Best Cabin Camping near Vienna, MO

The Lake of the Ozarks Recreation Area (LORA) is a great destination for camping, boating, swimming, water skiing, fishing and other outdoor activities. The lake is one of the Nation's largest man-made lakes, providing you with over 1150 miles of shoreline to enjoy. LORA welcomes Active Duty Military, Retired Military, members of the National Guard and Reserves, DoD employees with ID cards, family members and Fort Leonard Wood contract employees.  Plenty to do and see here.  Boat rentals, hiking, and others mentioned above.  The LORA Country Store carries ice, beverages, firewood and a small selection of food including snacks, milk, eggs and bread. The store also carries the basic necessities needed for camping and fishing, including fishing licenses.  Can rent a tent site, camper site with full or partial hook ups, cabins 1-3 bedroom, etc.  The marina has boat and jet-ski rentals (pontoons, wave runners, jet ski's, ski boats, fishing boats, pontoons, etc.) that are much more reasonable then other rental places in the area. Area is staffed by on-duty MP's out of Fort Leonard Wood.

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.

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.

This is a Military Campground (not quite a FAMCAMP - more a Recreation Area)! They have four areas - tent, water and electric, full hook up and cabins! We have stayed here may times - typically with the full hook ups. It is NOT off I-44 but off US 54. We have stayed up there in March, April, May, June, July, August, September and October!

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.

Campground sits on 70 acres and includes an 8 acre stocked lake. Boat rental, paddle boats, miniature golf, shuffleboard, volleyball, playground, hiking and a general store.

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.