was the orange cones blocking the sites. Then I guessed that meant the site was reserved. The shower house had washers and dryers in the middle area. The building was clean and maintained. It was centrally located. Across the street was a nice big field, playground and baseball diamond. The trails and disc golf was in the same area. There’s also a small lake with a dock. Otherwise Tombigbee SP really wasn’t that memorable.

This is a great park for any type of camping. We were in an RV, there is full hook up. There is a small lake and close to Tupelo. Has hiking and biking trails. Highly recommend !!!

Small campground attached to a public use park. Gated after dark with older but usable bathrooms and showers. Has a splash pad, a basketball court, and several piers on the lake for fishing. You can hear cows in the distance from across the lake.

Can’t beat the price at $22/night. We stopped in for a night in our teardrop trailer on our way farther up north.

Tupelo is 30 minutes away with the Elvis Birthplace museum and other attractions. There’s a gas station at the entrance to the park for snacks and ice.

With less than 20 sites this is a small comfortable campground with full hookups. 30 minutes to Tupelo or Oxford, this place splits them down the middle. The site is a level concrete pad with 50/30 amp, water and sewer. The campground is next to a big county park with a playground, boat ramp and fishing docks. Nice walking paths along the lakes edge provides a great place for a view of the sunset. The camp manger is a nice as could be and reached out after I left to return something I left behind. A great small park easy to get to.

The road leading to the park could be improved a bit but it wasn't too bad. The park was nice and clean and the loop we stayed on was kept up pretty well. Sites were nice and level and it's hard to beat full hookups for the price!

The bathrooms were obviously older but still kept clean.

The lake had been drained at some point for repairs and it's still very low. There's not a whole lot to do in the park unless you bring horses or an ATV. Great place for a nice quiet getaway.

The neat thing is there's actually a special camping loop just for those that do have horses and ATVs, and it keeps the noise away from everyone else.

There's not a ton to do in nearby Tupelo but we did have a nice dinner at Harvey's, The zoo seemed rather expensive for its size.

We went camping here in May 2019 before Memorial Day and it was so peaceful and beautiful. We were fortunate enough to get a spot right on the lake.

It is such a perfect place to get away from it all.

We were there for 5days . We got on the Natchez Trace parkway. Also we went to Tupelo.

The bathrooms were not very clean but we were there off season and had a skeleton crew. But the park itself was beautifully decorated. They also have disc golf.

Make sure you bring bug spray and check for ticks.

If you have a bike it’s a great place to ride.

Please consider going there the town itself had a tornado go through it and could really use the tourism. I called the park and they said the park itself was not touched by the tornado and had no damage.

It is the perfect park to social distance the spots are not close to each other.

We camped over the weekend in the old part of the campground. All sites have a firepit and a picnic bench. The sites are not very leveled and some were kinda flooded after heavy rain. It was just a bit run down. The bathhouse was old but clean and had good water pressure. The sites on the other side of the lake were absolutely beautiful and definitely newer. A lot of things in the campground were closed like the pool, lodge, and nature center. It seems they were under construction. The park has several trails to hike on. We did the one starting on the swinging bridge. They was good water access from a creek along the way, which was perfect for the dogs to cool off. We also visited Tupelo, which is about 50 min away. It was very interesting to see, where Elvis was from. I'm not sure if I would camp here again. Maybe in the late fall or winter time, when it's not so hot and humid.

Camped & Hiked Tishomingo State Park last weekend. Beautiful fall colors and the hike was gorgeous! This place seems so out of place for Mississippi! With that being said…The campground was a disappointment. There was a handful of decent sites, but overall, it is in disrepair. The bathroom towards the back of the loop was already closed for the season. The middle bathroom only had one toilet working in the women’s and men’s restroom (we don’t have a bathroom in our Aliner popup and there were also lots of tent campers). I literally had to wait in line a couple of times to use the bathroom. Many sites were washing out under the pads and had steep drop offs on the sides (especially the single digit site #’s). The tables and fire pits (some sites didn’t even have a real pit, just a spot on the ground where there was signs of a fire) were really far away and some sites appeared to be in a soggy bottom area. We got semi lucky and had a decent spot. (Site 33). The sites that back up to the woods instead of the pond are flatter for those who find that more important. Maybe we are just spoiled to nicer state parks where they take more pride in the upkeep? Just the little details that don’t cost extra money, but instead just needs someone to do it (blowing leaves off the major roads and parking areas - we couldn't see the road to turn into the campground!!!, cleaning graffiti, clearing massive mounds of debris, etc…) I don’t know if they are suffering from budget cuts, if someone is robbing the place blind or if the staff just works there because it’s a job but doesn’t really care about the park itself. It’s sad because this should be a premier destination spot in Mississippi! I don’t want to deter anyone from going here because the landscape is really nice. I just got worked up because I don’t understand how other parks are able to maintain, but this one seems to really be struggling with how to keep this place nice.

Tishomingo State park is one of the beautiful places Mississippi has to offer. So many hiking trails, cliffs and sites to see. Also you can visit Mississippi’s highest point only a few short miles away in the neighboring town of Iuka.

We stayed one night (4/25/21) at site 78. Our site was on the water and we were able to catch quite a few bream directly in front of us. It seems like the sites which aren’t waterfront are a little more tent friendly, but our tent fit just fine in the gravel area by the picnic table. We used the grill on site and it was well maintained. Bath houses are very clean and in close proximity to most of the sites. There’s also a nice playground. We have Verizon and had at least 3 bars the entire time