Best Dog-Friendly Camping near Lufkin, TX

We have never seen such a beautiful and immaculate KOA in our travels! It truly shows pride of ownership by the family that runs it. It is located in Lufkin, Texas and has lovely scenery including trees and a pond. This park has everything including large paved pull-through sites with 30/50 amp. Each site has a grassy area and picnic table. There is a great pool and outdoor park area to play in. Check out this KOA if you are in the Lufkin area. A true gem! 😉👍🏻💗

For videos on this campground and others, check out our YouTube channel: Jeff & Steff’s Excellent Adventure.

My family visited with my mother in law and my sister in law and her family. The managers acted like it was going to be a crazy busy weekend over Memorial Day. There’s 8 RVs here, and even the swimming hole has room for everyone, and then some.

The site is situated with a spring that opens up to swim in. The water is unnaturally blue, and truly looks dyed. It’s ice cold, though! Back in the woods where the water is running, it’s crystal clear and beautiful. The best part is the deer that will walk right up to you that you can hand feed. The flies are horrendous, and so are the ants. The bathhouse is exceptionally clean and very comfortable. We enjoyed utilizing this feature. Management is different. We’ve been micromanaged to death during our stay. We’ve been asked dozens of time what we’re doing, what are plans are, how long we’re staying etc…. We were even asked to help catch a cat that’s running around with a double eye infection, and possibly a case of mange. We affectionately refer to it as zombie cat. It’s very sweet, just needs some veterinary care.

Cell phone service here is almost non existent. We have sprint service and have one bar, if we are outside in certain areas. Would not recommend staying here if you work remotely.

Otherwise, it’s very quiet and peaceful. Very clean. White rock parking areas for pads, full hookups.

Ensconced in the deep Piney Woods of Davy Crockett National Forest lies the site of the original Franciscan Mission to the Caddo Indians. The local tribe’s word for friend was tejas (tay-hoss) meaning friend. The camping sites are all situated in the woods scattered among the hills above the Neches River Valley. They do not have sites for extremely large diesel pushers, but 32 foot trailers or RVs fit nicely.

The location has Texas state park normal accoutrements like fire rings, tables, lantern posts, showers, bathrooms and new front office with interesting rain harvesting equipment to view. Serene and beautiful area with hiking trails of easy to moderate level of difficulty with a historic walk to the site of the original Camino Real also known as the Old San Antonio Road.

Nearby you have historic markers every 3 miles or so on the current King’s Highway with Caddoan Indian Mounds to visit, sites of early settlers, including the original Rice Family Dog Run Cabin on site. There is a lovely lake for perch and bass fishing and playgrounds for young children.

It is favorite park of mine to visit and I return every few years.

We camped in Loop A during the week of Thanksgiving 2020 by making reservations 134 days prior to arriving. Very friendly volunteer gate attendants, but not sure when they work the gate as we tried to find them twice in one day and no one around and no info on how to contact/find someone, even tho there are four different campsites marked“attendant”. Overall, very quiet campground the week of Thanksgiving except for the highway noise from Highway 255, which was loud! Nine site FHU loop where sites are crammed together, weirdly and poorly laid out and spaced. No vegetation between sites so no privacy here what-so-ever! We could hear everyone’s conversations, even some that were inside their RV! Back-in site 12 was a tricky challenge to get into due to the terrain. First a dip before a narrow entrance over drainage ditch pipe, then a steep grade which almost had us scrapping the asphalt as we saw evidence of many that had previously. The narrow asphalt parking pad is deteriorating on the utility hook up side leaving a 6-8 inch drop off, so not very forgiving! Most asphalt site pads in this loop are in poor condition. Site 12 was not level side-to-side. Site 12 also has two wooden enclosures(wooden fence) that house utility panel boxes. At first, we thought we had our own outhouse! There is a slight view of the lake from Site 12. Recreation.gov states this site is"full shade", which we disagree. Our concrete picnic table on a concrete pad was fairly close to the parking pad. Our site also included a rotting shelter over the table, a rotting wooden bar-height prep table(aka fish cleaning table), a wooden lantern pole and a metal fire pit with a grilling grate that was one big tripping hazard due to the concrete slab the pit was placed on was broken up and huge hunks of concrete displaced around the metal fire pit. What a mess. Toilet/shower facility just for this campground loop fairly clean, but not serviced every day(during the week). Tent sites are along the lake in Loop A. There is a significant drop-off down to the water’s edge. Evidence of tent campsites that had been washed out/destroyed in recent flooding. Not a good stargazing location due to other close by campers with numerous outdoor lights burning all night! Super friendly squirrels that ate from our hands. No other wildlife sighting during our 4 night stay the week of Thanksgiving. Sam Rayburn Lake is beautiful. Park has a boat ramp and a large ramp parking area. No firewood for sale in this park. A bait shop, Valero fuel station, liquor store and a couple restaurants within a 5-minute drive of the Park entrance. Jasper has a Tractor Supply and a small Walmart. Lufkin has most chain restaurants, Lowes, Super Walmart, etc. Two bars AT&T signal