Best RV Parks & Resorts near Star Lake, NY

50 sites, full hookup ($40), water& electric ($35) and tent ($??). Has the feel of an RV park with three rows of sites plus some more (I think the tent sites) closer to the road. Not much separation between sites. The lucky ones get beachfront sites with unobstructed views; we were in the second row. The beach was closed for the season when we were there; the campground is open May- September and an on-site caretaker is there the entire five months. Gorgeous sunsets. Coin-operated showers($1 for approximately 15 minutes)– did not use so cannot say how they were. Playground. Clean restroom but the women's only had one operable stall. Although there was a hot water spigot, I was not able to coax any hot(or even warm) water out of it. No defined quiet hours but it was very quiet by 8:30 pm.

Lots for everyone to do! New playground, beach, cabins boating full hook ups... they have it all!

Close to Lakes to Paddle, Store and Gas not far. Camp is quite more for Adults, no playgrounds or things for kids to do. Full hook ups and pull thru sites. Not very private you are close to your neighbors. Great for Day trips around the area.

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 place is top notch. A large park with diverse types of camping. Many tent-suitable sites right on the river are highly coveted so you have to book way in advance. Lots of dry-camping RV sites are easier to book. The full hook-up RV sites are also very difficult to book, but if you score one, it will be a dream experience. Facilities are very well maintained. There’s lots to do…. a swimming beach, boat launches, a Nature Center, hiking trails, and an ADA kayak launch on Eel Bay. Only fifteen minutes to the charming community of Thousand Island Park.

As a Ranger for The Dyrt, I am one of the lucky ones who gets gear to review from time to time. We recently tested out the Aftershokz Titanium Bone Conduction Headphones at this gorgeous campground in the Adirondacks! Pretty cool…

Gear Review

What we liked most about this product:

• Versatile: Can be used just about anywhere you want to be able to listen to music or a podcast (without disturbing others), but also want to be able to hear people coming down the trail, birds singing, the ocean crashing along the shore, etc. They are just as great in a library as they are outside.
• Compact: While they don’t fold down as small as a pair of traditional headphones, they are pocket-sized and can easily be stored in a jacket or a pocket of a backpack.
• Lightweight: You barely feel them on your head and are very comfortable to wear for long periods of time.
• Better for Ear Health: Because the headphones use bone conduction technology rather than sit inside your ear, they are much better for the long term health of your hearing.
• Blue Tooth Technology: Cordless is wonderful…enough said!

What could be improved:

• Adjustability: If they were made to adjust to each person’s head size, they would be even more comfortable. If you have a smaller head, they drape down a bit at the nape of your neck and bounce a bit while walking/cycling. They fit my husband’s head perfectly, but are a bit large on me.

Product Video Review: https://youtu.be/uj20w4_Yu14

Campground Review

Wow, what a gorgeous campground! This one came recommended from a friend and we fell in love at first sight. The campground reminded us of summer camp on the lake, as it seemed frozen in time. Each site has a picnic table and open grill and all sites are non-electric. We stayed in site #45, right on the edge of the lake, with great kayak access.

We spent one day kayaking on the lake and another day hiking. While the mosquitoes weren’t bad at the campground itself, they are terrible on the trails this time of year, so bring your bug spray, or better yet, bug shirts! We’ll need to come back in the winter and do some snowshoeing on these trails, so we can enjoy them mosquito free.

The bathrooms are kept tidy, the shower house is classic and clean, and there is an extensive recycling facility (yay for NY and ADK!). There is also a sand volleyball court and basketball hoop. Bonus: There was a huge stack of free wood piled near the shower house!

The Village of Cranberry Lake has some supplies, but not much except the very basics at the general store. You’ll need to head to Star Lake or Tupper Lake for anything of significance.

We did our usual reservation-less “pull up and see what they have open” style of camping, but during the main season, this place is busy! You’ll definitely need to plan ahead and make reservations if you plan to be here during the crazy season.

Staff was very helpful! Clean place. Easy to find as well! Prices were a little more expensive but they do a discount for good sams

We made reservations 8 months in advance. All of our group requested 50amp pull thru as we are all class A towing with our shortest coach at 34’ and longest 45’. When we arrived and assigned sites we were given the WORNG DIRECTIONS to our sites. This is a VERY tight camp ground so 4 of us had to circle back around the entire camp ground and start over. Only 1 site was pull thru but it was so unleveled we could not put our jacks down. 5 of us had to unhook our toad then 2 of the sites were to small for our rigs. We had to go back to the office to request bigger sites. 5 sites only had 30 amp! The staff acted like the hated their jobs and the customers as well. Overall this is the worst experience I have ever had at a RV park. It took almost 2 hours (no staff interaction) for our group to set set up. Do yourself a favor keep driving don’t stop here…

I’ll start by saying Swan Bay is a busy, family-oriented campground. We arrived on a weekend and it was pretty busy but loved it during the week when everybody left and things were quieter. Our site (#38) was a Passport America site so we got a great nightly rate of $42 which is half of the regular nightly rate. Our site was a “standard site” near the pool, boat launch, activities, and Tiki Bar which surprised us because sites close to activities are usually desired and not discounted. Campsite costs depends on whether you get a waterfront (which is $95/night even in the off-season), water view, pull thru, or standard site. Most sites do not have shade but they added a new section that does have some old mature trees and sporadic shade. All the sites are the same in that they have paved parking areas with gravel in front, pavers for a patio and full hook-up. Some of the newer sites now have a bit of shade from trees. There are lots of rental park models and cottages close to the pool and Tiki Bar. Within walking distance is a Price Chopper Grocery, Dollar General, gas station, and wine and liquor store.  

There is a free boat launch and boat slips (not sure if they are free) for guests. I was hoping to spend a bit of time on my paddleboard but soon realized it is very windy here and found very few windows to paddle. Our neighbor (who has camped here seasonally for the last four years) mentioned that he lost three awnings to the wind. So, don’t leave your awning out when you leave your camper and beware of winds if you want to be on the water. Check-in was quick and easy. The park is gated so you get a gate card to enter the park. You also get a BOGO card to use at the Tiki Bar which has specials during the week (like margarita Monday, bucket of beer, bloody Mary’s, etc.). The pool and Tiki Bar were not very busy when we were there. There is a second pool but it was not open yet for the season. In between the pools is a community fire pit with nice Adirondack chairs which is pretty cool. The playground is awesome and huge with lots of cool features for kids to explore. The dog park is very nice and a decent size to throw a ball for your dog. It also has potable water for drinking, which, for some reason, did not work during our stay. There are gobs of activities for kids and adults. Plenty of rentals too – ranging from boats, kayaks, golf carts, etc. 

A couple of the downsides of this park are the price (unless you get a discount like we did), sites don’t have much privacy, the park gets crowded and noisy, and there was lots of noise from the construction work within the park they were doing. If you are in the back of the park, you get some road noise from Route 12 and the refrigerated truck at the neighboring Price Chopper. Overall, we loved this park during the slow season and during the week when there were not kids running around and adults playing loud music and drinking constantly.

The state park is really nice, very natural with beautiful views of the St Lawrence River but the beach needs to be cleaned up and the bathrooms are disgusting. There’s one small open field that has full hookups otherwise it’s power only.

We camped in loop F site 43 with full hookups, nice asphalt pad picnic table and fire ring. Our site is located adjacent to a mowed grass path that leads to the main road, close to the camp store. Beautiful area, lots of hiking and biking trails and swim area.

We camp with a big rig(40ft) we prefer the heron loop they are very spacious. Nice bathrooms, a small park near the cabins and heron loop, a huge park near the beach and store. They have a beautiful nature center with a lot of kids activities. A ton of trails, they do have full hookup in another loop. By far a beautiful campground and views

No cell service or WiFi. No hookups. Odd bear rules that basically make you pack up your site when not in use, unless you have a trailer or RV. No bear proof lockers to help out like federal campgrounds. Will not be back until we get a trailer or RV. Sites are nice, secluded and not packed together.

Wellesley, Island State Park is right on the Canadian border. The island is beautiful and the perfect spot to be July to September. They have cabins, RV sites, sites with electric hook up, and rough camp sites. If you love being on the water boat rentals are fairly priced at two locations on the island. The staff was wonderful and eminities were clean and all in working order. They have a nature center that seems to always have interesting adventures for the children. They even have a butterfly sanctuary and plenty of hiking trails.

When we got there there was no one in the sign in station. No electricity or water hookups. We reserved online and there was a mix up. We reserved 3 days got there and found out there was no hookups we were told if we cancelled we would only get a few dollars back. Pool looked nice

Nice state campground. The amenities list is incorrect. There are no hookups, electric or water. There is wood for sale when the office is open, a dump station and it has showers. The showers were free however we froze. The bath house was unheated and the showers were lukewarm at best.

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.

Gorgeous campsite that we used as our base camp to hike Marcy. Technically, I don't recommend this as there are plenty of sites at the base of Marcy and this is an hour drive away. However, it's an amazing spot and you can't go wrong with anything in the 'dacks. We got unlucky with the weather, but the fog in the lake made for some good pictures. I believe we paid around $30/night for standard no hookup site peak season, but we didn't have neighbors on either side!

We decided to go the week before Memorial Day. It turned out to be a Canadian holiday weekend so we saw lots of Ontario plates. But by Monday everyone cleared out and we were one of 3 people in our loop (c63) the bathrooms were immaculate (our only complaint was the mens room had no hot water for showers) We kayaked from the ADA kayak launch and had a nice time on Eel bay. We rode our bicycles around and even did rollerblading. So many nice waterfront sites and if you stay in the c loop you have shade, a flat driveway to park on, and electric hookups. All of the other loops that had electric were pretty much wide open with no trees or privacy.