Dan Nicholas Park, near Salisbury, North Carolina, is a fantastic spot for families looking to enjoy the great outdoors while keeping the little ones entertained. The campground offers spacious sites with electric hookups, making it a comfortable base for your adventures.

This place is packed with activities that kids will love, including gem mining, a carousel, and even a train ride that circles the park. Visitors rave about the clean facilities, with one camper noting, “The restrooms are impeccable,” which is always a plus when you’re camping with family.

You’ll find plenty of opportunities for fishing and exploring the nearby wildlife refuge, making it a great spot for nature lovers. The park is also home to a small zoo and paddle boats, ensuring there’s never a dull moment. As one happy camper put it, “This place is the best for families to camp.”

While the campground doesn’t have sewer hookups at each site, there’s a convenient dump station available. The friendly staff is always ready to help, ensuring your stay is smooth and enjoyable. If you’re looking for a fun-filled camping experience, Dan Nicholas Park is definitely worth checking out!

Dan Nicholas Park is home to a campground, lake, carousel, train, gem mine, aquarium and nature center, animal habitats, and more.  Learn more about the attractions at Dan Nicholas Park before your visit. 

Animals are allowed in the park but are not allowed on attractions.

All of the sites and cabins at Dan Nicholas Park are in the woods. We do not have sewer hookups on sites. Pets are allowed on sites only, not in cabin areas. We have a two night minimum for reservations on the weekends. Payment in full must be made to hold reservations. We do not do refunds, but we will issue rain checks if notified 4 days prior to first reservation date. These will be good for one year. 

Reservations
Online reservations are available for your convenience at www.campspot.com/book/dan-nicholas-park. 

The Campground Store can be reached at 704-216-7808. Please leave a detailed message with a return number and they will contact you as soon as possible.

Dan Nicholas Park

Looking for the best campgrounds near Southmont, NC? Southmont is an adventure-filled destination for those who love the outdoorsy camper lifestyle. But it's also great for those who prefer to spend time near the city, exploring and sightseeing. You're sure to find the perfect campground for your Southmont camping trip.

Southmont

The Best Camping Near Southmont, North Carolina

Pretty heavily wooded medium sized campground with good sized sites, some of which are beside a small lake. No sewer hookups, they do have a dump station with no extra fee to use. Heavily populated park about a quarter mile from campground within same area which has gem mining, a carousel, small makeshift train ride, small petting zoo, playgrounds, etc. The campground would have been nice except the park staff are horrible, by far the worst I have experienced yet. When we checked in the girl didnt have a clue as to what the campground had to offer, where to put your trash, etc. The ranger would ride throughout the campground all day and hassle people who didn't follow the rules that no-one knew because the check-in lady didn't have a clue. The worst part was we were forced to move sites the very last night because they had a "mix-up" and someone else had reserved that site for 1 night of all sites on a Sunday night when the entire campground was wide open. Go figure. Was treated rudely told if we couldn't move than we would have to leave, ruined the entire day. We finally moved sites to the one beside us and she calls me back again and says you can stay there, that they had "mixed it up" again! We had already moved The TT and everything. The customer service was horrible and the staff lack training and are unfriendly. Very disorganized. Will not be back.

Don't go 

We live just a few miles from Dan Nicholas, but love to “get away” there any chance we get. Plenty to do, super nice folks, and roomy, shady sites. The kids take their bikes, but even without them, they stay plenty busy. The lake offers fishing, paddle boating and feeding the ducks and it’s inly a short walk from any campsite. Hubby and I walk the trails, play putt-putt and catch up in our naps in our hammocks. The folks in the store are always pleasant and helpful. Can’t wait to go back!

Away is away!

kitty at the front desk welcomed us to our stay. noticed what I think was a new sign that days tobacco free... hmmm

awesome place

great place

Large park attached to campground. huge lake, carousel, train rides and small zoo. Campsites are standar size. wooded and bathouse were dated but, clean. Outside firewood was allowed and picnic shelters availble with volleyball and lots of trails.Huge playground in park.

Feels like old skool camping

Other reviews have described the great facilities here, but I wanted to make sure everything’s listed. They have a mini train ride, sprinkler playground, a big regular playground, carousel, panning for gems, paddle boats, nature center, and shelters and picnic areas. Park is free to enter but the rides are $2 or so. There are combo tickets available to get discounts on multiple rides. 

Campground: only drawback is no sewer in the sites, but there is dump station with a long water hose. Saw one review here mentioned problems with staff, but my experience has been great: knowledgeable, friendly, helpful people. Have been here multiple times - my grandson’s cub pack camps here every year. 

For those in the Piedmont area of NC, this is a fun and inexpensive campground with many more amenities than most. For travelers with kids, it’s close to I85 and the kids will have plenty to do. 

Great for kids and families

Awesome place

Very clean and taken care of 

Restrooms clean

Friendly, large sites, paved roads, safe and secure 

Great  Place to camp with your family. The park has more to do other than the campground it is a wonderful place if you have young kids.

Great place to camp.

This place is the best places for families to camp. There is a beautiful zoo, gem mining, a train ride, amazing fishing, a beautiful playground, and a carousel. The campsites are nice and the facilities are fairly clean. We really enjoyed fishing and caught a couple of fish as well. The sites are pretty roomy to! We definitely will be going back again and have been a couple of times.

Such a fun place to camp, especially for the kids 

This was the shakeout trip with our new to us, 2015 R-Pod 176T.  This turned out to be a great trip.  

The Campground and Host Kitty were wonderful.  The Campground is wooded and very scenic.  We stayed in site 25 which had a view of the pond.  Also it was a short walk to the bathhouse which was clean and warm for a cold fall/winter trip.  

The Campground is on a park which has lots of attractions for the family including a gem mine, carousel, small zoo, fishing, padle boats and other things to do.  These were closed due to COVID 19 but will be available once the pademic is over.  

There was WiFi across from our site which was really good.  We were able to stream Netflix and AT&amp;T TV with no problem.  The Camp host Kitty, was kind and helpful throughout our stay she had suggestions for us and assured us that if we had any issues she would be there.

I would highly recommend Dan Nicholas Park. 

Especially post COVID 19!!!!!!

Great place for our 1st Camper Trip

Easy access, Great location very close to the restrooms which are impecable. 

Perfect place for first campers

Stayed 2 nights in site 37. Very clean well maintained park. It rained a lot while I was there and didn’t get to explore the park but I can say the sites are spacious. Staff was very friendly and site 37 is very level. My 32 ft class c with 2 slide outs had plenty of room. There’s a lake, wildlife refuge and a small train ride in the park. Lots to do. 

Great park

We went to visit family and didn’t want to have to leave early and go home so we stayed in the campground. It was fantastic. It had everything for kids…Gem mining, carousel,  ￼Paddle boats, and a train that went all the way around the park🥰￼great place for the summer ￼💯

Visiting family

We went to Dan Nicholas Park earlier this year (around the spring time) and it was decent. Staff was nice, our campground was set up well, we had no noise problems and the campground was pretty much close to a bathhouse. However the one complaint is that the advertisement of this park— being that you can go to their attractions, is kind of faltered out. Nobody works at the park anymore, everything’s kind of closed— and what isn’t closed due to no work is under renovation. Nice place for younger kids! Not for teens. However all together a cheap and decent park! Stayed for 3 nights and 4 days with 2 sites for only 120 dollars, so a good deal. I would recommend for family camping trips as it’s nicely snuggled in Salisbury NC and an all around friendly campground. The bonus is it’s gated!

Decent campground. Needs work, nothing to do.

Stayed a couple of nights for first time. Staff was very nice. Grounds were well maintained, not crowded and nice and quiet. Nice lake to walk around, but paddle boats and center were closed. Lots of ducks that were used to human presence and feeding. Located in a nice sized park. Would definitely go back.

Enjoyed Our Stay

This campground is not well-maintained. The bathhouses are in very poor shape. There appears to be suspect, microbial growth all over the men’s side (black mold).  The bath houses also aren’t cleaned on a regular basis. I was here a week and they cleaned it after I complained. They were only cleaned one time in a one week period.  The campground manager doesn’t appear to care about anything. Keep it business only with this person.  The sites are completely covered with leaves. You can’t even see the parking area for your site.  I travel full-time. I will not be coming back to this location.

Photos of Dan Nicholas Park

Real photos from real campers