A.W. Marion State Park Campground

Really disgusted with out last stay here. We ended up next to some tent campers who were homeless which isn't the issue because things in life happen it was the way they acted that just grossed me out. I spent the first few days listening to them arguing and fighting amongst each other about their welfare checks being spent on their cigarettes beer and weed. They had 2 kids one that was autistic that they called a retard the other one they called stupid and it was just heartbreaking. I ended up having to go inside my camper and turning my ac on to escape their screaming and yelling and fighting that went into the midnight hour. My dog has a heart murmur and it made him anxious. I felt like I was camping in the bottoms of Columbus Ohio. The camp host said they are there all the time which is disturbing that they condone this behavior and makes me question the integrity of this location. Luckily after contacting ODNR we were able to move to a location far from them and given a gift card for our troubles. This was after they moved their camp stuff practically across the front bumper of my 100,000 RV. My husband and I pay way to much for our RV and for our stays to put up with this trash. We'd be hard pressed to come back here and be exposed to this kind of drama again.

We've been to this campground multiple times, but this was a new site to us. It's electric and sits on the back of the loop next to the old playground. It's a nice size site that has pretty good shade, but the tree that sits over your camper drips sap/gunk. The other large tree on the site also has great shade, but no grass, so when it rains be prepared for mud. The old playground sits right behind the site along with the two drop toilets. There is also a "street" light, but it didn't really bother us. There is a water source nearby as well. I liked that it was a big site, but would probably not choose is again mostly because of the drippy tree and potential for a mud pit. The park itself, is always great. There are flush toilets available, no shower house. There is a new playground up front, a little far away from the electric sites, but closer to the non-electrics. Take a short hike or a long one (even longer when they finish the dam project.) The park is also supposed to get a kayaking launch site at the bottom of the hill, fingers crossed!

I drove through here on a Sunday, and I just read online that the dam may be getting repaired, so that might explain the creepy, horror-film vibe I got from this place. It was completely deserted on an August Sunday, except for two RVs in the small campground.

The sites are shaded, which is nice, but pretty close together. The only bathroom within the campground area is one porta-john, so I bet that gets pretty disgusting. There was a latrine out on the road by the playground (a bit short walk from the campsites), but I didn't go in. The camp office was locked up.

The lake was deserted and it looks like some kind of sad chemical waste area. There is no beach, and what is probably a snack bar or boat rental place was all boarded up, and the floating docks were dragged up onto land. The edges of the lake were all dry and rocky looking, which is why it looks like some kind of place where there was mining or some other industrial activity. I don't know the history of the area, but it was underwhelming and not very pleasant. 

I won't stay here- I checked it out and now I know it isn't for me.

I did not add a transcript of my verbal descriptions within the videos. Please enable this on your Google Chrome built in live captions under your accessibilities settings.

A.W. Marion Campground- Campsite non-electric- 025

This was a weekday camping trip (Wednesday) and the campground was mostly empty.  I never did see the two camp hosts while I was at the park. I was not able to purchase any camp fire wood or ice as they were not there.  The town is close by so you can easily purchase what you need in town. I actually was lazy and had breakfast in town at Bob Evans due to the rain. 

Ohio campsites no longer do walk on sites.  It is easy to pull in and look at the sites to determine which one you would like and then make your purchase online.  I do this to ensure I get a camp spot near the host(s) and that I am close to the bathroom. It also allows me to see the conditions of the campsite before I pay for it.  You won't be able to take a shower at this campground. Hopefully, ODNR will add a shower house in the future as this would make the campsites even better. 

The playground seems new as I don't recall seeing it in the past but my memory could be faulty.  The group campsites seemed to be better cared for this time with some improvements.  There is a simple basketball court for kids to play at as well. 

This park is pretty basic and near the lake.  You do have to go around to the other side to access the marina.

AW Marion is a small campground with electric and non-electric sites. This particular site sits is electric and sits on the inside circle. For us this works great as we a lot of greenspace right behind us to walk the dogs and are able to be far enough away from neighbors to not bother them. Your fire ring is right next to the end of the pad. I found out that if my windows are open (which they were) and my fire is smokey (which it was a little) it can set off your fire alarm is the wind blows just right (which it did)! This site works well for our camper and still has lots of space for tents or an ez-up. It's a short walk to the pit toilets and just a little long to the flush toilets (no showers). 

Lots of trails to hike, mountain bike and look for wildflowers and birds. 

Some recent change this year to note. It does have a great lake to kayak; however, they are fixing the dam so you can't put it at the end of the road at the campground unless you plan to walk really far to get to the water. Best bet is to drive to the marina to put in there. The marina store is closed and no boats at this time. The just updated the playground and it's next to the flush toilets up front as you pull in (not sure what they will do with the old.) The just repaved the entire park, road and pads including the non-electrics which just used to be gravel. Slowly but surely they are trying to make things even better.

Normally a pretty desolate campground in the off season, there were quite a few more campers than we expected. The site we were in sits below everyone and gives you a little more privacy. With it sitting low, the water does drain and makes a little stream when there's a good storm. There used to be a big stump in the middle of the site and they've removed it. They have also removed a lot of brush in the back of the site giving you way more space for tents. You're surrounded by trees and the hiking trail is behind you. In the winter you can see everyone, but when the leaves are on the trees, you're pretty hidden. There is a trail that leads from your campsite to the trail. We moved some tree limbs at the entrance to keep hikers/bikers from accidently coming into the campsite. In the winter season the only toilets you have are the pit toilets (the flush toilets are closed). Normally they are pretty clean, but this weekend someone broke the windows, left toilet paper everywhere and it didn't look like it has been cleaned... pretty disappointing. It was reported to the state. The dam at the lake is getting fixed so this season the marina and boat dock are closed, but you can still kayak. However, they have dropped the water super low so if you want to put in at the campground you're going to have a very long walk to get to the water (see the photos).

We chose A.W. Marion State Park on this particular weekend because it's relatively close to home (Columbus area). While I had come here to hike the 5 mile trail around Hargus Lake in the past, it was our first visit to the campground. 

We reserved site #4 in the non-electric section. Unfortunately #4 isn't the best site in the campground - it was very small and wide - one of our 3 small tents ended up right next to the car. But we made it work and really enjoyed our stay. It was right across from the porta johns, so that's something of which to be aware. It's right next to #3 (obviously), which is not available for reserving because it's the extra site that remains available if someone has an issue with their existing reservation. Regardless of these little issues, we had a great time. This primitive section of the campground is really nice overall, and far away from the noisy RVs. The hosts were super nice, as were the other people camping. The distance from Columbus makes it a quick and easy weekend trip.

A new site for us at this campground, site 59 which is an inside site. We also had friends who booked 2 inside sites very nearby so we were able to all set up in the middle and share a large space for 10 people and 7 dogs. We were able to be socially distant, have space for cornhole and lots of room for the dogs. Our site pad was pretty level. My husband went over the pad just a little onto the grass, as the other side sloped. So when we stepped out of the camp, we wouldn't be stepping down on a slope. This is one of the quietest campgrounds we go to even though there is plenty for kids to do (playground). Had the weather been better, we would have brought our kayaks for the lake. You have three different types of restrooms. The ones closest to use are the drop toilets, a little further is a porta potty and the furthest was the flush toilets (no showers). It's our little slice of heaven so we like to try a new site each time if we are able. We take our dogs with us so we have to be a little more picky so we don't bother anyone.

After staying one night in non-electric we were able to transfer to an electric site thanks to our great camp hosts. They let us know that one had opened and recommended us to call in the next morning. We were able to get an electric site that was on the inside, a site we would have never chosen otherwise as we have dogs and try to find a space with no one behind us. The site was actually really nice. There was grass and some partial shade. We had room for our ez-up tent, our pop-up bathroom and still room to set up our chairs and walk the dogs without bothering our neighbors. Our friends had the site next to us and they were able to use the trees to hang their hammocks. There was a nice fire ring and the pad was easy to level our a-frame camper. We had another set of neighbors who were in a class A motorhome (it was huge!). Everyone we talked to were very friendly. We were closer to the vault toilets (they were kept clean) and the playground. It was Fourth of July weekend and the campground was really quiet. If you have kayaks, you can drive them down the hill next to the campground to get into the lake. If you like to hike or mountain bike there are trails to use as well.

This was a last minute decision to camp which led us to getting a non-electric site. The pad was level and the site was mostly shaded. There was hardly any grass and a ton of dead leaves. My husband brought the leaf blower so we were able to clean up the site a little more. If it had rain, it could have gotten a little muddy. There was plenty of room for our ez-up tent for our kitchen set up and plenty of room for 1-2 tents. We have an a-frame popup camper so we had more space to walk around. The fire ring was nice and it had a grate you could use to cook on it (not all of them do). We were along the main road, but it's not a very busy park so we weren't worried about noisy traffic. Across the road were the flush toilets which does have a light that comes on at night. The restrooms were kept clean (no showeres). Next to the bathrooms is the dump station and it can get stinky if they happen to come by to do maintenance (which they did). If you have kids, this site is really far from the playground but there is a basketball court and volleyball net near by and an open field for play. There are also three porta-potties in the non-electric if you don't mind them. It's not a bad site especially since it offers shade. There is a very helpful camp host at the entrance of non-electric as well. (3 stars for a non-grassy site and the close to the dump station)

We visited the campground before we picked a site. We chose site #56 which had electric. It's one of the best sites we found there for it's size, shade and privacy. We set up our camper and our ez-up tent which enclosed our fire ring. There was also a path directly from our site that led to one of the hiking trails. Yay for us and our easy access; however, it also welcomed people to cut through your site. So we put up some flagging tape along the edge of the trail to discourage people and mountain bikers from cutting through our site and using the actual trailhead. We have dogs and the was big enough to walk them around and let them stretch their legs. The campground is pretty small with both electric and non-electric sites. There are two drop toilets next to the playground which were kept clean. In the non-electric area they had porta-potties, but just a short walk away there are two flush toilets. The campground is next to a lake which has a 5 mile loop for both hiking and mountain biking. The lake has a small beach area where you can take your dogs. We liked it so much we booked it again for the following weekend in non-electric.

We had a wonderful time at site 51. We went in 2017 for Father’s Day and they had family activities for it. They had a scavenger hunt which made us really experience the nature around us, going through the woods off trail, going to the lakeside, walking around looking for different things on a list. It helped there was a prize so it really put competition between us and two other families. Two of us tied so we were lucky enough to get the free boat ride and the other team that was part of the boy scouts got a free one night camping stay. The campground is smaller,peaceful and quite but yet no one got mad if kids played. We were right beside the playground so I was worried about rude and rowdy kids but nope. The kids were good and left the playground at a respectable time. Since we were the only family by the playground my kids quietly played there for a while all by themselves after dark while we were in eyesight relaxing at our camp site. There is also a roadway you can drive by the lake in the campground to fish. My husband and daughter liked it bc they could fish it at night time. You will need bug spray and lanterns bc it is darrrk! The only bad thing is there is no beach so on the hot days the kids get bored although we went to the fishing spot in the campground and let the kids play in the water. When we were there, there were no showers but the toilet was by our site so that was a plus (non flushing). There was also a water spicket close by the playground. So everything was close for us. The kids could play and explore safely within eye sight. We really enjoyed our stay and would go back in the cooler months due to there being no beach but there is plenty of trees for shade.