Oil Creek Family Campground

My family stayed over Memorial Day weekend. It was so much fun. They have a lot of activities. My favorite was the disc golf. Their course is really nice!

Hubby and I rented an RV and stayed one night at oil creek campground. We really liked it and wish we could’ve stayed longer. Would definitely go back if we’re back in the area. The owner was such a sweetheart too, very friendly and informative. Two Thumbs up👍🏻

Oil F.C. is a hidden gem nestled in the woods not far from Oil Creek State Park. They have a great playground, a maze, a catch and release pond. Lots of things to do to keep the kids, or in our case the grandkids occupied. They have a well stocked camp store, in case you don't want to make the 4 mile ride into town. Their firewood prices are very reasonable. Rachel is a great in accommodating her campers. We were there 3 times this year. Its become our goto campground that's only an hour away from Erie.

Stayed overnight at the Wolfkiel Run Shelters just down the road. It was early April, the snow had just fallen week before, and it got pretty cold during the night. Still, the hiking trails were in great condition! Runoff was happening, so oil creek was pretty flooded.

The lean-to shelters are a great feature for a group of 2-5 (especially if you bring a tarp to close off the wind).

Quick Tip: If you're camping with kiddos, try turning over the rocks in area creeks to find little aquatic insects. A little creepy, but a lot of awesome ;-)

We found the shelters accidentally during a hike in the park and returned for an overnight. We found parking nearby so it was just a short hike to get to.

I believe it's once a year that they have oil machinery demonstrations. Very interesting. You can also take a train ride through the park.

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!

We have stayed at the park for Christmas Eve the past two years. Had the Adirondack shelters to ourselves each year.

firewood is available but you have to donate some cash, split it and haul it to your shelter. It's always been seasoned well and provided plenty of heat for the shelter during our winter stays.

Very quiet and no light pollution for a town or city, Providing great moonlit nights.

Fees are minimal

rail trail to walk or ride just a few miles over the hill and the cross country skiing trails come directly past the shelter.