Best Glamping near Ridgeway, 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.

great like campground on Ohio’s biggest inland lake

This Ohio State Park is in a small quaint town. Good sites, nice beach + a real swimming pool. Many places for fishing from shore OR launching your boat ! There is even lots of wildlife especially of the pink vriety !

Campground had a nice well maintained pool with lifeguards. Campground had clean bathrooms and showers, and everything was well maintained. Would have liked more hiking trails. Only hiking trail is rather boring. The camper hosts nag about a lot of minor things that we’ve never experienced out of the several Ohio state parks we’ve camped out. So I would say average place.

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.

This was another brief stop on my long journey back west. The state park is beautiful and the sites are pretty nice. I did not spend enough time here to give a thorough review, but what I will say is that this site is nice if you need a campsite for a couple nights while passing through Ohio. Seems there are a lot of good options for water fun at this site!

Van Buren State Park is very easy to access from I-75. It has tons of trails and a pond. There are a few places to car camp or RV camp nearby. I love getting out of town and visiting Van Buren State Park, and I have lots of good memories. It gets 4 stars because I now live in Montana and Montana camping outshines Ohio, but I can't bash on Van Buren State Park at all.

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 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.

We camped here in our camper in early July 2017. There are a lot of things to do in the area. We visited the Ohio Caverns. The tour is worth the money, the "gem" mining was fun for our younger kids. There are two swimming beaches, the public one and one in the campground. The campground one is smaller a short hike to get to it. Both are ok, but nothing impressive. The campground is clean and overall a good value. It was a busy weekend but not as loud as I figured it would be. Yellow Springs is a great, funky town. Many great places to eat. Dark Star Used Bookstore is a must see every time we visit.

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.

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.

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.

We have been camping at Indian lake since I was a chIld, now we our kids there. Roomy sites, plenty of shade. Not a lot of privacy. There is a sand beach for swimming (even a separate doggy beach!) or a new in-ground pool. Primitive to full hook-up sites available as well as “boat-camping” sites.

Very nice campground with a pool,hiking trails,big camp store with lots of accessories.Lots of camp hosts who are very knowledgeable about the area.Good campsites with lots of room.

This parks has a lot to offer if you like water sports. There is a camper beach area, swimming pool and boat launch within the campground. The down since a lot of site are in full sun and no privacy. We do like the B section and try to stay there when we can. There are no hiking trails or at least none that I have found and the paved trail you have to drive to as well as the disc golf course. I like when everything is close by. The camp store is nice except the firewood was terrible. It was fresh cut and never did burn but other than that nice store. We also visited a local wine room ( Fion ) when staying at the park which was fun although nothing to do with the park directly.

We stopped at this park on our way up from SC. We spent 3 days 2 nights at the park. It was very nice but due to COVID-19 the pool area and other public areas were closed. The park was empty during the week which was nice. The beach was very good and the boys loved it. We also did some kayaking with our own m kayaks. Great place to go would definitely go back. The only down side for us was no water hook up at the site. They have plenty of water filling sites to fill tanks or water jugs tho. We would definitely stay here again.

Traveling with a dog is not always easy, but I throughly enjoyed my stay. Will be back again, happy it wasn’t full of people. Wifi strong, Verizon service great, premium electric (I have 30amp and there was a hookup), no water as it’s winter meaning no bathrooms (there is a porterhouse). Clean sites and friendly folks.

PROS 

Able to reserve 144 days prior to arriving 

Very nice campground but the design leaves a lot to be desired 

Friendly camp hosts who were busy picking up trash in common areas and cleaning sites Moveable picnic table 

Metal fire ring with cooking grate 

Site D45 level asphalt parking pad surrounded by grass 

Great view of lake from D loop; some had water access at rear of site 

Quiet except for campground party animals who kept it going into the wee hours of the morning 

Coin-operated laundromats in non FHU loops $1.50 wash and $1 dry 

Free WIFI available and able to connect at campsite 

Dump Stations at Park exit have complimentary hoses 

Camp store sells hard dipped ice cream 

14 miles from the Airstream Service Center in Jackson Center 

CONS 

No senior discount

$6.50 reservation fee for self made on-line reservation 

Basically the FHU loops are out in a field…no privacy from neighbors and no shade what so ever 

Grass around sites desperately needed mowed, if you could get thru the large mud puddles 

FHU loop D has narrow roads and require driving on grass to back in trailer and some campers in other sites had to move their vehicles 

Short length of campsite required creative parking of tow vehicle 

Damn Canadian Geese poop every...what a mess! 

Site number on electric utility box 

FHU sewer connection at the back of the campsite so bring the looooong stinky slinky FHU loop D had tiny toilet building, but no showers; showers were in non-FHU loops 

No entry gate personnel on a Friday afternoon to accomplish check-in. Went to park office next morning and was informed no check in required prior to Memorial Day. Never saw a Park ranger driving thru campground