Best Cabin Camping near Waco Lake

This park is located out in boonies and can be pretty difficult to find. Most people think they are lost trying to get to it, but if you follow North Speegleville road through all the cornfields you will eventually stumble upon it. Believe me, you're not going the wrong way.

Being lakefront property you would expect to see more water, however there is a lot of brush grown up around the lake and sites so it is hard to see. There are also limited places to get down to the water in the park.

There is a nice boat ramp and dock for fishing. It is also pet friendly and equestrian friendly. There is a nice little 1 mile hike were you can bird watch and view the lake Waco, it is very shaded and flat. Then there is a 20 mile hike/ equestrian trail that goes around Lacey point.

Bathrooms and showers need some work, but they do the job. There is no store at the campground, but there is a dollar general located in Speegleville about 4 minutes away. There are picnic tables at ever site along with a fire pit, and also a playground for kids.

The whole park is very secluded and away from street noise which is so lovely. Perfect place for viewing the stars over the water and listening to nature speak around you!

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 had limited weekends to take the grandkids camping. It has been raining non stop all over Texas. I began to look for places within 2 hours of Fort Worth. Texas State Parks are a great. I settled on Lake Whitney. They have these shelter sites that are awesome. For $30 per night ($10 per night more than normal e&w site) plus $5 per adult gate fee. That may not be economical for everyone, but $40 for an overnight camp was fine. The shelters are very clean and well kept. Inside is a picnic table and enough floor space for another plus some. So if your tent fails in you go. The top of walls are screened and bottom solid. I set up my camp kitchen and we ate meals inside due to weather. We set up our large tent behind the shelter to block wind from the lake. The site also had it's own parking, another table outside and fire ring. We had site 4 right across from the lake and swimming area. The bath house was very clean and only a short walk. You can fish license free from the shore. There are 5 or 6 moderate hiking trails. Also the park is home to plenty of woodland animals. The 4 yo and I took a 2 am bathroom break and saw a herd of dear about 30 head.

The park is very good for families and fishing.

There are also a boat ramp, small airstrip and day use areas.

The staff is awesome.

I stayed at Lake Whitney for a night on my way south from Dallas, so I didn't have much time to spend there.

It was my first time at the park and the rangers were really helpful in helping me to find a site, expecially after I told them I had a hammock with me.

I ended up staying at a screen shelter site with a bunch of trees and a great view of the lake.

The site had a picnic table inside the shelter and outside the shelter. It had a water spigot and a fire ring. The shelter was in good maintance and had light and plugs.

There was a swimming area near by and there were locations around the park for fishing and fish cleaning. There were also a few small trails, but I wasn't able to explore them.

Parts of the park were closed for maintenance and you could see construction in progress.

Over all, it was a great experience and a good place to escape from the world for a bit.