Turkey Creek Campground is located near Shawnee State Park in Ohio, featuring forested terrain with rolling hills. Temperatures range from lows in the 20s during winter to highs in the 80s in summer. Nearby attractions include the Shawnee State Forest and the Ohio River, offering opportunities for hiking and fishing.

The heavily wooded Turkey Creek Campground offers electric and non-electric sites, suitable for tents or trailers. 

    86 Electric sites
    21 Non-electric sites; some sites are suitable for tents only due to terrain; check site details when making reservations.
    Pets are permitted on all sites.
    Check site details carefully when you make your reservation as dimensions and site conditions vary.

Two camper cabins are available in Turkey Creek Campground, with limited furnishings. One is ADA accessible.

    Each sleeps six
    Mini-fridge, microwave, kitchen table.
    Bring your own linen and bedding.
    Pets are not permitted in the Camper Cabins. 

Group Camp

One group camp in the Turkey Creek Campground can accommodate a group of up to 35 people. 

    Fully shaded
    Primitive camping (no electric)
    Pets allowed
    Five picnic tables
    Within 100 yards of the campground shower house

Turkey Creek Campground — Shawnee State Park

The Dyrt is here to help plan your best camping near Friendship. Aside from great camping spots, you'll find hiking and many more outdoor experiences. Thinking of traveling with kids? You're in luck—Friendship is surrounded by family-friendly activities. Find the best campgrounds near Friendship, OH. Read reviews from campers like you and find your perfect campsite.

Friendship

The Best Camping Near Friendship, Ohio

We were told that the site we’d been assigned was room enough for 52’.  Our RV is only 34’ so that would be more than enough. we got there and it was maybe 20-24” in length, with no wiggle room because one end was the park road/driveway, the other end a hill. Luckily, they did have a half dozen or so other options for us to move to.  Most sites are only 30 amp electric, no sewer or water hookup, which can be typical of state parks.  There is absolutely no cell service in the Campground. the lodge at the top of the hill has a weak signal, but is better than nothing if you really need to check in with outside world.  

Remote & primitive, but nice

Very friendly staff.  We checked in early evening for an over night on our x country trip after visiting Serpent Mound NatIonal monument.  Good Tent site with electric.  Good bathhouse and quiet on  Tuesday.


Pumba was next door.

Nestled close to the Ohio River and the Shawnee State Forest, you will find rolling hills and valleys that offer serene beauty and picturesque landscapes.  Wildflowers run rampant throughout this enchanted state park, and deer, raccoons, and turkey frolic throughout the more than 1,160 acre paradise. Challenge your family members for a round of mini golf or basketball, or set out on a geocaching adventure.  Cruise along one of the numerous hiking trails and or set off on a relaxing ride on the two bridle trails.  Rest your head at one of the campsites offering a dump station and showers, or stay in a cabin.  If neither of those are your thing there is a beautiful lodge that provides swimming pools, a game room, and breathtaking views of either the river or forest. 

Outstanding jaw-dropping slice of beauty 

Nice campground in a beautiful area.  Restrooms and shower houses were very clean.  Beaches could use some improvement, the smaller beach had goose poop all over.  The larger beach at turkey creek was a little better with sand but not one of the nicer beaches I’ve visited.   Very quiet campground was very peaceful and relaxing!!!

Beautiful Appalachian scenery

Nice Campground, electric but no water at the sites.  Lots of good tent or small camper spots, but be selective if you have a camper bigger than 25ft.  I recommend site 82, 83, 85, or 78.  Great trails, nice lake, plenty of shade and creeks.  Not much access to a good town for supplies so bring what you need.  If you want to take a drive for a great hole in the way steak house try The Ribber.  But go early 45 min wait at 4pm and it gets worse.

Quiet and good hicking.

In the short videos I posted you will notice that I did not add a transcript.  Please turn on your Google Accessibility for Live Captions to access the spoken information within the video clips. 

  

Shawnee State Park (Little Smokies of Ohio)

Has a great ranger/naturalist (Jenny) she made the days go by in a memorable way as we were able to do a creek crawl with her one day, kayaked for free with her on the lake, and had several other activities that we enjoyed.  ODNR has a gem in Jenny as she was able to tailor the events to a wide range of abilities, interests, and ages. 

  

Cell Phone service is weak at the park.  We didn't always have a signal at the camp grounds but if you go over to the lodge you will have a signal.  You can also access Wi-Fi while at the lodge if needed.  The lodge has a restaurant that you can eat at if you wish.  They also have an indoor pool, an outdoor pool, and an indoor hot tub. If you camp at the state park campsites you can pay for a day pass.  This is a great thing to do when you need a change of pace or if it is rainy and you want to swim indoors. They even have a game room (old school arcade). 

  

Near the Shawnee State Park is a dairy bar that my family has gone to for many years. It is a part of the tradition to get Turtle Sundaes. https://www.facebook.com/Buckeye-Dairy-Bar-Miniature-Golf-166451746787194/

  

In the Shawnee lodge if you look closely at the main mural you will notice Raven Rock. We totally overlooked this while we were growing up.  Thanks to the internet we now know this is a nature preserve. https://ohiodnr.gov/wps/portal/gov/odnr/go-and-do/plan-a-visit/find-a-property/raven-rock-state-nature-preserve

  

Our first campsite was number 12.  We arrived at 5:55 PM and the camp office closes at 6:00 PM. The gal waited for us to check out the site and we promptly came back as she did indicate it was a rough site.  This site and 13, 14 is what I would expect for a backpacking campsite.  Not for a traditional car camping non-electric campsite.  If we had any older or younger family members with us it would have been inaccessible.  We didn't like the walk up to the site and the big draw back was the table in the poison ivy. We promptly for the 1st time in my camping career paid a fee to switch to a new site. Luckily the park was not super busy as it was a weekday.  

  

Bathroom access such as the stairs, bathroom stalls ADA, and other access points will need to continue to be improved for those with mobility issues. This would have greatly impacted my friends and family had they been with me on this trip.  

  

The showers in the bathhouse are motion sensor based. That means if you get too far from the sensor the shower will turn off.  Also, make sure you take your shampoo items etc. out with you before you get dressed as if you reach back in to grab your items you will promptly get sprayed. 

  

Another favorite spot is the fire tower https://ohiodnr.gov/wps/portal/gov/odnr/go-and-do/plan-a-visit/find-a-property/copperhead-fire-tower  Please make sure to respect the fire tower as it is one of the few fire towers that you can still go up in and look at the beautiful view.  You will not have a signal here so make sure you also ask about how to get back as we didn't have a GPS signal for the way back and just explored our way back to civilization. 

  

The park was not super busy while we were there in June.  It is a well kept secret as I found this to be one of the most charming parks that I have been to in a long time.  I suspect the cell phone signal and location has impacted folks coming to this park compared to others. It isn't super close to a major city but for me that is part of the charm. 

  

For those of you who like to mountain bike do check out the new mountain bike trails. I cannot report on those as I am not talented enough to go out on those trails;)

Little Smokies in Ohio 

We arrived on Friday afternoon a little before check in time and were allowed to check in and go to our site. We stayed on campsite 61 which is just long enough for a 23ft camper and our truck to park next to the camper. The drop down from the pad was a little steep with no stairs. The campground is very well kept and free of litter. The view from our campfire was an amazing 100ft drop off to the creek below. The campground was very well set up for many different types of recreational vehicles and RVs. The trails start right at the campground  by site 86. The camp hosts were very nice and helpful. The only problem we had was that the campground was sold out of firewood and we drove down to Friendship to buy it at the gas station. The dumpsters are not in the campground but just outside in a parking lot by the beach.

Beautiful Setting

Stayed one night because I was running the 39 mile backpacking loop in the morning with my buddies. I've run here numerous times, this was my first stay. This campsite was up a little hill from parking - there was nowhere to camp right at my car. It was tucked away and perfect. Shawnee is amazing for trail running - very rugged, remote, challenging. I will camp again next time I run it!

Wooded, beautiful area

This isn’t a very big campground. And some of the pad lengths are really really short. You should know that on the campground map they have written the pad lenoon them which is great. There are two shower houses which are really nice with flush toilets and showers. The only thing about the showers is there is no bench inside the stall and not really anywhere to hang your items so you will get wet. Shawnee State Park is very hilly. There is a campground store, very small and closed during the off-season. The comfort stations are also closed in the off-season, but they are spread out throughout the campground. Some sites are really best fit for tents only or you can hammock and at the actual tent sites they have nice tent pads for them. There is a playground, putt putt course, small lake that you can kayak or paddleboard in. They’ve got a great little nature center with lots of trails  and again it’s hilly so pick your trails wisely, but very very pretty. We were the only people on our side of the campground. 

Hilly and Pretty

**General:** It was a little confusing as the campground was called the Turkey Creek Campground, but it is located on Roosevelt Lake, not Turkey Creek Lake, which is a few miles further down the road. There is non-existent cell service (Verizon) so we were happy there was an attendant at the booth when we arrived just before 6 pm on a Sunday evening. There are 107 campsites with a mix of electric and no-hookups. Most are reservable but about 14 are set aside for walk-ins. There are also a couple of cabins. A few miles further down the road (by Turkey Lake) is a very large lodge and more modern family vacation cabins. 

  

**Site Quality:** We had reserved Site 63 based on a review I read probably on The Dyrt but I would not recommend this site as it was decidedly not level and had a very short pad. Many of the other sites had even shorter pads; these would really best be suitable for tent campers as the pad would only fit a regular-size vehicle. Sites 1-6, 15, 18-21, and 23-25, 28, 32, and 33 have longer pads. The length is marked on the map given when you check in, but I don’t recall knowing this information when I reserved a site. 

  

**Bathhouse:** There are more than sufficient bathhouses, some with showers and some without, located throughout the campground. Site 63 was located about equidistant between two bathrooms – one was very basic with cold water only and the other was more modern with showers. 

  

**Activities:** Many activities including swimming and boating (in season with boat rentals available). There are hiking and mountain biking trails, miniature golf, basketball, and volleyball. There are three playgrounds – one a little dated and two more modern ones.

  

This was only an overnight stay in mid-October so we cannot comment on the activity offerings, but I think this would be a very nice campground for families with kids as there are a lot of activity options.

Nice park but be careful when choosing your site!

Tent camping sites were set back, in the woods, down a private path (about 75’) and totally secluded. 

The park had a clean, nice outdoor movie theater, mini golf, and a lake with rentables. 

Amazing tent sites, for Ohio

This campground has some features that are nicer than what is found in many state campgrounds. There are some secluded sites back in the woods, so you don't feel like you are camping in a parking lot in a few places. NOTE that most of these secluded sites (along the back edge of the campground) are up a flight of stairs. You have to carry all your gear up a hill or stairs to set up. You will not be near your car, which can get annoying.

  

The bathrooms were average, not great but not gross. We were there on their Halloween weekend, with a fun site-decorating contest and trick or treat in the afternoon, which was mildly annoying for us because they closed the roads from 2 to 6 so we could not drive back to our site, and when we finally could, someone was in our parking pot for the next hour. 

  

The lakes are quite tiny. The one at the campground is more like a large pond- fine for paddling around on a paddleboard for practice, but don't think you'll get in any meaningful kayaking or sight-seeing on this pond. The other lake is slightly bigger, but still not big enough for kayaking more than a couple hours at most.

  

The new campground is on the river on what used to be the golf course- I will write a separate review for that.

  

The lodge has some amenities (pool, hot tub, cafe, bar), but we ate in the restaurant and it was terrible. I do not recommend. Get some apps at the bar if you have to but keep your expectations low. We had pork nachos and the pork tasted old, everything was cold and it gave me a terrible stomachache.

Some secluded sites in woods- nice!

Unlike many Ohio State parks I've visited, the Shawnee campground has a variety of great tent sites.   Several of these are hidden in the trees at the top of some steps and up a short path.  We stayed in 12.  If you don't mind hauling your gear a short distance from your car, sites like this are perfect as they're  for tent campers only.  The campground had fun amenities for kids, like a very small mini golf course and an outdoor screen for movie nights.  The shower houses were clean and the small camp store convenient.  All the Shawnee State Park staff I met were super friendly and helpful.

Photos of Turkey Creek Campground — Shawnee State Park

Real photos from real campers