Best Dog-Friendly Camping near Hillsboro, ND

I needed to scout what Turtle River looked like before I pull my travel trailer there in Spring. Here is what I found.

Nice flat pull through campgrounds. Easy electrical outlets with breakers. Water outlets are off for winter. Plenty of bathrooms Septic is drive through may be tricky to get in with large trailer. Gas stations are about 5 miles east of park. With Subway and Dairy Queen. Lots of big trees, cleared enough for campers, but watch for widow makers. Nice and playful dog park. Cabins are basic and look warn. Park Manager going to fix up next year. As all state parks, under staffed. 2020 was record high for campers in park. Beautiful however the lake in entrance will not be seen in campgrounds. Nice flat spaces for tent camping. Very clean. Well groomed. Fire pits BBQs everywhere. Plenty of places to explore. Lots of trails. Friendly staff. Dogs aloud in park as long as on lease except in the dog park of course. Lots of wildlife during certain times of year. No dangerous wildlife or reptiles. Fishing aloud certain time of year. No hunting = good Firewood at main entrance. No snack machines seen?

Very nice place all in all to visit for a week or weekend.

I can't imagine camping here. I'm here before the campground is open and there's a striking amount of annual campers here. Most of the campers sit in the sun which I think would be hot in the summer. The park is cute The arboretum is nice there's some nice walks but overall I can't imagine sitting in the sun during the summer in North Dakota with high humidity and finding that pleasant. I did stay in the campground at the state park that has lots of shade I would recommend somebody stay there but come here if they want to go to the beach which is quite nice.

The website instructions say to take exit 292 off I 94 but our RV GPS and Google Maps showed exit 294, which is probably a new exit. Coming from the east, exit 294 was the better option, but either exit would work as they both will lead to the turn to take you down to Eggerts Landing plus other COE areas as identified on the signs. The campground(CG) area was easy to find and we got potable water at the dump station conveniently located as we entered the CG area. The RV sites here are all 30 AMP electric and we proceeded to back-in spot 20, which was easy to back into off the turn. Site 20 is plenty long and we really liked the privacy between sites due to the vegetation and trees. This CG has a lot of mature trees so satellite would not be an option for most sites. We got 2 bars on Verizon and 2 on T-Mobile. The sites in the front of the CG are more open where you could get a satellite signal. The sites at the far end of the CG are more private with little trails weaving around. There are no sites that are truly on the lake, but several have paths to the water. There are trash cans smartly placed around the CG plus water spigots and vault toilets. Towards the front of the back loop, there’s a shower house. There is also a fishing pier near the CG area entrance. There’s a camp host, but they were only working weekends when we were there in September. However, park rangers patrolled the CG. This COE is about 15 minutes north of Valley City where amenities can be found. Check out Babb's Coffee House in Jamestown. Great place to have lunch after visiting the tourist spots in Jamestown and the coffee is very good too. If you are looking for gifts made in North Dakota, check out the Dakota Store, also in Jamestown, which is a great place to shop. We enjoyed our 3-night stay during the midweek.

Not going to say anything that everybody else hasn't said in the reviews but I thought it was charming there's space between the campers and well there's no privacy there tends not to be in city campgrounds. Also it's right on the River trails so if you're a biker it's fun to do the loop that goes from both the North Dakota and the Minnesota side. The bike trails also connect you to the larger city and there's several other very charming parks and downtown neighborhoods or downtown houses to see. The walk-in sites near the river are quite nice I wouldn't come here if you wanted to be in a quiet state park but that's not the intent of the park and it's a good use of the green space. I'm fully self-contained so I didn't use the bathrooms I've heard their little bit older but there's water there's sewer there's electric sites their sites with electric only and then their sites for just camping also group sites.

This Army Corp campground is out favorite, there are three other Army Corp campgrounds around Lake Ashtabula but this one is the best. Spots are secluded and shaded. Beautiful beach for swimming and a nice playground to keep the kids entertained. Spots are gravel so there is no mud to deal with. They also have a great fishing pier. Only negative thing I can say is the rules are not enforced when it comes to pets on leashes, while I walking my pup, (on a leash) we had dogs run at us from two different camp sites. One was right in front of the host and nothing was said to the dog owner. It was frustrating because the rest of our stay I didn't dare walk my pup, she needed to stay at camp on her lead. This is a common problem at campgrounds I have found.