Best Glamping near Gambier, OH

Alum Creek is just beautiful, nice sites, most of them are at least partially shaded, lots of woods, hiking trails, the lake, it is what I think of when I think of State Park campground camping in Ohio. There are a couple problems. 1. Only ONE little dump station. This is a big campground, so if you're leaving Sunday, you better get up at the crack of dawn to get to the station, otherwise be prepared to wait in a long long line of RV's. We by-passed the long line and stopped at a different State Park campground on the way home and paid 10.00 to use their dump station. 2. They never answer their phone at the campground office. I mean NEVER. If you have a question you will just have to deal with the reserveamerica people who really know nothing other than what they read on the campground website. So basically you know as much as they do. It's maddening. We will go back, but it's a 2 hour drive so it won't be anytime soon.

First off we have to say that Ohio State Park campgrounds are some of the best we’ve ever stayed in. Most Ohio state park campgrounds have spacious sites with trees or other foliage between campsites so lots of privacy and a feeling of being apart from other campers. Alum Creek is no different. The ODNR has upgraded a number of the sites to FHU though most are still electric only. Alum Creek Lake is a large reservoir (by Ohio standards) that has excellent fishing, plenty of undeveloped shoreline to explore from kayaks, canoes or paddle boards and a very large beach. Not as many hiking trails as most state parks but you’re not far from High Banks Metro Park in Lewis Center that is a beautiful park with miles of trails along the Olentangy River. We love Alum Creek and will stay again for sure.

This is my favorite Ohio State Park to camp in so far. Good ATT coverage, look carefully at length of pad as some are shorter. Lovely beach nice views. Only problem was some street noise and the Trick or Treating and Halloween events first weekend of October meant there were a lot lot lot of cars and people and 1.5 hours with the streets closed for activities.

My wife and I spent the July 4 weekend here this year and loved our experience. At this time we were camping in our 16 ft pop-up camper so the restroom and shower house were very important.

The campground is right in the middle of Ohio’s Amish country with easy access to shopping and food and other great experiences like the large cuckoo clock in Sugar Creek (see video)

I have been extremely disappointed with Ohio State Park campgrounds. They have been congested, poorly maintained, badly landscaped, and staying at one felt like I was set-up in the middle of a mall parking lot.

However, Dillon has been a completely different experience. The people in the office are very nice, the pad is almost perfectly level, the grounds are well kept, and the buildings (while a bit long in the tooth) are well maintained.

I haven't made it down to the lake yet, but so far I'm a happy camper.

This is a huge campground! I tent camped by myself--felt very safe.  Happened to be next to the park host. No choice of where to locate my large tent.  Showers/bathrooms were OK--older facilities.  Wish this park had a laundry facility--another Ohio park I recently stayed at had a fairly new shower facility that included a laundry facility!  Did not appreciate the waste management company emptying the dumpsters at 4:00 AM!!!  There is a huge, lakeside beach that was just packed with people (no social distancing) and there was trash everywhere--not enough dumpsters.  Near to shopping (Polaris), if you are interested.  Will try to get a lakeside site next time.

I love Mohican State Park. There is so much to do- canoeing, kayaking, tubing, creeking, and great trails also.

This campground is nice but is crowded in the warmer months. Look for a site along the water, that's where the tree cover is. I stayed in a camper cabin which was very nice, with microwave and refrigerator.

There is running water in the toilets, which is nice for a state park in Ohio. The showers were decent, nothing to complain about there.

The primitive tent camping sites looked nice and peaceful- take care to get a shaded spot, though, as some were just exposed in a grassy field. There is a long bumpy walk from the parking area to the primitive sites, so bring a wagon or sled or something.

This is another of our favorite Ohio State Parks.  The campground is setup in a nice layout with each of the separate sections having a spoke and wheel layout with a bathhouse in the middle.  Sites are roomy and we like the wooded feel.

The dog part was quite muddy and actually closed while we were there and we were a bit disappointed by that but there was plenty of space to walk the pups.

Located near the town of Delaware, you aren’t too far off the beaten path and we even had decent service with Verizon.

I also noticed that the6 had a nice storm shelter on the property that was well marked and easy to get to from any of the campground areas.

This was the only park we’ve gone to this uear with both a large dog park AND a fenced in dog beach! Folks were friendly at the dog park with bunches of chairs set around like a conversation pit. Lots of water and dog tennis balls were available.

The dog beach was fenced so your dog can be off leash. There is even a fenced in area out in the water to keep the pooches from swimming across the Lake chasing geese.

The campground itself was quite nice and spacious. Some of the most private camping sites I’ve seen in Ohio. Shower facilities we a bit above average mad seemed to be looked after at least once a day (we were there in the off season).

IMHO, one of the nicest campgrounds in the state.

This is a nice campground for Ohio because there are a lot of trees, making many sites secluded with privacy. I haven't camped here, I've just driven around because I boat on the creek, so I can't attest to the condition of the bathrooms.

Beware that sites close to the water may flood, or may be pretty damp in the spring.

The beaches are nice, the reservoir is nice for boating, but the horsepower allowed is too much if you want to kayak on the main water, in my opinion. There are nice inlets and coves where you can take smaller boats. Hopefully big boats observe the no wake zone, but they don't always. I don't think there is any hiking, the main attraction is the water and the beach.

I found Malabar Farm in Lucas, OH on my way home from Mom’s house. Never heard of it before and I have been this way for over 20 years now. Louis Bromfield was a conservationist and among many other things (including winning a Pulitzer) he was in the forefront of organic and self-sustaining gardening. This place is amazing! ( and would be an excellent home schoolers camping trip!) Not your typical going hiking kinda campground (there are trails but they are not “major”) you come here to step away from city life and tour a working farm. Ohio countryside at its best. Primitive camping with a gravel parking pad and water, fire ring, picnic table and hitching post. No reservations, this is a first come campground. There’s also a small rentable cabin open year round. Definitely worth a visit and very family oriented events. ( your teenager will roll their eyes at you but probably secretly enjoy the visit)

Blue Rock State Park is outside Zanesville, Oh off I70. Rt 60 takes you South and then you have a choice of routes in. Good Ohio farmland scenery.

Out of the way, small camping area with basic sites. A cool feature is a few of the sites have pavilion type covered patios that you can pitch your tent in to help stay dry during inclimate weather.

Otherwise the sites are close together. Though there are a few sites that are more off to themselves, they are still wide open with sparse tree cover.

The restroom is basic, the showerhouse is located at the reservoir beach as well as the camp store and boat rental.The staff was very knowledgeable about the area and conversational.

Several trails are in the area, the Horse Camp is up the road. In addition to this area there is the Blue Rock State Forest that offers several out door activities, check out their map and site online.

Campsite number 3 is also on a short creek crossing. Nothing to worry about with your pack on this August sunny day. It had plenty of space for tents and hammocks. It was close enough to hang out by the creek if you wanted. 

No cell phone service for Verizon. On this post for the Park and Pack I focused on the forest postings.  Do register before you do the long walk out here (depends on which way you do the loop). 

You don't want to do illegal camping at the Park and Pack sites as they do keep an eye out for it. They also want folks to call it in to discourage bad behaviors.  I spoke to such a guy in the Park and Pack parking lot as illegal campers had taken up a spot for another park and pack camper that did register. 

It is nice no official check in and check out time like you have at the state park campsites. However, the early bird does get the worm or in this case the camp site. It is harder for folks that live further away to get their hands on a site. As there are only 10.  

The ranger office is closed at this time. Make sure you go to the Mohican Memorial Forest office and not the Mohican State Park office. They are located close to the covered bridge in the park.  I use the GPS address Co Rd 939, Perrysville Ohio to locate the ranger office.  That being said going here you can register and see where everyone is going by looking at the clip board. 

As always keep the local numbers handy and take photos of the map. They do have a few at the trail head kiosk but no maps were at the registration kiosk.

Everyone online is constantly raving about Alum Creek so we finally decided to try it out. Initially we had site A9 but when we arrived we realized the main road (55mph) was extremely close and loud. We ended up looking at all of the open sites and picking C3, which literally might be the best site in the park. Even still, the constant road noise and insane amount of small plane traffic is extremely annoying. The fire station across the street doesn't help either. The park seems to be roughly 80/20 mix of small sites to medium/ large sites. Usually my reviews are a ton of positives, then a few negatives. This one unfortunately is almost all negatives. The oddly places bathrooms have no parking, only the two shower houses on our half of the park did. I say oddly places because they are kind of in the middle of the woods with multiple paths going to them. You would definitely benifit by finding these paths before it's dark or you'll be lost like we were. Also you may not want a site with one of these paths if you don't like people walking through your site. Due to looking for a better site and it being October, it was dark by the time we finished setting up. One of the few nice things about the park is how dark it gets at night. Unfortunately, there are barely any signs around the park and the ones they have ahine green in your headlights and are almost illegible. Kind of like the light yellow site numbers on the grey electric box. The park does have many nice amenities like, miniature golf, a large dog park, many trails and a nature center. Down the road is a very large beach, a dam and parks. The absolute best part was the camp store. Literally the nicest people in the world were working here... I'm pretty sure we wouldn't stay here again, especially in the summer when it's probably crazy busy. Especially when Delaware state park is 10 miles away and literally our favorite park in Ohio. The two are complete opposites.

This trip was memorable for so many reasons but the Chestnuts really make this park stand out.  The park has several Chestnut trees which is usually a rare find these days.  Later on, I found a sign explaining why the park had so many Chestnut trees. They are working to bring them back.  We used our grubstick to roast them over the open fire.  Many of us fondly think of the Christmas song but how often have you roasted your own Chestnuts while camping?

The tent sites (short walk from parking lot) and one car per tent site.  Our site was not the traditional walk up/park camp site. It was a nice change of pace.  More space and great neighbors. 

The camp store at this park had a lot of great things such as corn hole outside, a mining activity for the family, trikes you could rent, and most importantly ice cream.  

The camp store is right across from the pool.  The pool is currently closed but not many state parks in Ohio have a pool right in the camp ground area.  This is a rare treat. The pool had the traditional pool, kiddo pool, and small splash pad. You could also see where they had installed a curb cut for those in wheel chairs or needing ramps. No pool lift that I could see to help someone lower in and out of the pool. This may be put away for the season so call to find out. They also had a ramp installed that led up to the pool. One side the old steps and the other side a new  ADA ramp. 

 The fire wood was in a white bag and that made it easy to move and kept the car clean which I appreciated. They also had bait so if you wanted to walk behind the pool and continue to the river it wouldn't be far to go fishing. 

The shower house by us did not have an ADA bathroom and I didn't get a chance to look for the ADA shower.  

Behind the campsites (our section) you could grab a short trail to the river. This was a lovely surprise as I followed a foot path.   We opted not to do the overlook hike to the gorge as we had fellow campers with us that couldn't do a long hike for safety reasons.  It as a nice surprise to learn that one could also drive to the overlook if they need to and all parties could enjoy the view together. Two different ways to get to the same place which means if you need to split up your campers based on physical skills then you could do so and then eat at the shelter together. 

The camp ground has been FULL several times this season so make sure you make your reservations. This park also has a way for you to put on and take out of the river.  You will see folks walking around with their inner tubes as they will float down the small section.

We also drove 10 miles away to the Mohican Lodge to treat ourselves to some food and an OSU Football game at the bar downstairs. The bar has a great back patio and view of the lake.  It too has a variety of games in the back patio. They were awesome and turned on the closed caption feature for us.  Those of us that wanted to watched the game and others were able to play various games at the lodge (Ping pong, pool, read a book by the fire, go see the owls on site, and more).

The pool at the lodge is being redone at the moment. I may try to upload that information later.  So look for it to be new and improved. The pool also has a sauna for those that need some help to warm up/relax tight muscles. Usually, you can get a day pass for the lodge pool even when you are staying at the camp sites. This is a small fee but well worth it.

While we were at the lodge an outside non-profit group was there with 2 owls.  We hope to drive up to Mansfield sometime to explore their property (90 acres) with birds they have rescued or are helping. https://www.ohiobirdsanctuary.com/  they come to the lodge usually on Sat evening at 7 PM. 

For those who are a fan of Shawshank Redemption the movie you are an easy day trip away from the Mansfield Reformatory. https://www.mrps.org/explore/tours

The owners are very nice. The camp sights are well maintained. I have stayed there several times, and I plan on going back. Swimming pond and fishing pond. Restrooms are all over for convenience.