Best Equestrian Camping near Gateway National Recreation Area

   We stayed in New Jersey for our 5th campground on the East Coast: Turkey Swamp Park in Freehold. This is a County park.

 Near some Revolutionary War battlefields.

 I really liked this park! They have 2283 acres. A 17 acre lake. Some hiking trails & a nice campground! The sites are all pullthrough. There's lots of vegetation for "privacy". We had a site on the perimeter, which are forest views. Only problem is none of the roads are paved. All are packed sand. We could tell it rained recently because of the muddy tracks. Fortunately it didn't rain while we were there!

  Shower/bathrooms are clean, but dated. They're checked regularly. The bath house is for the entire campground. 3 out of the 4 women's were working. There's a shared dressing area. 

There's a laundry that doesn't take quarters. EPay. 

There's a nice playground in the campground.

 They have 3 cabins for rent, with forest views.

 The lake has fishing & boat rentals. No gas motors. There's no swimming at the lake. Cell service was fair.. No WiFi. 

They have an archery range. 

    This was my favorite campground on our trip! I really enjoyed camping here! There's a rustic retro quality to the place. I adored the campsites & I didn't see any really bad ones.

Allaire State Park is a favorite spot of mine. In addition to their tent sites and group gathering areas (we have had several family reunions here), we enjoy all the activities! There is a historical village where you can visit a blacksmith shop and other spaces to learn about the history. They have a flea market many weekends in the summer months and in early fall. They also. Have Halloween themed events like a hayride. Lots of walking paths surround the park & you are also close to Belmar, Point Pleasant, Manasquan (all fun shore towns). Bathroom maintenance could use some sprucing up, but other than that- great place to visit.

Turkey Swamp Park is a great find! Heavily wooded and supremely quiet, it’s located not far from anywhere you’d want to be. 30 minutes to the shore. Every site is a pull-through, large and spacious with great woodland views. 30amp and water. Dump station.

The park has miles of shady forested trails for hiking and dog walking. there’s a large lake here too, for water based recreational activities.

The bathrooms, showers, and laundry are co-located in a centrally situated structure. Everything inside is clean and well-maintained.

We’ve got good cell signal with Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint. (We use all three.) Good OTA television signal also.

We spent three days here in July 2021.

This RV park is literally just a parking lot and quite expensive for what it is.

The location is great, but the surrounding streets may be hard to maneuver with an RV if you’re a newbie. You can see the Statue of Liberty from the park, and there were several cafes and restaurants within walking distance.

If you’re looking for actual amenities, this probably isn’t the park for you. But if you just need a base camp for doing tourist activities in NYC then this place will do.

There is 24 hour security which is nice as well. We felt safe while we were there, but it was also fairly empty too.

So... the “campground” is nothing special. Literally a parking lot with water & electric hookups. Larger rigs will barely have a yard. And don’t bet on a private picnic table. On a slow checkout day, you might get lucky enough to not wait in line for the dump station.

We’ve paid much less for “more”... the $120 price per night was ridiculous. But being that they have no competitors in the area (and they know it), RVers wanting a quick escape to see NYC can get it here. The ONLY thing we really liked about it was it’s convenient location to the city with easy access to the ferry boats.

The area itself was under a ton of construction when we drove in, which meant for difficult to navigate roads and we barely squeezed by larger trucks who were also in the roadways. But we did manage to walk our way to the marina restaurant “Surf City”, which was a unique and fun spot for end of day dinner & drinks.

We would only consider staying here again during the “off-season” months when the campground isn’t busy. The woman who checked us in was very pleasant and helpful when helping us figure out how to get around without driving.