Best Cabin Camping near Galveston, TX

I liked this KOA. The location is fabulous- just a short walk to the huge public beach. Very dog friendly campground, and dogs are welcome on the beach. Clean showers and bathrooms (both in one private room), ample pay laundry, hot tub, heated pool and LAZY RIVER! Awesome :) We'll be back.

We really enjoyed our vacation at Galveston Island RV Park.  The park is fairly new and very well kept.  Bathrooms and showers are super clean.  There is a nice swimming pool, lazy river and a huge hot tub to enjoy!  They sell frozen margaritas and pina coladas in the office, which is a nice touch!  The sites are not shaded at all, which makes it hot for summer camping.  There are plenty of palm trees, they're just not fully grown yet.  We walked across the street to the beach every day, which was really nice.  It's a little ways out of town and there are no restaurants nearby, which was a con, but definitely will not stop us from staying here again.

Normally I stay away from the pool at campgrounds, bc they are overrun with kids and look pretty dingy. However, this one is like hotel quality and the hot tub is clean. The gym is pretty awesome too! I'm not big on amenities, bc they are always lackluster... but when done right, wow! We were at a PT FHU right up front by the gate with a little plot of grass and nice metal picnic table. There was a little confusion about the site, but the staff was great. We will 100% stay here again.

This is a nice RV park that was well laid out when built, and it seems they are continuing that as they expand the number of sites. Note that we were there during the transition from the Galveston Island RV Resort to the Galveston Island KOA. So, there's no telling what KOA might do regarding prices, amenities, policies, etc. Therefore, our review is based on the structure and layout of the park. 

We found the sites to be large with plenty of room in between rigs compared to many RV parks, including most of the others on Galveston Island. There is electric (50- and 30-amp), water, and sewer on each site. Many of the sites are pull-throughs. The ones along the outside rows are back-in sites but have the advantage of no roads or neighbors behind you. 

The roads through the park are nice and wide, so there is plenty of room to maneuver large rigs. 

The bathroom facilities are decent; reminiscent of residential bathrooms. It's nice that there are 4 bathrooms with showers and they are unisex. We never ended up waiting. Plenty of hot water, although pressure from the older showerheads seemed lacking at times. 

The laundry room was clean and the machines worked reasonably well. There were 5 washers and 5 dryers available (when they were all working). 

The location could be good or bad depending on your priorities. It's an easy walk across the road to the beach to reach the Gulf of Mexico and the beach stretches for miles. It's also quieter in this area because you are on the west end and not near the city. However, that could be a downside for some folks. It's a solid 20-minute drive to get to town for restaurants, tourist attractions, etc. That may seem long if you want to go in and out of the city a lot, and it's too far to bike it or walk it, so you have to have a vehicle to drive into town with. There are gas stations and a small grocery store within a few miles. 

As I mentioned, this is now a KOA, so I don't know what they're going to do with the pool, hot tub, and lazy river. (All three were closed while we were there in February, so can't really comment much on them.) A KOA representative told us they are looking at adding a playground to the park. 

If it had not been bought by KOA, we would have gone back here whenever we are in the Galveston area. Until we see what KOA does with their rates and policies, we simply don't know if we will return.

This is our 4th visit to this resort. My entire family looks forward to this trip each year. There is a similar setup much closer to home, minus the beach but with the addition on a wibit course, that would charge the same rates in a weekend, as we get during a peak summer season for a week. With what this resort offers, it is more than worth the drive and price!

I will say, this year there were just a couple things that put a damper on the trip, that we’ve never experienced before. People parking along the narrow driveways or along the narrow roads, making it difficult to drag our rig in, was a negative mark as soon as we pulled in. Again, we’ve never had this issue before, but it made things difficult as the paths are just big enough for one vehicle. The second negative was a charter bus with a bunch of kids of all ages, pulled in. It wouldn’t have been too big of an issue except, this kids were WILD!! They were not RV guests. They came with a church just for the day. Which would have been fine, except they flooded the lazy river, and had no etiquette or manners. They jumped in the river on top of people, we’re throwing footballs, frisbees, and tubes- hitting guests with the objects, and most of the rv guests evacuated the area until they departed. I realize this is a business and they can do with it what they want, but when I’ve spent $500 to sleep in said resort, I hope for the amenities to be to MY advantage and safely. My children were hit with many of the objects thrown.

Now, on to the positives. Like I mentioned, this is our 4th summer spent at this resort. We truly do enjoy it. There are so many things available to do, you truly don’t have to leave, if you didn’t want to. Multiple pools, a jacuzzi, sauna, lazy river, mini golf, movies, bouncy pillow, and a brisk walk to the beach. That doesn’t include the multiple bath houses, laundry facilities, and the pavilion. We were disappointed to see the original hot tub filled in with soil, plants and mulch, but figured there must have been a really expensive issue with it, which it why it was filled in and an external one was brought in. Granted, it didn’t seem that the new jacuzzi was operating properly, as it didn’t get hot enough. But it was a nice additional, all the same. The gates to the pool and splash pad were locked, making it difficult for kids to go back and forth from the splash pad to the pool. We mentioned it to the office, but when we left the pool area 4 hours later, no one ever unlocked the gate.

The grounds are kept up daily. There’s always someone mowing, weedeating , or inspecting things to ensure everything is tidy. Most guests follow the guidelines and keep their sites neat.

We were put up against the road, which we were t thrilled with. It’s a good distance from the amenities, especially since we don’t have a golf cart, but it wasn’t as noisy or as bad as we thought it might be.

There are great places to eat nearby. There are also a couple of little stores, should you need anything!

Our site is good, just the right size. The location is a little far from galveston and the town area is a little small.

The splash pad is cool but aged. The pools are really neat but the water cleanliness is subpar. All the pools need vacuuming with sand and dirt on the bottom. The infinity spa pool was cloudy. The other pools didn't feel quite right.

The lazy river was very fun and enjoyed that.

Great family getaway and we love the beaches in Galveston....

Camp Mohawk is a great get away close to home for many of us.  The staff is very

helpful and and kind.  They have cabins, dorms, tent camping, hiking trails, stocked

ponds for fishing, playgrounds, volleyball, basketball courts, pavilions for rent with

bar b q grills, plenty of picnic  tables throughout the park for convenience of park goers.

 Pet friendly with waste stations around for disposal of their waste.  Free  for day use

To make reservations call 281-756-2319 you and the whole family will have alot

of fun and won't regret it!!!

Campground Review

Galveston Island State Park is a really beautiful, peaceful stretch of land south east of Galveston (the city) straddled by Galveston Bay along its north and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. We were amazed at the number of day use patrons there were but it was Easter Weekend and about the best possible place to picnic in all of Galveston. (Day use is $5 per person, kids under 12 are free, or if you have the $70 Texas State Parks pass it gets everyone in the car into any TX State Park for a year.)

There are two areas to camp at GISP - on the Bay Side and on the Beach Side. There are 10 Bay Side Primitive Tent Campsites at $15/night and Water/Electricity Hook-Up Sites are $20/night. Beach Side only offers “Premium Camping” with Water/Electricity Hook-Ups at $25/night. IMO, the Beach side is worth the extra $5/night since you are literally steps away from the water. All sites have picnic tables with shaded cover, trash, fire pits, and nearby restroom access. Additionally, there are two really beautiful cabins you can rent at $200 or $250/night but they are booked months in advance...

A couple other things about GISP. No trees so plan on waking up with the sun cooking you in your tent (RVs outnumbered tents). There are no open alcohol containers are allowed (but I think that applies more to glass bottles) and dogs must be on leashes at all times. We saw some well-behaved dogs off their leashes along the beach but I think this is more for the safety of the animals because there are long grasses between the beach and the bay sides with venomous snakes. Galveston’s water is not my favorite and it was particularly cold this early in the season but there were tons of people swimming, boogie boarding, kayaking, and fishing along the beach (especially on piers closer to town). It’s a great place to ride bikes and Galveston has a great cultural history that is unique in Texas.

4/5

14901 FM 3005 Galveston, TX 77554

Product Reviews

As a Ranger for The Dyrt, I get products to test from time to time - this weekend I tested two new products, Midland USA Two Way Radios (GXT1000VP4) and Mountain House Turkey Dinner.

Let me start with the Midland Radios. They. Are. Rad. I am so excited to have these and am considering buying a second set as you can hook up additional radios and put them on the same channel. Without an FCC license you’ve got to stick to specific channels (certain ones are reserved for police, first responders, etc). These have lots of different ring tones and settings. They are water resistant (I took these into the ocean but didn’t submerge them… that makes me nervous) and they have a fantastically long range. Website says 36 mile range. I wasn’t able to test it that far but we got to 10 miles down the beach and they worked great. (We also used them in downtown Houston and were able to get about 2.5 miles away but that was with lots of big buildings and trees obstructing them - pretty impressed!). These walkie talkies came in extremely handy - whenever anyone would head back to the campsite or into town we could call back and forth. Considering the cell service on Galveston Island is pretty miserable, these were seriously great and came in so handy. (Furthermore, I cannot wait to use these puppies at music festivals this summer!!!!)

5/5

My second review is for the Mountain House Homestyle Turkey Dinner. Let me preface this with, I’ve got a particularly snobby chef husband who was very very skeptical of this just-add-water meal in a bag situation. Well. He loved it. And honestly, it tasted like Thanksgiving. Basically a stuffing with chunks of veggies and turkey. The directions on the bag could’ve been a little clearer. I think the time to re-hydrate should’ve been a bit longer as the turkey was a bit chewy and maybe a little salt? But overall, really quite good. Cooking while camping is either super fun or terrible, so this was extremely convenient and easy. I definitely plan on try some of their other products (I’ve heard the Mac & Cheese is yum).

4/5