Best RV Parks & Resorts near Essex Fells, NJ

We stayed here on a Thursday night in September prior to taking off backpacking. The campground was clean and quiet. RV hook-ups, tent platforms, and rustic tent sites were available. Our rustic tent site had a few good options for pitching a tent, as well as picnic table and fire ring.

Ranger said that during summer weekends the grounds fill up and can be quite noisy, but mid-week during the off-season it was great. Expect to purchase firewood, although scrounging for kindling was possible. Facilities were clean and what you'd expect from a campground.

Would definitely return!!

First, as a Thousand Trails member, I didn't have to pay. So far, after visiting 6 rv parks, I do have to say, this one is on the bottom of my list of nice campgrounds.

First the good: there are lots of sites here and the grounds range from being near neighbors to more spread out in the valley. There are lots of trees and the roads are paved which makes it perfect to ride your bicycle. The playground is great for the kids. They have a nice pool.

Now the bad: it's a run down campground. It doesn't look like they have not done any maintenance to the place. The bathrooms look like standard park bathrooms, the general store barely has any items. The kids arcade and activity center has 4 arcade games and barely anything to do but the ball center. The main activity center is closed down. The building that used to hold the water park is abandoned and clutter everywhere. The lake and gazebo have been vandalized.

Also note, if you want peace and quiet, stay away from the tent area. Those who stay there are more of the NY crowd and are very festive.

All in all, we had a nice time. No problems at all.

First time using our complementary 1 year Thousand trails pass. It’s a find your own site park. Some are a bit narrow, but I found a nice pull thru. Only real activities here for kids are pool and shuffleboard. Very quite here which I hear is opposite from the North park right up the road. Staff is nice. Would come back

This was the first campground we stayed in with our Thousand Trails membership and, because sites are first come first serve, we weren't sure what to expect. Thankfully, there were many sites available and they were all good sizes. The campground is well laid out- very roomy. It was May and an extremely cool, rainy weekend, so we didn't get to do much in the area, but I would definitely recommend it. As I understand it, we could have accessed the water park at Timothy Lake North, as well.

Check-in was quick and easy in spite of Covid precautions. This is a first-come, first-serve park in the Thousand Trails system so we had to drive around looking for a spot. The check-in process alerted us to the sites that had issues such as no water or cable(there were 5 or 6 of them). No issues navigating my 32' coach through the roads. There were a number of spots that could have easily fit our rig(although a few would have been too tight). The site was level with good power and water. Camp was pretty well maintained and very full. Campers were polite and friendly and probably about 50% or more of them fulltime or seasonal. The amenities were all closed so can't comment on those. A big HOWEVER, though: the cell service for most providers is practically non-existent. I understand this is not the park's fault and some would say that this is"real" camping-- try telling that to the two millennials that were staying with us. I would definitely return except for that.

This place is a serious dump with very rude full time campers squatting here. We were pelted by sticks and stones on the 4th of July by the workers attempting to weedwack the stone areas. The full time squatters places are a ramshackle mess, they like to ride through blaring awful music all hours of the day and night…including midnight and 1am. Other squatters think everyone should like their music and play it from their cars while parked at ridiculous levels. No policies are enforced including dogs on leashes, picking up your dog’s poop, or the speed limits. We had to ask ourselves multiple times if we were in the poconos or ghettos. Also, spots are very small and most had no fire rings unless the people before you built one out of rocks from the wooded area nearby. Very sad disgrace of a campground to be part of the Thousand Trails community.

We stayed at site 15 for 5 days. The sites are nicely wooded, very well spaced, fairly level with 50A service and water hookup. Although the water spigots were shared between sites, they provide hose caddies that should reach most RV hookups. No sewer hookup, but there is a convenient dump station. There are no fire rings in the RV section, only raised grills. We had the place pretty much to ourselves during the week, but the weekend did get busy. AT&T had ok data connection with 1-2 bars most of the time. There is no satellite coverage due to the heavy tree canopy. OTA TV was very inconsistent using an external omni antenna. There is no WiFi. There is a very nice network of trails in the reservation, most if not all were leashed dog friendly. There is a very nice restaurant, Stone Water, less than 10 miles away and is right on lake Hopatcong.

Look, I know that it takes all types… but this place is a no go.. Falsely advertised full hook ups to find out the sites are electric/water only. The facilities are completely trashed and moldy with no sign of up keep… They make you wear these ridiculous are bands that get you nothing… They just mark you separate as a camper vs the people coming for water sports… This place is marketed toward tent campers so there are minimal spots for RVers, and yet they allow tent campers to set up in the few RV sites. First night we had a family of 10 show up at 10:40pm to start setting up their tent campsites in an rv spot, and they partied way into the wee hours of morning… Second day was a Friday and it just became significantly worse. No one holds campers accountable to quiet times here, and please don’t take it the wrong way because my husband and I love to have fun, but at 2 am, it’s a little excessive… every site is completely trashed when everyone leaves and they’ve only got one real employee that seems to be busting his butt around the campground… my last complaint would have to be that the park services and EMS kept showing up to try and apprehend these fanboat people in the river. Otherwise it has the potential to be one of the most beautiful parks we have stayed this far.

We've started here many times. It's a nice family run campground with spaces from full hook-up, to clamping, to small cabins. There is a swimming pond and a nice hike takes you to the deleware river. Recommend it fully.

I would start with the good if there happened to be any.

I’ll start with pulling into the campground. First of all you have to find your own site as there are no assigned sites available. This had us pulling our 33ft camper around the whole campground until we came across our site we settled for. Now this brings up the site situation. Very rocky and I don’t mean crushed stone, nope just rocks all over the site. Then come to find out no fire ring was available. So we took all the rocks around our site and made our own. So the rocks ended up coming in hand after all…..

Now for the campground itself. This is a thousand trails campground. The website had a list of amenities from arcade to mini golf, laundry facilities and a camp store to name a few. Yeah none of this was available. The arcade and camp store looked like it had been vacant for years. None of the buildings on the campground were open and it was Memorial Day weekend! You had a year to renovate due to COVID!

This campground wasn’t a campground at all! The only thing available for the kids was a playground! Everything was done online as there wasn’t even a office to visit!

If I could review this with a negative star, I would... We spoke to personnel when we made reservations, and were promised a pull through, full hook up that would fit my truck and 34' trailer. Far from that, we could not open our awnings, and site was far from level. Let alone we can not pull through fully. Worst site we have ever been on. Dirty, holes in road, mud everywhere, tree limbs falling on my new truck and new trailer. Garbage in fire pit that they would not clean and dog poop on our site. To make it worse I am disabled with lung disease, and I had truck squeezed on our site, hanging over on empty site next door. Owner called threatening to have me arrested, charge me for 2nd site and demanded we leave campground immediately. What a joke! I would never ever stay here again. BTW, WiFi and cable don't work at all. $62.50 a night is ridiculous.

We love camping at KOA. The campground is always well maintained with excellent amenities. Our site is slightly smaller than I would have liked but love the full hookups. Lots to do in the area. Would definitely stay again.

We have stayed at a few KOAs and we really liked this one. The staff were kind and so helpful. This is right by Shawnee, several water sports places and near some great hikes. Campground has some nice shaded 30amp back in spots with full hookups. We stayed in 47 which backs up to a wooded area & had good cover. Although the map shows site 47 as electric & water only it's actually full hookups (they just haven't updated the map yet). Some of the pull through sites in the center are not shaded at all, as a heads up. Friends stayed in a deluxe cabin, which was beautiful & looked brand new inside. The camp store has everything you might need. Wi-Fi is free and signal OK. The pool is well maintained and there's a ton of space for outdoor activities like volleyball, mini golf & more. We did a buddy site and stayed next to friends as well for a small extra fee per site. We would stay here again!

We stayed in site #1 with our 21' travel trailer. In our opinion this is the best site because you have an unobstructed view of Stockton Lake & the horizon over the ocean. Big rig spots are further back (around site 6-9 or so). 9 sites total & they are often booked, so need to do so in advance. Free beach just a few moments' walk down the road. Close to shore towns & many restaurants. Plenty of space for kids to play in the field/grass area. TONS of geese everywhere though. Pets are NOT allowed (but they'd probably help w the geese problem). You get access to the showers with a key card and when you check in, but I don't have anything to report as I used the bathroom/shower in our trailer. Price is great at $45/night. FULL hookups as well. Only annoying thing was the sewer hookup is about 18 inches off the ground so you need to lift the hose when emptying the tanks to ensure it actually fully drains.