Best Glamping near Temple, NH

We were delighted when we learned we had the little peninsula of site P1 all to ourselves. Stunning views across the large pond, and serving as a wonderful halfway rest/respite on the journey from NYC to Belfast, ME. We felt like we were on top of the world, discovering this perfect quiet nook and basking in nature’s splendor.

I can only speak for the camping on this peninsula/land, but the rest of the sites looked cozy, family-friendly, and fun. Cabins and RV sites across the lake, along with beaches for swimming. Bathrooms located on P1 peninsula. Canoe rentals on-site. Lovely picnic dining area alongside covered bridge and waterfall. Completely picturesque and, mostly, totally peaceful!

My first time experiencing a park in the New Hampshire Park system. We went down with a group. Pawtuckaway State Park offers a variety of landscapes, with something to do and see for everyone. The park includes a large family beach on the lake. There are many opportunities for hiking, with trails leading to many special points of interest, including a mountaintop fire tower; an extensive marsh where beavers, deer, and great blue herons may be seen.

The park lines the shore of beautiful Pawtuckaway Lake.  The 192 sites are wooded and many provide views of the lake.  Each campsite has an open fire ring, picnic table, flat areas for a tent, and a parking space. The bathhouses are equipped with running water, flush toilets, and 24 hour showers.  There are no hook-ups at any of the campsites. The park also has a camp store where canoe and kayaks are available, as well as a plublic canoe and kayak launch. Five cabins are available; each sleeps six people, has electricity, and includes a fire ring and picnic table. Pets are not allowed in the campground or beach area of the park.

Wonderful sites that are spacious! Clean, WiFi available, a pond for swimming, playground, free paddle boats :), a recreational hall with a pool table & video games, laundromat. They have lots of fun family activities! We stayed with our parents in their camper for a couple nights and had such a positive experience there! They have 3 separate ponds-one for fishing, one for boating & the larger one is for swimming. Plenty of bathrooms throughout campground and sites are not expensive to reserve. Clean & up-to-date bathrooms with hot showers. Family-oriented with friendly staff. We will be returning, for sure!

I would like to share my experience this past weekend at Winding River in Exeter NH. My family of 3 Stayed at tent site 523 in the Oak area. We also had family at 553 and 554 and Cabin 2.

About site 523: I clearly had one of the largest and most private tent sites. It was set back with a long driveway tucked between 522 and 524. It’s a very steep drop into the river making most sites a little nerve wracking with a little one. Online it said water available nearby. Most sites had a hookup but there wasn’t a one on my site. It looked like there may have been one to share on the road, but I didn’t end up needing to figure that out.

Tent sites 522 and 524: Along with most of the tent sites these sites were very close to each other, much smaller and closer to the road. I wished my family members had gotten 552 and 553 as they blended together nicely if you are tenting in side by side spaces. The ground was very rocky making staking tents down difficult. They were right next to the bathroom which was convenient but loud. Ventilation in the bathroom was not good so the doors were propped open much of the time and loud hand dryers.

Shower:

• This is the smaller of the two bathrooms in the campground. There are 2 showers there. Each with a single insufficient curtain and no hooks on the wall or bench to place things down. Water was hot enough, pressure was ok if you set it to the high power massage-like setting.
• The showers in other bathroom (near the town center area) had a door and two curtains. Some had hooks (some of which were broken). I almost tripped going in and out of these bathroom stalls because they are raised up but there is no marking on the ground to indicate that.

Cabin 2: Ac worked well. There was a good sized bed downstairs, smaller beds in two lofts. I was surprised the couch didn’t pull out. Fridge and all dishes were nice and clean. All the cabins seem to have different back porch setups. This porch was smaller than C1. There was a propane grill that smelled rancid with sooo much caked on The burners. The location of the ceiling fan under the other lights in the ceiling gave them a flashing effect that really bothered me.

Pros:

• Lower price compared to other campgrounds (but I don’t feel like I got everything advertised on the website)
• Two playgrounds, both were nice.
• Water slide was fun
• We arrived Thursday at the gate and were told how to get to our site, to set up and then come over to the office which was nice.

Cons:

• The river is very low and yucky so none of the boating or fishing advertised was possible. likely causing the massive amount of mosquitos.
• The whole arcade building was was “out of order”
• The laundry room had two washers (one was broken) and two dryers 2.50 each per load. Not sufficient for a campground this size (especially when people leave their clothes in the machine for 30 mins after they’re done!)
• Camp store was poorly stocked (multiple empty coolers).
• Ice $3 per SMALL bag.
• Wood $10 per bundle and rules say you can’t bring from off-site. I saw people with huge metal bins of wood but was never offered that option when I payed for multiple bundles.
• Camp store closes at 3 on Sunday and doesn’t open until 11 am during the week (which is also checkout). This made it a little confusing when I wanted to return the golf cart. They have a small area with icecream that is scooped and maybe a kitchen. I never saw it open but I think the sign said open morning to 12 and then again in the evening.
• The pool was green and cloudy on day 3. I called the office and was told they had just shocked it and that was a result of the copper. I am not informed enough on pool safety so I opted out of swimming on the hottest day of our stay. My son was bummed.
• Planned activities were only scheduled for Friday and Saturday, when online mentions “daily”. During adult kareoke there were plenty of kids and really poor wifi (wasting so much time between songs).

And just to add:

• Staff I encountered was friendly enough, but It would be nice if they wore shirts to identify themselves.
• Golf cart was great, but cost more than the site per night.
• Pedal go-carts were available for rent (I didn’t ask a price).

Pros- very clean, bathrooms kept up with regularly. Staff is very nice. They offer boat rentals, canoes, paddle boats and kayaks. Store on site and they do activities during the week. Definitely more kids friendly I think. They do have a pool, park, dog park, lake and food trucks visits at times. They have community fires and dances. Pet friendly. Wood available on site.

Cons- loud cars going all night, some lights in your face. Some people tend to fly down the road on golf carts. You can also hear the main road from the open style campsite. No privacy. People will walk threw your tent site. They will talk during the night while doing this, smoking seems to be allowed at pool. No fires between 9am-5pm.

Overall we had a good time.

(As a Tent Camper)

Let me start this off with there are not many campgrounds I would rate this low. There are a lot of little detractors that add up quickly. 

First, one of the pros, we enjoyed their small but nice petting zoo of a few goats and a horse. Their general store was adequate.

Now some of the cons we encountered. 

The other campers were very loud and ruckus, especially in the safari field with the RVs.

The campsites have VERY little to no privacy, we had to hang up tarps in between us and our neighbor or else we would practically be looking straight at each other if we both had a camp fire at the same time. 

Something I've never encountered before, but our fire pit was not the typical tire ring, it was some other type of ring I've never seen before. It was almost as if it was designed to not allow any air flow for the fire. We thought we were going crazy until our neighbors were having an issue too and had to plug in a hair dryer and every 5 minutes turn it on to keep the fire from going out. And our wood was pretty dry too. 

The pools were very lack luster, they are quite small for the amount of guests in the campground. They get crowded way too fast, we had probably a 2 ft bubble around us in the pool and could not move around at all if we wanted too. The kiddie pool which is 2 ft deep was a waste, it is too big with very little amount of kids who actually use it. 

It was the first time we thought we had actually wasted a weekend camping. Would not return.