Best Tent Camping near Hammond, NY

Soft Maple is a truly gorgeous small campground. Only about a dozen sites or so, first come first serve. Level sites for RVs or tent or hammock camping. Each site has a nice space with fire ring and picnic table. The beach is lovely and clean. There’s boat access for canoes and kayaks as this is part of the Beaver River route. 

The entire campground is accessible, with gravel pack paths, and level sites.  

Charlie is the caretaker here and everyone says he is the nicest person you’ll meet.  You can’t beat site number 11 for the perfect mix of treelined and water view!

There is space for RVs and a dump station but the sites do not have power or hookups. 

If you come in to the campground from “number 4 road” (aka state rt. 26) it’s exactly five miles from the Left turn on to Soft Maple rd. If you have time, stop halfway- the 2.5 mile mark will bring you to the entrance for Eagle falls, a short hike with a fantastic reveal.

This was my 3rd trip to Stillwater in 3 yrs and it gets better each time!

Our first trip was an overnight to test some backpacking gear, it was September and the weather was perfect! We hiked into our site, not easy because almost everything is meant to be accessed by boat so we were guessing our course! Cooler weather meant no bugs to contend with

Next year we took a canoe to our site, it was July, warm weather, warm water and the bugs were not terrible, we were at Site 1, secluded in a cove, not a lot of traffic but there is a hiking trailhead near the site so there is potential for visitors.

Our latest trip was to site 10, an island site with a large sandy beachfront, we borrowed a motor boat to get there this year and brought plenty of gear for 4 days. Weather was great again, some rain each day but we had time to get setup and get shelters to keep dry.

Camping if free here but it is first come first serve but with 40+ sites you can almost always get something. There is a small store at the boat launch to get provisions if you need, public restrooms and wifi. Very limited cell service.

You should bring water or something to filter it from the reservoir. I believe all the site have privy boxes on them.

There are opportunities for fishing, a few local attractions, a nice restaurant at the launch.

This is a good stopping point, but there isn't much to do unless you bring a boat. Or you could use it as a base for exploring other areas in the Thousand Islands. It's only about 10 miles from Clayton.

We stayed here on a bicycle trip from Rochester to the Thousand Islands at the end of a 63 mile day. Don't let anyone tell you it's not a hilly trip coming up along Lake Ontario to the Thousand Islands! There will be hills! The good news is there are NY state parks along the way.

Burnham Point is a small (less than 50 sites) campground on the St. Lawrence River. It was a good stopping point after seeing the lighthouse in Cape Vincent on our way. There are sites by the river that are tent only but we pitched our tent up above. The tent sites were rather difficult to get to with our bikes. There wasn't much shade where we settled, but the sun was not intense as we arrived in the early evening and left the next morning. Unfortunately, I have no site photos and only have a photo of the sunset...but it's a beautiful view.

Restrooms/showers were clean, and there was electricity at the site. Unfortunately, the bugs were bad but that's just a summertime hazard in the Northeast.

We came to this campground after a week in Algonquin Provincial park in Canada and the contrast couldn't have been greater. Up north we stayed on a large, shady site in a radio free loop and everyone had canoes. In New York we had a cramped, open site and everyone seemed to have a motorboat on a trailer. Our neighbors across the road set up a movie screen . The overall feel was NOT "getting away from it all".
The facilities are good and there's a nice beach and well stocked General store, also a big boat ramp facility with some docks.
We chose this location because we were attending the Antique Boat Show in Clayton, 13 miles away, and this was the closest available. It suited us just fine for that.
Keep your stuff secure, there are brazen raccoons.

First thing about Cranberry Lake: the staff are wonderful. We arrived when the check in staff had the day off. Not a problem we only needed wood which was available just down the street from the campground. No need, the ranger, who let us know the overworked staff was off, brought it to our site once he had figured out the key. Sweet. Our site was on the uphill slope so we had some road noise due to that. We walked a bit of the campground until we realized it's larger than first assumed. I will say do your homework, check out the site photos which you can easily find online. Get a waterfront site but be aware the privacy isn't great at many sites, at least the ones we saw. There is a shower house which is great but be ready to drive to it, as I said the campground is bigger than expected! Some sites are super close which would be great for groups who may like to visit or it could be a nightmare with loud folks. The lake is beautiful. We weren't set up for it but if you can plan for the sunset view I think it's worth rescheduling your trip for the right site. Brand new sewer dump area for folks who need it.