Best Tent Camping near Sterling Forest, NY

Great first tent camping experience for kids. Lots of activities, clean restrooms. One thing to keep in mind is the tent sites on the opposite side of the road from the river has no shade. Site gets pretty hot on a sunny day. Sites by the river have some shade.

Drive-in tent campgrounds. Adequate restroom facilities sprinkled amongst tent sites. Some campsites have raised platforms. All sites have picnic tables and fire ring with flip-top grill. If looking for privacy, back end of campgrounds (#’s 1, 13, 15, 21, 23, etc) provide adequate quietness, a bit hidden and tucked away from the rest. Very near many trailheads and the expansive Lake Welsh. Alcohol prohibited... Uploaded photo/vid from off-season 2019.

I tent camped with my niece here in early July. We booked a campsite at the far end of the loop by the lake, which looked to be the right spot for some privacy, but a longer walk to the bathroom and water spigot.

The campsites included a picnic table and fire ring, and flat ground for tents.

The late was closed for swimming (lifeguard shortage at the time) but there were lots of smaller spots to tuck into for fishing and just relaxing.

By the main swimming are there are canoe and kayak rentals as well.

We did one loop hike which was mostly in the woods with a brief stop with a lake view. The better activities were around the lake.

This campground was perfect for our weekend. The tent sites more in the open field area (

We stayed here on a Thursday night in September prior to taking off backpacking. The campground was clean and quiet. RV hook-ups, tent platforms, and rustic tent sites were available. Our rustic tent site had a few good options for pitching a tent, as well as picnic table and fire ring.

Ranger said that during summer weekends the grounds fill up and can be quite noisy, but mid-week during the off-season it was great. Expect to purchase firewood, although scrounging for kindling was possible. Facilities were clean and what you'd expect from a campground.

Would definitely return!!

The park itself is lovely and close to some other green areas. The nice thing about this campsite is that it’s so close to NYC. The bad thing about this campsite is that it’s so close to NYC. If you live in NYC this is a good, cheap, super quick escape accessible by public transport. If you’re visiting the area I’d recommend staying in Manhattan/Queens in an AirBNB for the full NYC experience or heading to Long Island, Pennsylvania, “Upstate” New York, or New Jersey for a better nature camping experience. For what it is, this site is a nice green little oasis. It’s National Park Service land and they try really hard to keep things clean and working well with so much traffic. Bring earplus for the airport traffic and the noisy neighbors. Tent sites are pretty and wooded, but there is also a TON of concrete from an old WW2 airfield.

We tried this campground without knowing what was safe and where to stay for visit New York City. It is located in Brooklyn and is little removed from everything. The sites are at Floyd Bennett Field which is an old airfield. The atmosphere here is eerily cool at the same time. You basically park and camp on the asphalt by the old hangars. No hookups at all but they do have a camp store and bath house. If you are tent camping, there are some grassy sites.

The campground is located right on Jamaica Bay so there were people fishing all the time from the seawall. At night, you could hear cars doing burnouts right next to us. To get to all the action in the city, we had to take a bus and then the subway. The travel was a headache but better than trying to drive in to New York City in our RV. One way to improve here would be to have some security at night as well as access to clean water and dump station. They remained locked most of the time for some reason.

The best part of this place was the free tour of Hangar B by some guys doing restoration of old planes (HARP). They had some great stories and gave us history of the planes on display.

Went tent camping for 3 nights, easy to get to, bathrooms were clean and so was the site. Sites were a good size and not on top of each other. Firewood was available in the area. But not much for stores so pack everything in before.

We found this KOA to be okay. Some amenities need upgrades for the price. Staff very friendly and helpful. I don’t love the gravel pad tent sites. Some sites are much more private than others.

Love the proximity to NYC - I always look for areas that are not too far, but not too close to NY. Beautiful but small-ish tent sites. Lots of great hiking in the area in addition to beautiful Cold Spring, NY for the small-town charm.

This is an older campground with several options. Only 6 sites with electric. 50 & 51 are nice & private. Lots of large tent sites, some in an open area & others fairly private. 4 tent pads with obstructed river views. Assorted cabins, mostly above the river. Restrooms small but pretty clean by state park standards.

Close enough to NYC area for comfortable and scenic drive. Great setting for a spontaneous camping trip. Plenty of room in tent site area. One challenge was to know there was no clear separation in sites. Small camp ground but easy to move around. Staff was very helpful and concerned with our comfort.

There are two camping areas at Worthington State Forest - one area is tent only and the other area, separated by 3 group sites, has sites suitable for RVs and campervans. There are no hookups at any of the sites. Alcohol is not allowed. Facilities include plentiful single use bathrooms and showers.

Site 10 is a spacious, private tent site. Sites 36 and 37 are close together but would be great waterfront campervan sites.  Many tent sites are wooded. Ticks and rattlesnakes are present in the area. Additionally, store food properly as this is bear country.

Activities include water sports on the Delaware River as well as hiking. We formed a loop hike by combining the Douglas Trail (1.7 miles), a stretch of the Appalachian Trail, and the Garvey Springs Trail (1.2 miles). This route will climb about 1200 feet past Laurel Falls to a backpacker Appalachian Trail campsite, and onward along Kittatinny Ridge to Sunfish Pond - a 44 acre glacial lake designated as a World Heritage Site - before descending back down.

We chose Korn's because it was close to home on our first trip in years.

It was a great time from check in to check out.

We had a nice tent site ( 92 ) along the river. I called myself captain planet because I fished a coffee cup from the river.

Will definitely be staying again

Nice park with some mountains to climb and waterways to enjoy. Excellent in the fall with the leaves, especially from the summit of Mt. Tammany. The campsites are all very close to the lake, especially the tent sites. The facilities are modern, basic, and clean. We heard about some bear incidents here recently but we didn’t encounter any or any evidence of them.

I really enjoyed staying at Jenny Jump. It is set up nicely for primitive camping and you are able to hike out straight from the campsite(which is always a plus!). Theres a great look out point as well. If you want, they have the option of renting a small cabin/shelter that you can stay in if you are not into tent camping. There is also specific areas for group camping but always good idea to reserve in advance to make sure you can lock it down.

This campground has a good amount of primitive tent and RV camp sites. I went for the primitive tent camping out a solo camp and was pleasantly surprised with how nice the river was and community turned out to be.

They have kayak and tube rentals if you want to float the river. I enjoyed my stay here thoroughly and the rangers we very nice and felt well taken care of and left alone as well.

Fire pits were provided and there’s a great campground store that came in handy for food and drinks.

The river is beautiful in this area and worth the stay.