Best Dog-Friendly Camping near Allegheny National Forest

This campground is within Allegheny National Forest near the town of Warren and Tidouette. The sites are few but spacious. Good for car camping, though I’m sure a smaller RVcould get by. Each site has a fire ring. Two sites have Adirondack type shelters. The night sky is promising but light pollution from Warren inhibits a truly awesome night sky. There is a vault toilet. No showers. No water either. Bring what you need! The closest town is about 30 minutes away. Lots of critter life. My dogs loved it here. We spent all days exploring the nearby trails and creeks. Price was cheap. No frills but a quiet respite for sure.

So I’ll be honest: Sometimes I camp just so I can get close to flyfishing. This particular review has less to do with the specifics of the site (although this campground is great!), and more to do with the flyfishing in the area (also great!).

Pennsylvania is home to some of the best wilderness trout streams that you’re ever going to find. The area is just plain beautiful! If you like hiking, fishing, and getting it to enjoy some of the pristine wilderness of the Allegheny National Forest, this campground is your gateway to its natural beauty.

The campground near Tionesta (pronounced: “ty-NES-ta” for those out-of-town) is standard, but pretty nice. Everything you would expect for camping near ANF. The sites are well-maintained, and most of the locals seem pretty respectful.

The little town of President (and Porcupine Creek) is just up the road. This is one of the most pristine wilderness brook trout fisheries in the area. You can even find a wild, native Rainbow if you‘re lucky enough ;-)

Quick tip: spend more than a day here. If you like scenic drives, you’ll in for a nice surprise.

Loleta Recreation campground is a good central location for activities in Allegheny National Forest. This campground has everything you look for in a campground, showers, firewood and ice available for purchase and fire pits located at each site. It looked like most of their campsites had electrical hook-ups, if needed, but we are just tent campers and had one of the few sites without electricity. Vault toilets are located throughout the campground and each site has a campfire ring with a cooking grate attached.

There are two main locations in the campground, the upper campground and the lower campground. The lower campground seemed to be taken up by a majority of trailer camping where as the upper campground was a mix of tents and trailers. There are also a couple of group campsites that looked to hold about 25-50 people. The upper campground entrance has a spot to park just for the day and has a few trails to hike or a spot to swim in the river just above a small dam.

We encountered a few loud patrons at the campground, but it did seem that everyone respected the quiet hours and knew when they were 10pm-6am.

While we did some hiking throughout Allegheny we found a few spots that would have been a little more fitting for us to camp, Ministers Creek has some great first come first serve spots along the creek with a short or long hike in, or even a few reserved spots closer to the main road. Loleta did the job for us especially since we were booked last minute for Memorial Day weekend and we had no real complaints. It did the job for us, but don't expect anything great.

My 3 year old cat and I had a wonderful time staying here. It was incredibly quiet, no cell service (we use total wireless which uses Verizon towers), and I couldn’t hear any of the neighboring campsites (I stayed at #7) even though they were all full. Highly recommend this spot.

It rained almost every day but only for a half hour or so and went back to being sunny. Bring bug spray and tick collars for your pets.

I would recommend bringing firewood with you, as there wasn’t much to collect that was already dead and dry enough for burning. Several of the local gas stations sell some if you want to bring some on the way.