This review starts with the wonky reservation system. If you look at several campsites, it thinks you want to reserve all of them. Even if you de-select campsites, it still thinks you want to reserve all of them! And then, it didn’t like the apostrophe in our last name. I took that out but then it made me wait for two minutes before I could continue with the reservation. Ugh. We were also not happy that there was a two-night minimum on the weekends. 

Now for the campground. This is a fairly small campground with only 40 sites. It was full on the first Friday in November but there was no host (and we did not see a Ranger throughout our stay). There would be free firewood (donations encouraged) if a host or ranger were present, so no firewood for us.    

Many of the sites are NOT level but the website does indicate this during the reservation process. Fifteen have tent pads, but others do not and would be more suitable for RVs. The driveways are paved but some are crumbling, and pieces of pavement are tripping hazards. All the sites have electric and water. There are two comfort stations that were very clean and the showers (no additional cost) looked reasonable. There is a pack-in, pack-out policy and therefore there is only one dumpster across from the park office, which is quite a distance from the campground, and you are asked to bring your trash there nightly (the distance from the campground makes this challenging if you do not have another vehicle). 

There are some nice hiking trails, but they are not on the map that you are given upon check-in. There is a map posted by the camp office, again quite a distance from the campground. This park is also good for mountain bikers, although they are not allowed to use the trails on Saturdays. Dogs are allowed if kept on a leash. Alcohol can only be consumed if out of public sight. 

You will hear trains. Many trains. Loud trains. All throughout the night😊

There is a beach and boat rental in season, which looks very nice, but we stayed there out of season, so this was not available.

This campground won’t blow you away or anything but it’s a good campground that you’ll enjoy. Nice wooded coverage, walking and hiking trails, plus a few lakes to fish. Bath houses are probably the cleanest I’ve seen in all the campgrounds I’ve been too. The only reason I wouldn’t give it 5 stars is because the sites are pretty close to each other and you can hear aircraft traffic from the airport close by. I recommend sites 22,23,25 if you are tent camping.

Campground Review: 

Paris Mountain State Park is just a short drive outside of Greenville, SC, but seems a world away. It is beautiful in all seasons. The campground is a typical state campground. Water, electric, fire ring, and picnic table were at our site. We stayed at #39 which was fine for our needs. If you had any sort of rig, we would NOT recommend this spot. The concrete was in poor shape and would make for a leveling nightmare. We voted we’d stay in #40 next time. It was a pull through with a creek running by the fire ring. The shower house was perfectly adequate and clean. Their reservation system was easy. We enjoyed all of the hiking options and the swimming area in the park. 

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Product Review: 

As Rangers for The Dyrt, we get to test products from time to time– today we tested Banner & Oak apparel www.bannerandoak.com. We loved their trucker hats. They were breathable, and held their shape under the sweat from a hard hike. We felt they were very attractive as well. As a long torso’d and arm’d couple, we both noticed right away and appreciated the length of the shirts themselves and the length of the sleeves on the long-sleeved shirt. There is nothing worse than washing shirts and having to stretch the heck out of them to try to get them back to looking presentable. We have no fear our Banner & Oak short and long-sleeved shirts will not give us this trouble. They worked well under our packs and we didn’t find ourselves needing to pull down our shirt every few mins or so. As a larger busted woman, however, their Women’s Large ran a bit small in the chest. I normally wear a Large which gives me some room to move around, but I wish I would have ordered my shirt in a XL. It is a tight fit. All in all, we really liked Banner & Oak’s apparel, in style, cut (mostly), and comfort. The shirt material is super soft and we could see ourselves ordering more from their site.

We had a great time staying here. Some of the sights were rather inclined, but they listed this on the website when booking(it's on a mountain after all). The areas between most of the sites was spacious, we were able to hang 2 hammocks to chill in. The Bathhouses had been remodeled and were kept clean while we were there. (There wasn't hand soap at the sinks that was a little weird for me).  The Large trash bins were located back down across from the Park Center, as was the play ground. It would have been more convenient for campers to have these things closer but were convenient for day use visitors. The park center is a gorgeous stone/log cabin type building with a long porch facing the Swimming area. There are Adirondack chairs on the porch, then between the porch and the lake are wooden lounge chairs and benches to relax on while taking a break from swimming or hanging out. There are miles of trails and streams to explore. We had a lovely time and plan to visit again soon.

We were at site 29, ADA. It was horrendous. We overlooked the women’s restrooms, which was very poor taste! At night, when the lights were turned on….. distasteful. More importantly, this ADA site was extremely dangerous! The site was so unsafe. I fell twice getting out of our rv, b/c the site was more mountainous than the mountains! I couldn’t leave my rv for two days! Restrooms were clogged and filthy. You had to walk a mile to the front to thrown your trash out! Really! Unfortunately, will never return. Below are pix.

We stayed here for a week and found this to be one of the quietest parks we have stayed out and used it for a base camp to hike Jones gap and table rock. The bathhouse was clean and there are lots of trails and a big pond.lots of bicycles riding around the park.

Paris mountain is a personal favorite of mine and take any chance to go. This is a great dog friendly park with clean trails, plenty of parking, and friendly staff. Now is the time to go as it is less crowded and and the leaves are changing color.

We love this State park and campground. We go there for day picnics, hiking, group activities, or just a family cook out. The campground is very peaceful and quiet.

We loved our stay at this campground. It was one that once we got settled we wished we were staying longer! The road through the park back to the campground is pretty narrow at some points - we don't know how we would have managed if we had met another RV! We have a 31' Class A and we managed fine, but I did hear some people with larger trailers having a harder time. We were in Site 31 and were able to get level with no issues. The park has a lot of trails and scenery and is a great place for riding a bike. All in all, pretty campground that is super peaceful! The staff were all very helpful and the bathrooms were clean too. I would definitely return to this great spot!

One of my favorite local spots. Great trails and a near by lake for swimming and kayaking.