Best RV Parks & Resorts near Tarentum, PA

Was a little concerned as I was driving off the highway to get there. However once there, it’s a very nice place. I luckily got a spot on looking over a very dense tree-d valley with a beautiful sunset. Sites 41-48 are the best view at sunset.

I had a full hookup site. Spacing between spots was not cramped at all. The central bathroom, pay shower, and laundry room had ac, a couch and we’re quite clean. The host also sold firewood and ice. There was also a decent size park.

There’s were a good number of long term residents but the campground was kept clean and quiet.

Overall highly recommend.

Excellent clean park and easy to get to from Pittsburgh. The campsite and bathrooms were clean when we arrived and when we left. The site numbering is a bit wonky on the door loop so make sure you look at your map before you start driving the loops.

The electrical hookups are not played out well like an expensive RV park with the shared power post on the entrance side of the camper. You may want to have an extension for your power cable.

The park ranger drove through multiple times a day. Overall the dog loop was quite and at night we could hear the coyotes in the distance.

The lake provides a great place to fish and the walking trail has some less used fishing spots if you are willing to walk. We enjoyed the easy walking lake trail with the kids because it was wide and flat.

Kayak rental of $15 for an hour was the cheapest we have seen and allowed us to explore more of the lake.

We recently stayed at this campsite with our 3 very young kids and dog. What amazing views from this location! It actually does really sit at the mountain top and gives you pretty good views of the valleys and surrounding areas from any of the rim campsites. Fall was in full effect and it was AMAZINGLY beautiful!! I will also say, the host Gary and his family, who live in a cabin house right on property, are PHENOMENAL hosts! They will pretty much help you with ANYTHING you need at any time! They called me and texted me in advance to remind me us of our reservation and also to find out if we were coming in late! We arrived at 9 PM, and sure enough he was there ready with his little ranger golf cart to escort us to our site!

The ONLY downsides at this site (which are really not downsides for anyone else without kids) are:

1. There is no playground or activities for children. I understand they have blue grass bands that come and play in the warmer weather and a large campsite fire, but since we were there at the beginning of Fall weather, there weren't any scheduled bands or fires. They do however have a very very large open field right smack dab in the middle of the campground for any kind of activities you can come up with if you brought those activities with you (i.e. soccer, kite flying, baseball, etc..)

2. There are no full-hookup sites…..yet! They are currently working on having full-hookup sites throughout the campsite. In the meantime, and ONLY if you stay for a week, they give you the option of having a mobile pump-out come to your rig to pump you out for and additional $30 only on Wednesdays. We stayed for a week and left on a Wednesday, so we chose to drive to the dump station on our way out (100 yards away from our site) and save the $30. **Side note: the dump station has a fixed dump hose that all you have to do is pull up and connect to it. They also have a water hose with a sprayer if needed to wash anything down, or even to disconnect the sprayer and hook the hose up to your black tank flush if you have one.

They do provide all other hookups for free that are found at each campsite (i.e fresh water hose for city water, 30 amp cable already connected to the pedestal, and **grey water hookup so you don't have to unpack and use your own!) **Since they sit atop the mountain, the grey water hookup is a long hose that has an adapter which hooks up to your black and grey tank outlet and it runs down the hillside of the mountain into the grassy area. This means that unless you are a very active user of the commode (or have 3 kids like us), your black tank should not need to be flushed for 1-2 weeks at a time! Otherwise, you can use your shower and faucets as if you were connected to a full hook-up site! Pretty neat!**

All in all, the sites are pretty spread out and spacious, so you have pretty decent privacy ( if you keep your shades down!). We will be definitely be going back any time we are looking to go to Pittsburgh area for some fun. This place was great!

Many many unlevel spots in nonelectric sites. Only one playground in full hookup RV area, hard to get to. Beach access hike is at least 1.7 miles walk from loop C. You have to drive to many of the hikes and beach especially if you have children. Positives are it's very quiet. You don't see many people on hikes. Mineral springs are cool. We rented a boat for fam of 4 with motor, was $20 an hour, best part of trip.

This place was awesome! We were there for one of the first weekends of the season, and we enjoyed every bit of our trip. Not only were the staff super friendly and helpful, but we were lucky enough to get a full-hookup site right on the lake. Quiet, peaceful, everything you want on a spring trip. We really got to witness the owners' kindness when we left for a hiking trip and a sudden windstorm caught our awning and broke one side of it, sending most of the awning itself up on the roof. The owner and his son got right to work fixing it: One got up on the roof and the other worked from the bottom to set it right and wire the broken arm to the side of the trailer so we could drive home. They also folded up our chairs and put everything we had outside in a neat little pile. I've been camping for nearly 40 years and have never witnessed that kind of pro-activeness. It's exactly what you SHOULD(but don't often) get. We will absolutely be back.

Stayed in one of 4 full hookup sites. My complains...WAY too close to the neighbors and VERY little shade. It’s a small campground though. Would probably stay at again. There is road noise, which really didn’t bother me. I liked the good cell coverage since my oldest kid was at home.

Quiet in the camp but lots of highway noise at night if the breeze is just right. Nice pull-thrus with full hookups for overnights. Bring a quarter for a 10 minute shower! There's one 1950's bathhouse with a few stalls for hundreds of RV sites but they figure you're self-contained I suppose. A Kildeer must've had a nest nearby & protested about something many times during the night. Beautiful countryside. Much visible respect for those who have served in the US Armed Forces. Only one guest encountered with Trump hat and one Let's Go B... disrespectful sign. We are of keep-it-simple mindset in a new Ford Transit and were the smallest rig there by far.

Went to Raccoon Creek State Park to camp for Labor Day weekend. We booked campsite F1 since we had 2 dogs and the F loop allowed dogs. This site was great! We could fit two tents and it was nice and secluded from the other sites. I recommend booking a site that is on the outside of the “loops” if you want some seclusion. The inner loop sites are right on top of each other, good for Rvs, not so much for tent camping. The bathrooms were a little bit of a hike, the next loop over, but they where clean and had flush toilets and running water along with a shower and sinks to wash dishes. There was a place to get water across from this site which was very convenient . The dog walking trails weren’t bad, but they where very up and down hill, at points steep and rocky. The spring was a really cool hike (right off the park office parking lot.) Down by the beach they had a place to buy wood, only $5 a bundle and the beach place also sells bags of ice. Overall a really good family campground!

General: 50-site (all but six with electric hookups) campground plus two yurts and three cabins. Two sites are handicap accessible. 

Site Quality: The sites have gravel pads (except the handicap-accessible ones which were paved). The sites were completely covered with leaves when we were there which made it challenging to determine where the actual (narrow) pad was. Sites appeared to be level. A fire ring and wooden picnic table complete the site. 

Bathhouse: A little dated but clean. Two of the stall doors did not latch properly. Didn't use the shower so cannot comment but there was a sign indicating it took a while for the water to warm up.

Activities/Amenities: There is a small camper store, laundry, and a playground. In season, there is lake swimming and a boat dock. There is a fishing area, mini-golf and disc golf, and several short hiking trails. Unfortunately, since we arrived late afternoon and had to depart early the following day (and were camping off-season), we could not take advantage of any of these things. What we lose in activities, we gain in a quieter camping experience with fewer crowds, which is generally preferable for us!

General: Large campground in four loops with a variety of sites ranging from tent-only, 30-amp electric, 50-amp electric, and 30/50-amp electric, along with eight camper cabins. 

Site Quality: All sites are gravel; most appeared level, but some did not. All sites are wooded but some have more separation than others. Our site backed up to the creek but surprisingly, there was not a lot of water flowing in the spring, 

Bath/Shower house: Basic and dated, but reasonably clean. Did not use the shower.

Activities/Amenities: Many include fishing, swimming, boating, bicycling, hiking, geocaching, and hunting. The lake is separate from the campground, but it is less than a mile away and a reasonable distance walk. There is also a playground, volleyball, shuffleboard, and a large picnic area at the end of one of the loops. Bike and boat rentals are available in the summer season; the season was set to open the day after we left so aside from hiking, we could not avail ourselves of any of the activities (and my husband had a foot injury so even hiking was out for us). There are also laundry facilities, but I did not check these out. 

We were surprised that just a few days before Memorial Day, only a handful of sites were occupied. We’ve been very impressed by the pristine conditions of many Pennsylvania state parks, but this one had a more rustic feel and had not been modernized. Fleeting cell at best on Verizon.

This campground is not free. It was $28 for a non-electric site and I believe I was told it was almost $40 for a site with an electric hookup. There's a picnic table and fire ring at each site, and mine had a hammock post, but I'm not sure if they all do. There are trails and fishing so plenty to do. Fairly sparse in April but a lot of people still driving and walking by. Alcohol prohibited

Kooser is a nice little park set amid large tracts of public lands. There's a pretty lake where people fish and picnic, though the swimming beach is probably not going to reopen. The cabins are beautiful and nearly always booked--despite the fact that they sit awfully close to a noisy state highway. There's only one hiking trail within the park's 250 acres. But it's a decent trail with sharp elevation gain. The campground is popular, so you have to book early for Memorial Day of Labor Day. But as a tent-camper, I didn't find Kooser to be ideal. The whole campground has been recently restructured to allow for more big rig camping. Most sites sit in the full sun, and they have electrical hookups for air conditioning and the bane of the forest: radios! There are really only three little tenting sites in a wooded area of the campground, a little higher up the hillside. But the place is well-maintained. The showers are nice. There's a great playground for kids. So if you've got a trailer and a pack of kids, this is your place. If not, consider a night of backcountry camping in the nearby Forbes State Forest.

All and All great place to camp, good things; 1) lots of deer, turkeys, racoons, owls etc. 2) close to a farmer's market Jankowski's great place to get fresh food, 3) once you have level camp, all good, 4) has showers and bathrooms located conveniently and 5) dumpster near exit instaef of near camping area, hug plus for smells etc.

The bad; 1) some sites not level enough for rv or trailer, does not say on website, one site we had to raise 5ft high, we moved and they provided refund, which was good 2) bathrooms have too strong of flood lights, if campsite site is near bathroom feels like middle of day even when dark and 3) bathrooms are not very clean, need improvements there.