Best Cabin Camping near Freeville, NY

Campers arriving at Watkins Glen State Park are immediately captivated by its dramatic gorge scenery, where 19 waterfalls cascade through narrow stone walls. Their campsites are nestled among hardwood forests, offering a perfect balance of sunlit clearings and shady retreats. Each site comes equipped with a picnic table and fire ring, making it easy to prepare meals after a day spent exploring the park’s famous Gorge Trail. The park’s facilities blend rustic charm with modern comforts: clean flush toilets, hot-water showers, and convenient potable water stations. Hiking enthusiasts appreciate the interconnected trail system, which includes the popular Rim Trail for elevated views of the gorge, as well as more secluded footpaths through hemlock groves. Families particularly enjoy the nearby swimming pool and easy-access picnic areas overlooking Seneca Lake. To simplify travel logistics for out-of-state visitors, many campers opt to pre-book an airport transfer so they can arrive at Ithaca or Elmira–Corning Regional Airport and head straight to the park without the hassle of car rentals. Those planning to explore multiple stops along the Finger Lakes often choose the provider’s reliable city-to-city rides for comfortable, door-to-door transportation between destinations. All in all, Watkins Glen State Park delivers an unforgettable combination of awe-inspiring gorge hikes, well-appointed campsites, and family-friendly amenities. Campers seeking both adventure and relaxation will find this New York treasure hard to surpass.

This park is technically a “state park” because the land for it was donated to the state for public use. However, once the state became the official stewards, there werent funds in the state budget to maintain it as a park. A lical group, the Friends of Salt Springs, stepped up and offered to maintain the park with funds raised by their group. The result is a small but unique property open to the public for day use (picnicking and hiking and fishing) along with 2 small rustic campgrounds. One campground has a large open mowed grassy meadow with level sites for car camping or small campers, no hookups are available but each site has a fire ring and picnic table. On the other side of the parks trout stream are seven secluded primitive hike-in tent sites along with three basic camper cabins. The Friends of Salt Springs makes a good effort to maintain these two rustic campgrounds, however it seems there isnt a ranger on site at night so a camper said the meadow campground can get a little noisy some nights. The hike in sites are relatively quiet and secluded though, and are positioned nicely along the stream, one site actually adjacent to a good swimming hole.

The camper cabins are basic with bunks, bring all your own gear. They are fairly new and have electricity but no water or heat.

On the grounds in the day use area are picnic spits, a pavilion, and an activity barn. When I was there, the barn was featuring a local quilt show.

The special aspect of this park are the hiking trails through old growth hemlock forest, said to be the largest hemlocks in Pennsylvania. The trout stream also cascades through some some waterfalls, and there are gorges with unique geology.

There is a village nearby with limited supplies, you may want to stock up on groceries before heading out to this somewhat remote park. There is, however, a local brewery, plus an odd coffee shop featuring both donuts and ammo, an unusual combination…..

This is a gated campground that we stayed at 6/30/19-7/04/19. We are NOT an RV. We own a Napier tent that hooks to our truck so that we can sleep up in the bed. However, due to it being a holiday week, the tent sites were completely booked and they only have 4(which also have water& electric). The tent sites are located in the back of the campground behind the sports field within the trees. I unfortunately didn’t get a chance to see them but they have them pictured on their website. They let us book an RV site and it was rough setting up on a gravel RV site but we understood that we were not within a normal tent element and placed an extra tarp under the tent. The campground is located at the top of some beautiful and scenic driving through farmland in Pennsylvania and you will be 30 minutes from anything like shopping or small town amenities(we drove to Walmart after setting up to get our perishables since we drive up from Virginia). Our site had water and electric, was a drive through spot for a typical RV with a section to the side of the drive through for the fire pit and picnic table. We were located right next to the shower/bathrooms/playground and had some tree coverage and shade. A lot of the RVs in the campground are permanent sites and our neighbors never showed so we had a quiet buffer but it was not a noisy campground. It appeared that they cleaned the bathrooms twice daily and we were impressed with the cleanliness of the bathroom/showers. There were 4 in the building so we never had to wait. The staff were friendly and helpful. They had a store right next to the pool area that offered common items and RV'er might need with a small grocery area as well which included bundles of wood($6 honor system after hours) and Ice($1.78 per bag). We were allowed to run an account which we paid at the end of our stay. Our campsite was required to be paid at check in. The campground is 18 acres with gravel roads, a sports field, fishing, horse shoes, bocce ball, multiple playgrounds, a rec center with some games, claw machines etc. a splash pad and salt water pool. You will be doing a lot of walking or bring your bicycles like we did. They offer scheduled activities for holidays etc and various weekend activities. You can rent non electric boats and they offer catch& release fishing without a PA license in the lake. My son caught 2 sunfish :) They have guidelines for visitors and quiet hours(my cousin came to visit us in the evenings as she lived close by). We enjoyed camping here even if we were on an RV site. We booked site 211 which had the little bit of tree coverage and was located right next to the showers/bathrooms/playground with a quick walk to the lake for fishing. Most of the other available sites in the road ahead of us had no tree coverage but closer to the lake had more trees and shade. OR, just get an actual tent site :) but they are all the way at the back of the campground, furthest from the lake so I actually preferred our site.

HIGHLIGHTS : 

Most sites are pretty spacious 

Pets allowed in some loops 

Marina convenience store with pontoon boat rentals

Fishing 

Swimming 

Ice cream and concessions stand 

Arcade room 

Outdoor movie screen 

Nice playgrounds 

Military museum 

Paved loops - good for bikes and scooters

NEAR BY ATTRACTIONS: Wineries

CONS: 

Electric service boxes are shared in-between sites. This could pose an issue if your power cord is not long enough.

There is only source for water fill up. This could end up being a very very long wait if you arrive at the same time as other campers.

Only 2 dump stations

They don’t allow pull-in camping. Campers MUST be backed in

Close to wine country you will find this gem of a family campground. Dog and kid friendly with activities such as wagon rides, arts and crafts, movie night and various themed weekend events. The hosts were super friendly and welcoming during our entire stay. An easy back in site with full hookups (B10) backed against a row of trees and a field that provided much entertainment of squirrels and birds. There is a camp store with very reasonable prices and accepts credit cards. Wood ($4) and ice ($2) are also for sale. There are two small cabins to rent along with a couple of family tent sites. The bathrooms/showers were clean near the camp store. Amenities include a pool, mini golf ($1/person), two playgrounds, horseshoes, a recreation center with games and movies, basketball and shuffle board. There are many seasonal campers at this campground, but all seemed friendly and welcoming as well. It truly seemed like one big happy family there.

Campsites are in the woods with picnic tables and fire ring, plenty of shade and a good amount of space between camps. They have so many birds, squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits and insects that it was a veritable wonderland Playground and shallow swimming area for children with life guards and a sandy beach and new bath house. They have fishing and boat rentals, however the lake is pretty small and a lot of trees still in the water since a flood. There are nice trails for hiking that go all the way around the lake. I had my 5 year old grandson with me and he loved it but I did have to cut it short when we got rained out.