Best Equestrian Camping near Zanesville, OH

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.

Lovely park near Zanesville. The park is beautiful, lots of wildlife, and the trails were great. There is a creek running through the main primitive campsites below the dam, with minnows and crawfish for the kids to catch, plenty of shade, and the remodel a few years ago added nice bathrooms over in the group camp area up against the base of the dam. The fishing was good, and the activities with the naturalist (Cayden) were fun and engaging. The hiking was wonderful, the equestrian trails looked very nice, and the fire tower was a fun climb. The beach was a little dirty from the geese, but that didn't slow anyone down on swimming. Also, while the showers were up by the beach, there was always plenty of hot water.

Stayed here in the “primitive” camp. You are basically staying with your neighbors in small cleared areas where you can see everything everyone else is doing and if you have one of the sites nearer to the parking areas, you will have people walking through your campsite all day and night from the ones in the rear. From what I saw, the electric sites in the main campground aren’t much better. I mean this is a midwestern state park camping experience for sure. If you’re expecting any amount of privacy, think again.

The lake is pretty beautiful. The trails are well marked and the horse trails go on for miles and miles so if you have horses this is a great place to trail ride and if you’re a hiker who is not afraid of horses, you can always enjoy the equestrian trails for some serious mileage!

Dillon State Park was a perfect weekend spot outside of Cincinnati (2.5 hours). Campground was immaculate. Despite being a very hilly area, all the sites are level. The bathrooms we had access to were heated and perfectly clean (although the bathrooms closest to our site were locked). The park is gigantic. Despite that we had the entire campground to ourselves over New Years Eve weekend. Because the campground is so large(>150 sites), I'd image it feels a bit cramped during busy season. However, there's a decent amount of trees and the sites along tree lines wouldn't be bad in peak season. It was re-assuring to see the ODNR officers drive through multiple times over the weekend even though it was empty. There is plenty to explore and see and it's easy to run into downtown Zanesville if you need something but you still feel pretty isolated at the campground. The beach was fantastic and we also walked the storybook trail. We didn't attempt any other trails because of the mud but the park had plenty to offer. Last note, if rain is predicted, the place turns into a complete mudpit (see pictures of standing water), plan accordingly. We will be back (with our bikes and kayaks next time when it doesn't rain).