Foster Falls Campground

Given that our visit was out of season, campground options in the area were limited, so we decided to stick to state parks. The night before, we were in Southern Illinois and only saw one other camper in the entire park, so we expected very few other campers in this park as well, but there were a surprising number of campers around us. However, there were few enough to have five or six spaces between us and our neighbors.

The pads are gravel, well maintained, and perfectly flat. Our site had an awesome layout with plenty of room for parking, a large pad, and a fire ring with a grill in the corner furthest away from the road. A previous camper was nice enough to leave us dry wood, but there is tons of dry wood laying around within the surrounding woods.

The best part of the campground was the shower house. I would assume from the immaculate condition that the building is not that old or went through a recent remodel. The bathroom/shower stalls are family style, with each locking room containing a flushing toilet and an ADA compliant shower with a high and low nozzle, and shower chair. The best part is that the rooms are heated! On the cold morning when we were there, this was a welcome gift for a long overdue shower.

I wasn't expecting much from a campground that said "no electric, no water" but by the end of the weekend I was ready to say this was my favorite campground. This campground is very much so for hikers and rock climbers coming to visit the Fiery Gizzard (one of the top 25 trails in the US). Everyone on the weekend we were there went to bed early and we're all gone in the morning. The campground has just reopened from a remodle two weeks prior to our visit. The bathrooms are now 4 unisex bathrooms. Each bathroom has a private area to shower including a bench. Each bathroom also has its own heater and there's an outlet near the sink. There is also water available in 2 places and a water bottle refill station. As for the sites any low spots get fresh gravel and now there are 4 very very nice ada sites. The sites are far enough apart that you get privacy. I would stay at almost every site here. Some do have trees in the middle so I would look it up on Google maps street view to see your spot.

Nice clean campground, we enjoyed staying here. Camped November 8-9 and day temps were 70s with night temps around 40s, very comfortable with no mosquitoes or bugs bothering us. This is the only campground that you can camp at your car, others require you to hike in. South Cumberland State Park is actually a cluster of protected forests. Foster Falls Climbers Loop Trail is right at the entrance of the campground, definitely recommend hiking this trail. You’ll hike all around the falls getting beautiful views from the top and bottom. You can hike from Foster Falls to Grundy Forest/ Fiery Gizzard here, it is long. You’ll need to drive to different hiking spots like the Savage Gulf and Stone Door area. The visitors center is 15 minutes away and you may drive by it on your way in, we stopped by but it was lunch time and closed for the ranger to take a break. Fire wood is sold on the corner of Foster Falls Road and State Highway 150, I did not see any for sale on camp grounds. We camped on #22, it was not a bad spot. There were trees down behind the campsite to gather some wood from. The pad was flat with no large rocks or roots and fire ring and table were in good condition. We had a good view of the stars and it was very dark looking into the forest behind us at night. The women’s bathroom has 2 stalls and 1 shower, there were no lines anytime we were there. Only 5 other camping spots were filled and we noticed that we all had picked spots towards the entrance. Next time we’ll be picking one towards the back but most likely on the right side of the entrance. The bathrooms entrance is on the left and when you approach it at night there is a light that turns on for you to be able to see. We could see the light turn on from our campground when people used them. We could hear voices and music at night but it didn’t sound like it was within the grounds, I think there is a bar near by but not sure. It didn’t bother us.