Best Cabin Camping near Frewsburg, NY

Willow bay campground is run by the National Forest Service. The reservable lots are wide and numerous for a out of the way sight. The campground services tent sites, RV sites as well as small cabins with electricity. There is a central bathhouse near the oak loop. Closer to the boat ramp sites- most of which are tent ready, there are vault toilets. These sites are less than a mile from the North Country Trail. Other, smaller trails are here as well. The New York State lone is less than five miles away- providing access to Allegheny State Park. The closest town of note is Bradford, which is about 18 miles away. It has all you need to get your necessities. The cabins were small- one twin bed and a set of single bunks. You need to bring your own sheets. There is a small heater imbedded in the wall. It keeps things from getting too cold, as it was when I was there. Fire ring and picnic table provided. Charcoal grill as well. The only problem I had was with the wildlife. A mouse or something kep crawling in the space between the roof and ceiling. There is no cel service here, and you shouldn’t need it either. Places to visit are too numerous to mention, but I will give a shout out to the zippo case museum, absolutely a must.

We stayed here three nights to ride out a heat wave and really liked it. Sites are electric only, with a dump station available at the entrance and one in the campground loop. There are potable water spigots throughout the campground, where you awkwardly pull over to the side of the road and fill your tank. Sites are pretty much wide open, with zero separation between you and your neighbor. Most are out in direct sun but the ones along the edge have some tree cover and shade. 

There are yurts here as well, and a playground, and a huge disc golf course. You can walk to the beach from the campground (dogs aren’t allowed on the beach). The nature center is right in the campground, by the basketball and tennis courts. 

Showers were dirty and buggy, but they’re free and you can actually choose your own water temperature. NY State campgrounds require proof of rabies vaccinations for your dogs.

 Good cell reception for Verizon, ATT wasn’t great but the cell booster helped. Trash bins, but no recycling. Beautiful sunset on the lake.

 We stayed here three nights to ride out a heat wave and really liked it. Sites are electric only, with a dump station available at the entrance and one in the campground loop. There are potable water spigots throughout the campground, where you awkwardly pull over to the side of the road and fill your tank. 

Sites are pretty much wide open, with zero separation between you and your neighbor. Most are out in direct sun but the ones along the edge have some tree cover and shade. 

There are yurts here as well, and a playground, and a huge disc golf course. You can walk to the beach from the campground (dogs aren’t allowed on the beach). The nature center is right in the campground, by the basketball and tennis courts. Showers were dirty and buggy, but they’re free and you can actually choose your own water temperature. 

NY State campgrounds require proof of rabies vaccinations for your dogs. Good cell reception for Verizon, ATT wasn’t great but the cell booster helped. Trash bins, but no recycling. Beautiful sunset on the lake.

Campsite layouts are non traditional with large driveways and often times the tables and fire rings are below the driveway.  With this layout you get more privacy with very few sites having and overlapping with other sites. Pitching a tent was easy on the driveway and fairly level. Some sites had large high sided fire rings which take away from the fireside relaxation of a shorter camp chair. 

Bathrooms and shower house was below the standards of many of PA State Parks which we regard as the benchmark for campgrounds at reasonable prices. 

Boating and biking all accessible from the grounds. No need to drive to the trails at Jakes Rocks.

We head out to Allegany State Park every year in late fall. The cabins are perfect for cooler temperatures and cozying up beside the wood stove. The table and chairs provided inside the cabin are perfect for eating on and prepping food. 

 The buffalo trail is perfect for a weekend getaway, with Cabin 8 far in the corner, providing lots of space between nearby cabins. It is also beside the river and provides a wonderful sound to fall asleep to.

Shower facilities are just down the road and were very clean! The bathroom facilities on the buffalo cabin loop are also equally clean and warm in the colder temperatures!

The camp grounds were great. Staff was very helpful and nice. Camp sites were decently spaced out. Fire wood was priced fairly well but they don’t usually deliver($).and they sell worms at the gate along with ice.

The RVs had their own loop and tents and cabins were on the water down a wooded trail.

The reason this was 4/5 is because you have to unload the car then walk everything to the camp. There is no drive up access for tent camping. A wagon is highly encouraged

Additionally, vault toilets on the tent side and plumbing and showers on the RV side. Bathrooms were very clean and didn’t smell, the showers were hot.

I saw some boats anchored at sites which I thought was nice. I also got to peek into a cabin and it was pretty cozy.

Campground Review

I can honestly say that Oil Creek Family Campground is the best private campground that we have ever camped at. Especially if you’re camping with kids, it offers everything that you would want for a ‘great American summer’ style camping experience, without being a cookie-cutter big-name private campground chain. They have a large pool; a few llamas that the kids can feed and pet; a 27-hole disc golf course (recently expanded from 18 hole) primarily in the woods near and around the campground property; a small pond for sunfish / bass fishing; a dog ‘playground’ (enclosed area with some obstacles); a well-maintained hedge maze; a pavilion with ping pong, a pool table, and foosball; a DVD rental program at the main office with about 300 movies; and a small camp store with a small selection of books that you can borrow. They also provide weekly entertainment for the kids, e.g. rock painting or special guests. This weekend, for instance was ‘Jungle Terry and his amazing exotic animal family.’ We don’t typically spend a ton of time actually AT the campgrounds when we’re camping, but we did this weekend - and we had a blast on the disc golf course, fishing in the pond, and playing ping pong. The kids had an awesome time in the pool for hours and running around with the other kids in the maze. And everyone agreed that it was a perfect way to wrap up the summer before the school year starts.

We have a pop-up and my parents (whom we were camping with for the weekend) use a tent, so we had two water+electric sites in the tent camping area away from the RVs: sites A7 and A8. The sites in this area are well-maintained and LARGE, with plenty of room for a pop-up or multiple tents plus one or two vehicles, plus lots of room around the fire ring. There are smaller bathrooms placed around the campground as well as a center bathhouse located adjacent to the pavilion with 2 shower stalls and an additional toilet per gender.

We chose this campground due to its proximity to Oil Creek State Park. The state park itself does not have a campground, and OCFC is right next door - in fact, the campground hiking trail loop has a very short connecting piece to the 36-mile Gerard hiking trail that runs through the park. The park is beautiful with a lot of history (it is the site of the world’s first commercial oil well, and where the oil industry began in the United States around 1860) and Oil Creek - which is really a river - runs right down the middle of the park. It is a stocked creek and it’s great for both trout and bass fishing. Some parts of the creek also have a lot of northern water snakes (we saw 4 near the Blood Farm day use area) which was cool to see.

Overall: fantastic campground in a beautiful part of Pennsylvania - and we will absolutely be back.

Product Review

As a Ranger for The Dyrt, I get occasionally receive products to test or gift cards for new companies to check out.  Over the past weekend, we tried out one of the Mountain House favorites, freeze-dried Lasagna with Meat Sauce in the #10 can. Lasagna is not exactly a typical camping food, so the fact that we could easily make enough lasagna to feed a group of six people (4 adults and 2 kids) just by heating up some water was wonderful! We made the entire can (boil 8 cups of water, pour it into the can itself, stir a lot to mix up all of the freeze-dried ingredients, and let it sit for ten minutes - EASY) along with some crescent-roll wrapped hot dogs over the fire and it was like a gourmet camping meal. Everyone loved the lasagna - even the two picky kids!