Best Campgrounds near California, MO

Park was closed but had parking in the lot outside of the gate. Good enough to crash over night. Did a daylight walk through and discovered a well maintained camp site. Talked with park staff who was cleaning and cutting up downed trees. He was friendly and knowledgeable. Bad timing for me, and I was looking for free camp sites. Otherwise this would be a great go to location for me.

Loved camping there and floating down the river! Will continue to camp here in the future!

We stopped here while on a cross country RV trip. We were pleasantly surprised with a nice quiet clean campsite. The hookups were easily accessed and the shower facilities were great after a long day on the road. The only real downfall was the bugs but it’s the outdoors so it happens! The small town of Arrow Rock is as beautiful as it is charming with all the things you could need.

The campground has large campsites and is quiet.  The bathrooms are clean and a short walk from most campsites.  

There is a dock close to the campground for canoeing and kayaking.

Heavily forested with a lake. Trails and camping areas in woods are setup for equestrian with good trails for hikers, bikers and horses. Camping at lake is open gravel or grass. Nice fishing lake with docks, boat ramp and vault toilet and the only one provided. Parked lakeside. Quite night with one fishing boat late morning. Get a brochure with park map at entrance as roads pass through park and private property.

Asked for a lake view cabin. We were the only ones here since it was a weekday after labor day so all cabins were open. I go to check in and it's a long sidewalk between narrow rails. Not at all easy if you are disabled and with my COPD, I had to stop several times. 

I get cabin 6. If you go here DO NOT GET CABIN 6. It's the only one you can't park in front of as it's down the side of a hill. You must traverse several levels of steps down a steep grade. The office hours are over by now so I hauled what we needed down. 

The lake view was somewhere past the forest so I'll take their word on that.

The refrigerator was filthy and we had no hot water. Since it was after hours all we could do is clean the fridge, make supper and wait till 9 in the morning to call maintenance. 

Maintenance arrives and determine the elements are bad. At about 10:30am they started working. Spent most of our only full day watching them fix the water heater. The maintenance guys were very nice but I'm not leaving my stuff with strangers. 

So basically, I spent $200 to sit on a deck with acorns falling on us or on the world's most uncomfortable couch as they worked on getting me hot water. Early morning fishing was shot.

They did say we could now switch cabins but I would need to move our stuff back up Mt Fk-That just to move it again into the new cabin, then back out again tomorrow. 

It is a lovely area and the people are friendly but they need to do better. Also, warn people that cabin 6 is more cliff side than lake side.

Basic tent site, potable water was right near our site. Bathrooms were clean. There were some families staying nearby but overall was a quiet stay.

Check-in was quick and easy and we proceeded to pull through site 83 with FHUs. The gravel pad was very long and we had plenty of room for our 40’ rig and F450. The utilities were in the middle of the pad and water pressure was decent at about 40 psi. As we were on the end of a row, we had a lot of front yard space. The sites here are very close together, but long-term guests kept their sites nice and well organized, and overall this CG was very clean. There are mature trees so satellite placement could be challenging. We were able to place our Starlink in the yard area for a good shot to the north sky. We got 4 bars on Verizon and their WiFi worked well for a campground of this size. At the office, they have a nice store and gift shop with one of the best selections of camping shirts etc. that we have seen.

During our stay at the campground, we found several positive aspects. The pricing was reasonable, the staff was friendly, and the pool was cute. The bathrooms and showers were clean, and the overall environment was pretty quiet and well lit. Additionally, our site was mostly level. However, there were also some drawbacks to our experience. The pond on the property was essentially a large ditch with standing water, which attracted bugs. The distance from our spot to the bath house was quite far, and we were disappointed by the lack of a clear view of the river. While the campground may be enjoyable for longer stays, we found it to be nothing special for a one-night stop during our travels. NOTE- I don’t think the contact info on this listing is correct.

My favorite place to camp!! Can't wait to go again.

The campground was quiet and low key. No internet available so bring your own or purchase WiFi from their system. Shower house was ok, the smell made me dry heave, smelled like old meat. Small fenced area for dogs to play / go to the bathroom in. No playground for kids. Our site was level, it stormed during our stay but staff was quick to clean up downed trees and regrade the roads. The location was perfect for visiting Branson and its attractions. I got the vibe that it was more of an older generation camping campsite with more long time campers. We’d go back and stay if our focus was the attractions at Branson, not to hangout at the campsite.

Stayed here overnight and the camphor was very friendly and helped us out. Bathrooms and showers were open, super clean. Peaceful and would definitely stay again to venture into the town

Beautiful campgrounds. Hiking trails. Super showers & toilets. Clean. Friendly staff.

If your camper has everything you need, it's a good campground. The website says it's 50 amp only, but it has 30 too. When we stayed there in March 2024, the shower/bathroom was locked. No park management came by our site, and when you call to get information, you get city hall telling you you need to call some other number...that they didn't have. So, everything's up to you.

We liked this place. It was a good place for an overnight camp on our travels. No restroom that we could find. No water or power. Camp is free. It has an old boat ramp so you can get down the the river easier, but water was way too low for a boat when I was there in September of 2023. Down a gravel road a few minutes off the highway in some corn field area. There are only a handful of spaces on the grass. So hopefully you get one or someone is willing to share. We had the place to ourselves.

We have infested cabin number 3 outpost. Crawling on our food children in our beds and biting our family. I was disappointed. And  shock. With conditions and attitude of the state park. Read correspondence. Beware.

Great spot on my road trip west! Put in some miles and didn’t get in until about 2am and this was easy to find and great spots away from the highway but also didn’t have to trek far away