Best Cabin Camping near Rhineland, MO

We stayed 2 nights in our van. Campsites are close but could be worse. River is gorgeous and the park offers trails, caves, cabins, clean showers/bathrooms and friendly staff.

We spent a weekend here because we wanted to be close to six flags. I swear this place was more fun!!! There's swimming, games, lots of activities and you can go from rustic rent a tent to a really nice cabin with lots amenities!! We will be back!!

Its a little to commercialized for my liking. I stayed in a wilderness site it was $25.oo bucks. Here you can rent sites, cabins & golf carts. Its is super close to Six Flags and right off HWY 44 Close are most fast food or grocery places. You can get a band allowing your kids to do games of mini-golf, free train rides on the Yogi Bear Express Train, two arcade tokens, and a discount on Pizza at the Snack Shack.

We stopped her for a few nights to check out St. Louis. It’s about a 30-40 min drive to the arch from campground

Sites were all gravel, fire pits were poorly placed and frequently it fell under someone else’s slide or trailer. We always bring our solo stove so we could have a fire in a better spot on our lot

Pool and bathrooms were clean, staff were very friendly

This campground has a ton of “cabins”

There is a very large hill to get in and some sites are VERY tight - we thankfully had a decent size site comparatively

While this is a perfect stop on a cross country road trip (very close to rt 44), it’s quite worthy of an extended visit. The campground is right on the edge of the river and you can get to the trails from your campsite.

Yay: Stay in cabins or the campground. Small camp store. Nice hiking trails, all easy/moderate. Rent canoes (not sure about kayaks) on site.

Nay: Our site was on a slope, some are close to a road, choose carefully. There’s a conference center so if there’s an event everything will be packed.

Surprise: Pay the extra for the caves tour! Down the road there’s an old iron foundry and a historic cemetery to explore.

This place has about anything you would want with the possible exception of peace and quiet. Store, pool, ropes course, playground, and several options for floating, including a 1 1/2 mile tube loop you can do over and over all day. The place is huge, with tent and RV areas, cabins, and the shower houses even have rooms above them. The sites we stayed at were fairly small and in the sun, but there were plenty of larger sites and many are shaded. They also have buddy sites configured for camping with friends and awnings facing each other.

They put on a large fireworks show on Independence Day right on the gravel bar. There is a family side and a party side that are well separated.

We stayed here with a new camper, to be near our RV dealer and hardware stores. The site was ok, tricky to level. There was a steep drop just past our steps, and not a lot of room to set up chairs, etc. Honestly, the site we were in felt like an afterthought, as we were just pulled off the lower loop road. But we were there primarily to op check the camper features, and this campground allowed us to do so.  

If you're visiting Six Flags this is an ideal location, with a great camp store and restaurant, and lots of things for kids to do. I found good hiking trails nearby at Rockwoods Range. There are a lot of cabins and tent sites here as well.  The camp staff were friendly and helpful. And the sunrise from our site was beautiful!

Fun place to float the river. Have camping and RV rentals. Very accommodating staff. They provided a cookout on Fridays and Saturdays. Plus a dance hall after floating.

Full hookups(electric/water/sewer) for rvs, as well as primitive tent sites. Facilities are bit on the older side, but 2 shower houses are available. River access within walking distance. Canoe and raft rental available.

Campground Review

The campground is very family friendly, with kids programs and playgrounds all over, but if you want to go camping to have a sense of “getting away from it all, “ this place is not for you.

Meramec State Park is huge at 6,896 acres with over 13 miles of trails and so much stuff to do. While there you can get a canoe rental, eat at the Fireside Store and Grill, swim, attend an interpretive program, picnic, hike, backpack, explore a cave, boat, and of course, camp. This park caters to everyone from the back country camper to the RV enthusiast, to every those strange friends that would rather stay in a motel room or cabin. With the park only being about an hour outside of St. Louis and having great river access, it must be a hot spot in the summer time. My husband and I decided to go a weekend in the early fall and almost didn’t find a campsite despite the fact that it was already too cold to swim. The sites are packed in close together and the non-electric sites are just a short distance from the electric sites, giving you the sense that you are in a trailer park. If you are at a site at the far end of the loop, prepare for a 10 minute walk to the shower house every time you need to go to the bathroom. And forget just using the trees, there’s no cover in the open field of camping. I may go back to try the back country trails, which include 8 established campsites. Outside of trying the trails there are places not that much further away from St. Louis that offer a much better outdoor experience that I think I’ll go to instead.

Camping is available year-round, prices shown are $1 less in the off season (Nov 1-March 31).

Basic Sites - $13/ night

Electric sites- $23/night

Online reservation fee- $8.50 per reservation (year round)

Product Review

As a Ranger for The Dyrt, I get products to test from time to time - today I am testing the LEDlenser MH 10 Headlamp. This ultra bright headlamp is rechargeable! I definitely love the idea that this can be reused without going through batteries and that it produces this level of light! It provides enough lumens that you can easily hike a trail at night.

However, the rechargeable battery makes the headlamp bulky and weighty, so that it's not ideal for backpacking. It's really unnecessarily bright for car camping. The lenses that allow you to filter the light to either green or red are not the most user friendly to swap out, although they are very secure once on the lamp. The lamp does get warm to the touch after 5 minutes or more of use. It never gets so hot that it’s uncomfortable to wear or overheats the light. Don’t get me wrong, this headlamp is nice and probably a stellar choice for starting a hike before dawn, but for the average camping or backpacking trip it’s a bit of overkill and pricey.

Pros:

-ULTRA Bright

-Rechargeable

-5 year warranty

-water resistant

-Focusable light

-3 levels of light

Cons:

-Bulky

-Heavy compared to other headlamps

-Difficult to change out color lenses

Great staff and gift shop. We once camped in the late fall with our pop up camper and it was very quiet and green. We saw deer and my husband talked back and forth with an owl in the woods. We chose an electric site towards the back to avoid most people. I was pregnant and they had already winterized the back bathroom/shower house but opened up a room for me to use so I didn’t have to shlep my belly all the way across the grounds. Tent sites are very close together and this campground is very crowded in the summer with parties and floaters. I would not call this a family float trip personally but I do see many people bring their kids. Gift shop has basically everything but you pay a convenience price. I enjoy this float route a lot and I hear they have a kids tube loop but I have not experienced that. Multiple bath houses, as clean as you expect a campground bath house to be. Bring your own soap for hand washing. In the summer they have a restaurant with campsite delivery and sometimes live music. Last I saw the playground was not huge but my kids still enjoyed it. Rock beach for wading and swimming. They have small cabins and a pool but we use our camper or tent and swim in the river. Nearby is Onondaga Cave which is a nice experience especially when it is blazing hot outside.

We stayed here with a large group of family members for a floating weekend. The sites were close together and there wasn’t much privacy. They have tent sites, and RV sites with 50 amp hookups, water, and sewer. Some sites have river access and some river views. There wasn’t much grass, and few trees for shade. There is a swimming pool, playground and store/gift shop. They have pay showers. Onondaga Cave State Park is right across the river. This is primarily a campground for people floating the Meramec River and other area streams. They provide canoe rental, and transport to the put-in points. On summer weekends it is crowded and noisy.

I gave this campground a 4 star instead of 3 because I feel like if you’re camping here you should know not to expect “isolated camping” with sounds of running rivers and wildlife. This campground is geared for kids and family activities and accomplished same. It is pretty commercialized but did have a lot of trees. pros- activities for kids/fam nice pool tons of trees easy access from highway close amenities (Walmart, six flags, etc) close to StL (tons to do) we did grants farm and city museum one day.

Cons- can hear highway traffic....a lot small campsites, very close to neighbors fairly steep grade, especially right out our camper door was a big drop off our water hook up and electric hookup was significantly far apart. (1st world problems I know but handy info for those with campers) may be site specific.

if you camp here the golf cart rental is a must if you’re camping in the lower section. While we camped here some friends of ours camped at yogi outside Branson. After comparing experiences, although we had a good time, we would not return here. They did not say the same.