Best Tent Camping near Asbury, MO

Gopher Valley campground in on of several campground in the Twin Bridges area of Grand Lake State Park.  This campground is fully paved with both full hook up RV camping area, tent camping area and areas that work for both.  Campground have drive through and pull in sites.  Sites all have picnic tables and metal fire rings.  Campground has a large pavilion which can be rented.  The pavilion has a huge BBQ grill.  Campground has a small playground for the kids.  Small restroom with showers is available.  With the exception of the RV pull through sites all the other sites have plenty of grass to set up a tent.  Sites can be reserved.

The tiny campground is located in a wooded hollow at the edge of the prairie and has 4 primitive sites, no electric or water at sites, no showers and one vault toilet only. You can drive up the hill to the maintenance area to get water and there is a sign for this. 2 sites have paved pads and the others are gravel/dirt. The 2 outer gravel sites back up to a curved stream that runs along the perimeter of the campground but are lower and more shaded and more prone to hovering clouds of bugs. They are all have a picnic table and fire ring and are relatively private and well distanced. Since you have to drive through this stream to get to the campground beware when there has been heavy rain as it may not be accessible. The center paved sites are more open and grassy and get more wind but also don’t have as much shade. I think I stayed in site 4 and it was great for my solar panel. I did have steady cell service with AT&T while here.

Since it’s pretty primitive you will likely have the place to yourself, but be prepared to have guests of the state park driving through all day to check it out. Lots of deer around, beautiful to see but this also means ticks! There is also significant poison ivy along the roads but there are signs warning about that. Best to keep to the maintained roads and paths. As far as dogs, they are not allowed on any of the trails because of the bison but they can walk the entire main gravel road of the state park (no shade). Nature center was closed due to covid when I was there but looks interesting. There were a couple bison about 20 feet from the center when I was there. My parents visited once and ended up on the road for about an hour while an entire herd of bison meandered across the road around their vehicle! The bison roam free here, although the small campground area has fences and/or cow grates to keep them out. The land is stunning and open and takes you back to a bygone era of this country. The sunrises here over the prairie are gorgeous.

Eagle Bluff campground has both RV and tent camping spots.  Drive in sites have electrical, picnic tables, metal fire rings, BBQ grills and paved parking pads.  The nice part of this campground is the undeveloped camping area for those tent campers, the sites while close together have Shelters over most of the sites picnic tables as well as BBQ grills.  Sites with electricity have plenty of room for setting up tents.  Campground has a new playground for the kids.  Rest room has showers as well.  Horseshoe pits and a basketball hoop are also available.  Sites can be reserved.  A Pavilion is available.

Angler's Paradise campground is a 20 site campground in the Twin Bridges area of Grand Lake State Park.  The campground sits between the Neosho and Spring rivers.

17 of the sites are RV sites with hook ups, the last three are primitive tent sites.  All sites have Picnic tables and BBQ Grills.  Some sites have hooks for lanterns.  Restrooms are on site as well as water and trash service.  Most of the RV sites are right up against each other with little room between.  It appears that this will be a busy site due to the very large boat launch at the campground.  The campground is also just off of U.S. Highway 60 so expect some road noise.  The campground does have a shelter as well that can be rented for $51.

This campsite is not for those who want amenities. There are 4 SPACIOUS sites and they are what I would call primitive. No hookups/ no electricity/ no running water. Good for star gazing. Two sites have a paved pad and two do not...depends what you’re looking for. There are quite a few trails ranging from 1.5-4.5 miles—- total of 14 miles of trails. The nature center is small but they have two bison, a coyote, and many other learning opportunities inside. Speaking of bison and coyotes... you’ll hear the coyotes all night howling and barking...the bison are roaming around which you will be able to see where they’ve been by the scat droppings around the road and trail system. Definitely something to see if you’ve never seen the plains before.

This could be a really nice little campground if it weren’t for the party vibe starting at 7am (yep, there was that one guy pounding beer and cranking tunes at 7am). Camp sites are divided by the road with RVs on one side and tents on the other. A person can easily walk under the bridge to get from one side to the other without having to walk on the road. There are no designated sites for tents, and that means there are also no picnic tables or grills for tents (it looked like there were at least some grills and fire pits near the gravel parking pads for RVs). But, for $5 you can camp on the beach and Mike (the fellow who runs Zan’s) will help you get hooked up with kayaks or rafts to float the river. There are no showers. There’s a decent roadhouse just up the street for some eats.

Camped primitive at Twin Bridges State Park in 2002 by myself. Set up one-person tent. Built a campfire and enjoyed the solitude. Grand lake and Spring river joins together there just over the hill. Thats reason its called Twin Bridges! On 60 highway west of Senaca, Mo and between there and Fairland, Ok going west. Nice shelters with bath houses and picnic tables. Fishing is great! Have roped off swimming area too. Rangers came through every couple hours to do a security check which was nice. Made coffee next morning on fire and brother came with cinnamon rolls and to visit!! What a nice campground.

Stayed in campsite #5 in a rooftop tent. Level spot. Heavily shaded. Lots of trees for hammocks. Immediate access to the lake from this site for our kayaks. Short distance from bathrooms/shower house. Plenty of showers and bathrooms (both family style and community style options available). We were there in mid July and we had a pleasant cool breeze off the lake and not much of an insect problem. The only negative issue we had was that the fire ring hadn’t been cleaned out in a while. We had a ton of ashes we had to clear out ourselves just to be able to build a fire and as we walked around we noticed other fire rings were much the same. Some even had a lot of trash left in them. Also sketchy cell service and check in time is 6:00 pm which is kind of late. Overall, though, a great experience!