Best Glamping near Ridgway, PA

We have tented and RV'd at Clear Creek. A must do when camping in Pennsylvania. The Clarian river is great for kayaking . Multiple trails off of park. Biking and breweries close by. if you have RV/travel trailer do NOT recommend the non-power sites, they are not level enough, you may really have to bring up the trailer. There were wonderful campsites hosts when we there

Pros; excellent location, great friendly people, clean and stocked bathrooms which include showers. Some sites are separated.. great camp hosts

Cons…a few sites are really close, however not a bad thing here as we got to meet a lot of great people, so for us it was kind of a Pro.

Stayed in camper, tent, yurt, and cabins. Always a clean and up kept park. Lots to do in the area. Don't get caught boozing. There pretty strict.

The park is on the scenic Clarion River and offers tent camping, some sites are paddle in only, RV sites, small and larger rustic cabins, and even a couple of yurts. It’s very well maintained, including the restroom/shower houses which were very clean. The upper loop tent sites are a bit more secluded and there is plenty of space for the larger cabins. The smaller cabins are more clustered but we enjoyed staying in them on a couple occasions. Be sure to bring kayaks or inner tubes for lazy hours on the river. There are kayak rentals nearby also. The Clarion River is full of wildlife including bald eagles hunting the river and an occasional black bear nearby.

Be sure to visit Beartown Rocks that is close by. It offers a nice view of the rolling hills of Pennsylvania.

This has become a very popular campground and reservations fill quickly. We usually try for an entire family outing here once a year in October. Very nice, clean campground on the river. We have stayed in sites and a cabin, but never one of the yurts. Family friendly and not overly crowded.

My family has stayed here so many times throughout my lifetime. We always prefer tent camping, but there are spots for RVs, plus there are cabins and yurts available. It has always been clean, quiet and family-friendly.

There's so much to do here--hiking, swimming, rafting, biking, disc golf, etc. There's also a really nice playground and a great little beach at the entrance of the campground (water is always cold though!) Plus plenty of picnic shelters.

This is also a great place to go year-round for kids interested in learning about nature. There is a nature museum. Seek out Ranger Susanne--she is a really great teacher!

This is my favorite campground so far in PA.

For the most part, there isn’t a bad site (although we didn’t see any of the walk up sites, and I recommend not booking a site immediately next to the bathrooms since the ones without showers are more like “outhouse” toilets and can stink). The sites are private, flat, surrounded by trees, and have plenty of space. The ground is quite rocky though, so bring plenty of heavy duty tent steaks.

Highlights include: the reservoir (beautiful and clean! You can swim with your dog from the access points at the campground), quiet, friendly staff (a kind older gentleman helped us jump my car and refused to take any money as a thank you), updated/very clean showers, not buggy, reception is great (we have Verizon), plenty of room to social distance, and 2 trading posts about 1 mile away with milk, eggs, basic supplies, etc.

Cons: the bathrooms without showers aren’t flush toilets, and there is no campground office so you must see the hosts for any issues.

Things to do nearby (last 5 pictures): the Kinzua Skywalk Bridge free- an old train bridge that was partially destroyed by a tornado in the early 2000’s. The bridge is handicap/stroller accessible, pets are allowed. There is a small indoor museum & gift shop, and a hiking trail along the wreckage. If you hike, wear good sneakers, the path is rocky and VERY steep. The hiking path is not recommended for small children). Bathrooms on site.

The Kinzua Dam free - beautiful. Handicap/stroller accessible, pets permitted. Bathrooms were closed due to social distancing.

Rimmrock overlook free- just a small distance from the parking lot. NOT stroller/handicap accessible, and there are rock steps, however we saw numerous families with small children go through the path with no issues. Pets permitted. Bathrooms on site.

Nearby towns of Kane and Ridgway looked cute, but we didn’t spend time there due to our efforts to social distance.

A Pennsylvania favorite, Clear Creek State Park is a beautifully maintained, scenic park, right on the Clarion River in the Clear Creek State Park. The Park offers movies on an outdoor screen, regular nature talks and walks and has an onsite museum. The park has tent sites, RV sites and cabins. Clear Creek runs through the campground and is a perfect spot for a BBQ or Picnic. It also has a designated swimming beach with sand. There are multiple hiking trails leaving the campground. There is a general store just 5min from the park, plus multiple private firewood options on the road in. The park also sells firewood bundles. The Clarion is a crystal clear, shallow, rock bottom river perfect for a cool off, fishing or kayaking. There are two kayaking/tubing companies in Cook Forest to hire watercraft to float the river. Both floats don’t go as high as Clear Creek State Park so you won’t float past the campground, with the longest being 9 miles. The facilities are always clean, with large shower areas and always fully stocked with tissue. All sites have fire rings with adjustable grills. The best un-powered RV site is site 40– private and waterfront. The best powered-RV site is 39– private and waterfront. There are also two very private tent sites that are waterfront(classified as Kayak In tent sites) numbered CR-001& CR-002. Both waterfront, shaded with fire rings. Excellent tent sites! Note you can only book them for 1 night at a time. No phone reception at this one! They welcome furry friends at selected sites!

General: 73-site campground; most have electric hookups, and some are FHU. Pets are only permitted at selected sites. There are also 20 (13 rustic and 6 modern) cabins. Cell service is extremely limited to non-existent (Verizon). 

Site Quality: Pads are gravel and most appeared to be level. Site 70 was at the end of the loop which is why we picked it. A picnic table, fire ring, and lantern hook complete each site. 

Bathhouse: As has been our experience in all PA state parks, the bathhouse was pristine, and the shower (for no additional cost) was clean with plentiful hot water and was very much appreciated. 

Activities/Amenities: Coin-operated laundry. A playground is in the campground and there is an additional one at the swimming beach. The swimming beach is open from mid-May to mid-September, from 8 am– sunset. Electric motorboats are permitted on Moshannon Lake. Boat rentals are available in season. Permits are required. 24 miles of hiking trails, including two trails directly from the campground to the lake. In the summer, there is a camper store/concession stand. Hunting is allowed in season. There are 4.3 miles of mountain biking trails. 

I used to think Oregon State Parks were the best, but Pennsylvania State Parks have them beat by a mile. We have yet to be disappointed by the amenities(especially the clean bathrooms) offered at the half-dozen state parks we have visited so far.

Campground Review

I can honestly say that Oil Creek Family Campground is the best private campground that we have ever camped at. Especially if you’re camping with kids, it offers everything that you would want for a ‘great American summer’ style camping experience, without being a cookie-cutter big-name private campground chain. They have a large pool; a few llamas that the kids can feed and pet; a 27-hole disc golf course (recently expanded from 18 hole) primarily in the woods near and around the campground property; a small pond for sunfish / bass fishing; a dog ‘playground’ (enclosed area with some obstacles); a well-maintained hedge maze; a pavilion with ping pong, a pool table, and foosball; a DVD rental program at the main office with about 300 movies; and a small camp store with a small selection of books that you can borrow. They also provide weekly entertainment for the kids, e.g. rock painting or special guests. This weekend, for instance was ‘Jungle Terry and his amazing exotic animal family.’ We don’t typically spend a ton of time actually AT the campgrounds when we’re camping, but we did this weekend - and we had a blast on the disc golf course, fishing in the pond, and playing ping pong. The kids had an awesome time in the pool for hours and running around with the other kids in the maze. And everyone agreed that it was a perfect way to wrap up the summer before the school year starts.

We have a pop-up and my parents (whom we were camping with for the weekend) use a tent, so we had two water+electric sites in the tent camping area away from the RVs: sites A7 and A8. The sites in this area are well-maintained and LARGE, with plenty of room for a pop-up or multiple tents plus one or two vehicles, plus lots of room around the fire ring. There are smaller bathrooms placed around the campground as well as a center bathhouse located adjacent to the pavilion with 2 shower stalls and an additional toilet per gender.

We chose this campground due to its proximity to Oil Creek State Park. The state park itself does not have a campground, and OCFC is right next door - in fact, the campground hiking trail loop has a very short connecting piece to the 36-mile Gerard hiking trail that runs through the park. The park is beautiful with a lot of history (it is the site of the world’s first commercial oil well, and where the oil industry began in the United States around 1860) and Oil Creek - which is really a river - runs right down the middle of the park. It is a stocked creek and it’s great for both trout and bass fishing. Some parts of the creek also have a lot of northern water snakes (we saw 4 near the Blood Farm day use area) which was cool to see.

Overall: fantastic campground in a beautiful part of Pennsylvania - and we will absolutely be back.

Product Review

As a Ranger for The Dyrt, I get occasionally receive products to test or gift cards for new companies to check out.  Over the past weekend, we tried out one of the Mountain House favorites, freeze-dried Lasagna with Meat Sauce in the #10 can. Lasagna is not exactly a typical camping food, so the fact that we could easily make enough lasagna to feed a group of six people (4 adults and 2 kids) just by heating up some water was wonderful! We made the entire can (boil 8 cups of water, pour it into the can itself, stir a lot to mix up all of the freeze-dried ingredients, and let it sit for ten minutes - EASY) along with some crescent-roll wrapped hot dogs over the fire and it was like a gourmet camping meal. Everyone loved the lasagna - even the two picky kids!

There is a ton of things to do. Beautiful cabins

First off when calling to make sure we could put a tent on our rv site they told us they would have to charge us for a rustic site for the weekend$99 for 3 nights. So on-top of the$249 we had to pay$99 more for a tent on the same site. Ok so we paid it. i asked A few people& they said they did not have to pay extra! not cool! Woke up on the first morning here&there was a flow of water coming from the ground. It had a bad smell to it& it was heading toward our site area. We had the ground manager come over&he told us"it was not sewage but it did smell bad". He did come back and offer us 2 sites(rem we had to pay for a rustic camp site for our tent) up closer to the playgrounds. This area was literally 20 feet from the pavilion, the giant campfire, bathrooms, volleyball court&playground&our neighbors would literally be in the back of our picnic table. NO space!!! So we choose to stay in our current spot. They did offer$25 off a day. later that day the water was getting worse, it is gray in color! This is not just ground water! Its some kind of water runoff from sewage somewhere. we stopped a staff member& he came over and told us they knew about this They dug it up& just filled it back in. Seriously!? Oh its site 75 STAY AWAY! So we sent that staffer to get the manager about 530(mind you he was supposed to stop by at 300 also). Anyways the mgr never came over. We just went to wash dishes& there the mgr& staffer were playing corn hole& drinking!! We have heard from multiple campers here that this place changed ownership in 2021&they said it has gone down hill! They said just this year the prices have about doubled for permanent rental sites& alot of people are moving out at the end of this season! This should be a huge sign to people coming here the"regulars" are leaving Day 2 I went to the rest room at 3am& the toilet would not flush& i couldnt wash my hands, no notes in the bathroom about water issues. Woke up this morning& was i formed that the sewage was worse& came closer to my tent. I popped out of the tent& it is flowing closer but there is still a few feet before it hits us. Also found out that my friends husband went up to the bathhouse this morning to use the facilities still no water. He walked out& found the manager in a room turning back on the water. He said"i came in today& heard the water was off". He then went back into the restroom&there was water. then went back outside& looked at the door mgr was in was& it was a locked door. only way water was off is if you or your staff turned it off buddy! Our neighbors by us told us that they were given notice to conserve water. Conserving water&taking water away from us(turning it off and locking the door) are too totally different things! My friend called the office and spoke to his wife& she got irate w/ him. Shortly after The mgr came flying over yelling at us to leave(so disclaimer my friends husband did make the decision to stay because he did not want to move his pop up&the new sites were ridiculously small, but he also couldn't just bite his tongue) The mgr& my friends husband got into a very loud verbal match which ended up with us getting 3 hours to leave the campground with no refund at all now. My friend stepped in& tried to reason with the mgr& he said"you guys did nothing, you have been very understanding but he has not". So i get why we were kicked out. it sucks because of 1 bad egg all of our weekends were ruined! Over all yes my friends husband got us kicked out, the fact still remains these owners are shady& unfair! They knew the whole time there was a septic issue& still rented us the site. Not to mention their ridiculous rules which so many other campers broke with multiple cars on the sites& we were made to buy a whole site for the weekend just to pop up a tent on one site(i would have parked at the entrance thats fine!) also, why are there so many photos on FB of the manager and his dad winning 1st n 2nd place with$$ for games? That should be for paying campers. I have showed you inside the shadiness of these people.camp at your own risk! This IS NOT MY FIRST rodeo camping! Ive been to MANY private campgrounds and state parks in my 45 years of life! The rules n regs here are ridiculous. Side note when you call a campground a month before labor day and they still have open rv sites… HERES YOUR SIGN! Will totally remember that for the rest of my life! We made a very bad decision coming here. I hope i can save you your time money and health coming here too

First time staying at Clear Creek State Park and had a spot just below where the Creek empties into the River.  We were able to turn the RV so the door/awning faced the River.  We saw a two different Merganser mamas with young, a green heron fishing, and a bald eagle go up the River.  We were right across from the showerhouse but noise was minimal.  Our dog had the riverbank to explore on her camp leash of course.  Hiking above the campground was very nice and we did an easy loop of almost 6 miles.  Mountain Laurels were in bloom.  Very clean park.  Showerhouse was well-kept.  Bringing the kayaks next time.

This is a beautiful campground with site not far from the Clarion river. There is a stream that runs down through the park and bear rocks has some beautiful views of the forest.

especially on the pet loop - nicest sites, location-wise, for a tent are 49-53 or 43 in the woods, and 40 on the Clarion River. Canoe-in group sites are nice, too, and secluded. 1 bar Verizon service - no wifi - firewood for sale - water spigots throughout park

The campground sits back in from the main road almost 2 miles. Sites vary from wooded lots to open field sites. The tent loop doesn’t have but a few site that are semi- flat so don’t be one that requires level sleeping surfaces. 

Clear creek mountain stream waters are frigid year round and makes cooling off in the summer heat an excellent activity. Lots of trails to Hike and a few in the State Forest which surrounds the park that allow mountain bikes.