Best Equestrian Camping near Meadville, PA

We just got back from our first trip to Mosquito Lake State Park Campground. All in all, it was a great experience. 

We stayed in site 67, which is a waterfront site, with electric. The water is about 25 yards from the pad, but is visible from the entire site. The site was spacious, but not as private as some of the others. There is some woods between this site and the sites on either side, but other sites are visible. The fire pits and picnic tables were staggered, so it created some distance to make it feel more private. 

The campground as a whole, was very quiet. We stayed from Wednesday to Friday. The group next to us seemed a little rowdy when we first pulled in, but by 10:00 there was no noise anywhere near us. 

Most sites seemed pretty level from side to side, but where we were, several had a slope from front to back. Away from the waterfront, most sites looked pretty level. The amount of space between sites varied from site to site. Some sites had woods on both sides, while others were pretty open. Some had nice large grassy areas, others were much smaller. Sites from 214-224 are in a cul de sac and are water front, but they were pretty close together with very little privacy between sites, if any. They are very close to the water though. 

There are bathrooms and water scatter about, but from what I saw there was only 1 shower house. 

Wal-mart and other shopping and restaurants were about 3 miles away. Park was easy to get to, only one turn for us off the highway. Lake was great for kayaking and paddleboarding. Very nice dog park in a different part of the park. There is a boat launch accessible from inside the campground. 

Dump station has 2 lanes which was nice when checking out. Fresh water fill up was also located near the dump station.

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!

I have not yet camped here but passed it on my hike the other day and knew I hadn’t seen it in the Dyrt yet, so I wanted to add it for others. This is a hike in or paddle in only campground. The shortest distance is about 2 miles from the trailhead at the Kennerdell bridge, but there are other trailheads throughout the tract also. This is meant more to be a stop along a paddling or hiking trip than a destination camping trip - you must get a permit to stay more than one night. They are first come first serve. There are 8 sites spread out along the edge of the river, some being closer together than others. They are level and clear, each with a new picnic table and nice fire rings with adjustable grates. A few of the sites had stairs to the water for paddler access. The first 2 sites had wheelchair friendly picnic tables, so I'm not sure if you can arrange to be able to drive back for that situation or what other reason they would put them there. That's nice if the case, I'm just not sure as there is a gate locked at the trailhead that's only opened during hunting season. Plus there's no pavement or gravel down at the sites so I imagine it could be difficult to access. But something to investigate. There are vault toilets that were clean and well maintained, with hand sanitizer. There is a spring for water which says to boil before drinking. There is also a big display board with state forest info and maps. Another thing to note, while the travel in makes it feel very remote, there are cabins all along the opposite site of the river, including directly across from the campsites.  This could be a positive or negative depending on your thoughts, I personally would like it because it would make me feel a little safer. All in all, it’s a nice little campground, in better shape than some of the regular bigger campgrounds I’ve seen.

Allegheny National Forest is Pennsylvania's only National Forest and a gem of a location for outdoor recreation. Hearts Content itself is a well-maintained, very quiet campground with some of the most private sites we've experienced in 15 years of regular car camping.

Site A02 is very nice for privacy, one of the three front sites which means a bit of road traffic for other arriving campers, but covered by dense old-growth forest on all three sides and well set off the road. Ample tree coverage means an excellent shade canopy, but not-so-great if you're powering your rig with solar.

Clean, good-tasting drinking water at several community water spigots are available, and the central grassy area even contains a clean and well-maintained playground.

The campground itself is actually across the road from the Recreation Area. The Recreation Area is home to 3 nice hiking trails, including one all-season trail that converts to a cross-country skiing trail in the snowy months, as well as some picnic tables and a restroom.

The campground has a couple pit toilets that have been very well maintained by campground hosts each year we've been there. Zero smell or problems here, they appear to be looked after daily. They are still pit toilets so this is not exactly a luxury affair, but as pit toilets go, these definitely suffice.

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INTERNET: One bar of usable Verizon 4G LTE and T-Mobile 4G LTE suitable for slow web browsing and e-mail, but little else. Because of the very dense tree cover here, Starlink is not really a viable option. The most southern facing sites have more of a clearing which may work for Starlink, but are smaller, less private, and also face the group campsite which is well trafficked by Boy Scout troops and other summer camp gatherings, so you're upping your noise quite a bit.

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MAJOR PROS: This is a great campground to just enjoy camping. Set some 15 miles back in old growth forest, the most private of the campsites provide a very pleasant wilderness experience but still some well-maintained amenities like fresh drinking water and good pit toilets. In our experience camping here several times over several years, weekdays are very quiet at this location, perhaps the quietest of any campground of this size and caliber we've experienced anywhere. It's only really Friday evenings and Saturdays where you'll see more than 3-4 other campers in this place.

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The closest nearby town is Warren, PA a small but service-rich town set on the Allegheny River that provides all the necessary stuff - a Wal Mart,  a Lowes, and plenty of restaurants and little shops. Warren is the longtime home of a refinery of some sort and on days when the downwind is blowing especially strong, you can catch the faint whiff of a funky but ambiguous smell of…something?

Cell service kicks up to 5G on T-Mobile in Warren itself, but you're still stuck on 4G with Verizon, as of summer 2022.

Back to the campground, I would highly recommend this place for people who can get out there on weekdays and enjoy peace and quiet. Firewood is available for sale at the Camp Host campsite, but there's so much downed wood behind just about every site that purchasing wood really isn't necessary: you can keep a hot fire going all night, for free, just by cleaning out the underbrush.

This is such a pretty, quiet campsite that during weekdays the area deer will often approach from the woods behind the campsites to feast on low hanging leaves. We've seen dozens of them who will get within 10-20 yards of you for a snack later into the night. While never getting too close, it does make for a pleasant wildlife viewing opportunity.

We really like this place. No showers or other running-water facilities and limited internet service prevent this place from being a perfect 5. It is also a bit of a drive into town for provisions or daily ingress if you need these amenities. That aside, tent, trailer or RV, you are likely to enjoy your experience here if you enjoy camping at all.

My wife and I stayed here in late September so it wasn't overly crowded. The camp sites were fairly spacious and level. There seemed to be water fill stations scattered around the campground for convenience. I was actually able to fill me fresh water tank from one near by. The campground is fairly large and we rode our bikes around quite a bit, including our to the campground store at the entrance. There were numerous playgrounds and activities for kids. They have full hookup sections, but most of the campground is electric only. All in all the best review I can give is to say that we would go back.