Best Cabin Camping near Bardwell Lake

We really enjoyed this park. It’s very clean and quiet. The trees are beautiful and add great shade. Most of spaces are pull through and very easy to setup at. We had a fire pit and picnic table. The bath houses are nice and private. We used the laundry services and everything worked properly. The staff is very friendly and easy to access in case you need something. Fitness room is little but updated and clean. My boys jumped in the pool even though it was 55* outside and said it was a fun experience. Easy access to Target just around the corner, Parks mall is close by and Arlington Highlands shopping is really nice! The road into the park is only 2 lanes with no shoulder, but as a Michigander I’m finding Texas roads to be interesting 😅 WiFi worked for my family of 5 the majority of the time for simple things. Hubby works remotely and went to Panera for stronger/faster service.

We did stay in 2 spaces as we extended our stay and someone had previously booked our space.

We went to check this place out to reserve for a family camp trip. The grounds are clean and spacious. They have wonderful cabins and RV sites. The only have 5 tent sites. There are no tent pads and the sites are on a small hill. The picnic tables are limited and not every tent site has one. There are no fire rings so it’s a little unnerving building a fire on the grass. The lake and marina is wonderful and clean. They have all sorts of thing to do there. Kayak rentals, fishing charters, a cute little cafe. This is a place I would come to rent a cabin but not to tent camp!

I've been camping here plenty of times as a kid growing up in Cedar Hill, TX. My family and I would camp in the spring, early/late summer, and fall months. Plenty of sites have a campfire grill and picnic table along with electrical outlets. Good camping sites for "glampers" who have to have Internet access and electronic use. Finding/reserving a campsite is super easy at the welcome center where you pay an entrance fee to the park. Plenty of lake to share with other people at this state park. My brother would go fishing at the smaller ponds here. At some campsites, you can here the traffic passing by on FM 1382, but if you can sleep through that noise, you'll be fine. Plenty of hiking/biking trails as well. Great to bring pets. Bathrooms are available as well near many of the campgrounds.

We made reservations 92 days prior to arriving Thursday of the Columbus Day weekend for Horseshoe Loop full-hook-up site, which is a nice elm tree grove. With the Texas State Park Pass, we paid$21/nightly. Our spacious pull-thru site was partially shaded, but there is no vegetation between sites in this loop, so not one site had any privacy from another. Site surface was mostly gravel from deteriorating asphalt. Our site had a deteriorating concrete picnic table on a concrete slab and a fire pit with a grilling grate. There is a possibility that trees make could make site access difficult to deploy slide outs. We witness larger rigs getting creative with pulling into their site because of close trees. Quiet campground with no highway noise. There is no gate closure overnight. This is an excellent dark sky campground, but unfortunately during our stay surrounding campers had excessive outdoor lighting illuminated throughout their site most of the night, which inhibited good star glazing and Draconid meteor shower viewing. Shower/toilet facilities for this loop were clean, but heavily worn and not ADA compliant. Besides a small step into the structure, the women’s had 3 equally sized toilet stalls and 2 equally sized shower stalls neither with any safety grab bars. There are no sites in this loop that are lake front. A few sites can just see the lake from a distance. Trash dumpsters are placed on roadway edge making safe rig egress tricky. AT&T 1 bar coverage in this campground loop. No wildlife sightings during our 4 night stay. Campfire wood available for sale from“lockers” at the Park Headquarters building. Closest restaurants, fuel stations and grocery stores in Whitney and Hillsboro. Waco is 40 miles southeast.

Pros 

Discount with National Park pass 

Shady

Quiet 

Dark sky friendly

Nice metal roof cover over concrete picnic table 

Saw park ranger drive thru during daylight 

2 bars T-MOBILE 

Successful streaming with T-MOBILE hotspot device 

Cons 

So day #2 without any TP in men’s restroom.  Went to front gate to report it and was told they would call it into the Army Corps of Engineers as gate volunteers have no stock of TP on hand.  Never saw any TP before leaving on third day

Toilet facility #1 women’s had raw sewage throughout deep enough to cover your foot. Site 11 has electrical hook up at rear on the door side of the camper 

Site 11 water connection is centered at the rear of the parking pad. 

Site 11 unlevel. 

Numerous piles of charcoal ash throughout site 11 campsite not in the fire pit. 

Concrete picnic table needs degreased as surface has lots of large greasy stain 

Site numbers are painted on the concrete picnic table so extremely difficult to see in the dark. 

No WIFI

We found this place when our other reservation got messed up, but boy am I glad we did! The tent sites have water and electric at each site. Sites feel secluded and spread out and our was covered by trees so the shade was great!

There was a little litter around the campsite but my son and I tired to clean up as mush as we could before we left.

There was a covered picnic table, fire pit, and grill, and lots of nails on the picnic covering table (although they are up really high, so if you’re short it’s hard to get to them).

We plan on going back and taking advantage of the hiking trails and swimming spot!