Best Cabin Camping near Joplin, MO

What I like about this campground is that the tent sites are separate from the RV area, and RV’s don’t have to go through the tents to get to their area. However, the RV’s have actual loops off the main road and the tent sites are right on that main road. The main road goes all the way through the park to the actual springs, a picnic area, and a nice arboretum. There are great hiking trails in wooded hills on either side of the campground. The RV area has dedicated parking spots for each RV with picnic tables and fire pits. The keypad coded bathhouse and laundry are also located in this area(keeps out the general public). The tent area is more or less a strip of mown grass with a few picnic tables and fire pits on either side of the road, with the creek and run off channels on either side. Obviously, you want to get a site on the creek side. Definitely hike back to Blowing Springs, LOTS of flowing water. The hiking trails up top are really pretty and surprising. I came across a cemetery up on a bluff, and found another small spring. It’s easy to get turned around and confused on the trails as they seem to overlap and some trail names seem to appear on several trails.

I’ll start my review by saying I’ve never pitched my tent in this park but have visited many times. They added tent sites in 2019- they appear to be primitive and include a fire ring. The nice thing is the tent sites are far from the RV sites so no unwanted noises for tenters in the night.

Trails abound in and around blowing springs which connect into the back 40 trail system...you can hike the B40 but remember this is a shared trail and you will come across many mountain bikers enjoying the trails system. There is also a arbortrarium in the park towards the back, a couple caves, and a creek.

If you are in need of snacks etc it’s a quick 2 minute drive to the grocery store / sonic/ Pizza Hut.

We stayed at one of the Premium Waterfront sites in early April and absolutely loved it! It looks like many of the people here have year-around rentals so I would imagine if you are booking throughout the summer, you'll want to get your reservation in as early as possible. Having a picnic and campfire area right next to the water was a unique experience for a campground and we would definitely stay again if we are ever in the area. One thing you will want to note is that you may need an electrical extension if you're bringing a towable as the electric is on the opposite side from the sewer and water. The campground does have a supply of these, if needed. Oh, and the wireless can be spotty depending on your site location in the park.

I have nothing bad to say about this campground, but nothing good either. Every site is a lake view site, but most appear to be annual leases for Oklahomans who want a place at the lake on a budget.

Each site appears to have full hookups- which is good because there was no bathroom on site. Firewood is free, but the lots are packed tightly so there really is no room to spread out & enjoy.

The drop off from the camp sites to the lake was so steep that we had to constantly remind our children to stay back from the edge. Luckily, there were no mishaps.

The park was very clean & well maintained.

We’re not likely to stay near Grand Lake again, but - if I did - I’d try another place.

Horrifying. A huge fight broke out in the late night cove on Friday and staff handled it very poorly. There was a Very large guy shouting for people to wake up, and to come fight him, during quiet hours and was going threw everyone stuff while everyone was asleep! He even opened a tent while a girl was In there unclothed and started shouting about it!!! And the staff got into the girls faces that were saying the guy was going through their stuff.. not the guy who was going threw their stuff and caused the entire fight. the cops finally kicked him out about 2 and a half hours after he started the fight between everyone and then about 30 mins later, a car rolls through and they shout“I hope you know how to duck” talking about shooting the place up!!!! No one On the staff was patrolling during the night so they didn’t even know what was happening... There was no way to get ahold of the staff, we had to call 911 and it took forever for the cops to get there! We were so scared. It was a ton of people screaming at each other from 330-530 am... the bathrooms are shared male/female, so there is literally piss everywhere. The bathrooms don’t lock and the door is too far away to just hold it shut, and the toilet paper was gone by about 8pm Friday night.. we bought 2 pair of water shoes from their store and they both fell apart by the end of the day.. The river had no current, so you had to paddle. And there were spots that were too shallow and everyone had to get out and u had to drag the raft.. There was no“floating down the river” The river also had a ton of branches and turned over trees, it’s very dangerous if you are not watching what you are doing, so how does that go hand in hand with a bunch of drunk people? We watched several people flip because they didn’t know how to handle these trees.. there were no signs anywhere so you have no idea where you are, how far you’ve gone, or how far you have left to go. And now today, 1 day after floating, I am covered in rashes from the water. Just overall a very unsafe experience.