Best Glamping near Waco, TX

This Is a great area to camp near Waco without having to travel far. Just 5 minutes outside the Waco City limits, these grounds have a lot of hook up spots without feeling too crowded. Its also a great place to tent camp, or use one of a few cabins that are available. Nearly every camp site is a  stones throw from the water. Great Swimming and fishing. There are a number of places to pull your boat up to shore. There is a play ground, but its only near a few sites and quite a distance from most sites. But for older kids with bikes, it's a fun ride. There are deer and rabbits and birds and squirrels. Its a nice little spot that is laid out to feel big.

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.

This park is a short drive to all of Waco attractions including the famous Silos. We stayed Friday and Saturday nights. 

Pros:

• Very friendly gate attendant

• Extremely quiet park except for arriving/departing aircraft at Waco Regional Airport

• Great view of the lake as trees/shrubs are minimal

• Clean campsite

• Very clean campfire pit

• Most sites had a nice distance from neighbor sites

• Crushed granite surrounds the site’s asphalt parking pad so no muddy mess after rain

• Pedestal BBQ grill, fire pit with grilling grate and aluminum picnic table at each site

• Some sites had aluminum roof pavilion over picnic table

• Some sites had lantern pole

• Park roadways in good condition

• Entrance gate locked at 10pm

• Plenty of TP in women’s restroom

• 4 bar signal AT&T 

Cons:

• Filthy women’s restroom. Human feces on floor. Two of the three stalls locked for days. One remaining stall the door would not close and latch. Sign posted on door that restrooms were cleaned Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, but the human feces were on the floor Friday night, Saturday all day and Sunday morning. Exterior door would not close completely.

• No water to sinks in women’s restroom

• No soap dispenser and no hand dryer in women’s restroom

• Men’s restroom door locked Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning

• Exterior door to one shower room was unable to be closed

• Extremely low water pressure to campsite

• No site privacy due to minimal trees/brush throughout the park

• Low hanging tree branches over roadway and campsite pad

• Our campsite pedestal BBQ grill was extremely corroded

• No wildlife sightings- not even a squirrel

• NOT A DARK SKY FRIENDLY CAMPGROUND! Boat launch lights across the cove lit up most of the campground. Large lights on the toilet/shower building that made it nearly as bright as daylight!

Pros 

Not charged a fee to make my own on-line reservation 

Friendly gate attendant 

Level asphalt site surrounded by crushed granite 

Grass neatly mowed throughout campground 

Large aluminum picnic table that is moveable from site concrete pad

BBQ grill, metal fire pit and lantern pole 

Night sky friendly. No street lights 

Spacious-space between each site but no privacy due to lack of vegetation 

Very quiet Sunday thru Wednesday nights except for Waco airport aircraft approach and Space X rocket testing 

Entrance gate locked 10pm-6am. Exit only permitted 

Clean toilets and showers 

Plenty of TP in restrooms 

Trash can in toilet/shower facility 

Sufficient trash dumpsters throughout park 

Deer sightings at Park entrance only 

2 LTE Verizon bars signal 

Cons 

Exterior restroom doors desperately need repaired. Have to move rock away from door to gain access. 

Sewer connection at rear of parking pad. Bring the looooong stinky slinky! 

Waco airport aircraft departing/arriving as early as 6am and as late as 11pm. One night we counted aircraft performing touch and go manuvers 42 times. Approach was directly over our campsite. 

No patrolling host or ranger 

No soap or hand towels in toilet facility 

No playground, basketball or tennis or volleyball courts 

No lake swimming area 

No park WIFI 

No hiking trails

Wish they would change the name to Meridian State Park instead of just Meridian on here.  Very nice, small, peaceful park.  There are 8 pull thru sites with full hookups, including 50 amp.  We were in on site 6.  Fairly level, but not much room to put a rug out.  They had 5 big rocks out to keep people from parking to close to the site.  Very close to the bathroom and shower room.  Very clean.  Right next to Park Office.  Lake was only 5 minute walk or minute drive.  Excellent swimming area  with picnic tables and grills.  Did not get a chance to fish there but heard it is very good.  Very quiet park.

My husband and I desperately needed a getaway from our every day lives. We live in Cleburne so Whitney wasn't too far away and we were attracted to the lake's peaceful atmosphere. We arrived around 4:00 on Sunday afternoon, March 13th, got checked in quickly by the friendly staff and got to pick a lovely campsite right on the water. Our campground was water only but that's all we needed. We wished the water spigot was on our site but instead it was located in between ours and the site next to us. That was okay though we didn't need it too often with our trip being so short. There was a lot of rocks on our site...not much grass or dirt, but the view was worth it to me. Restrooms were reasonably close and stayed stocked with soap and toilet paper. Quiet hours were honored which was nice as there were many families camping during our stay. We hiked the Two Bridges Trail and was a nice little trail...clean and easy for us to navigate. We left on the morning of the 15th and had no trouble checking out. Overall, we really enjoyed our trip and look forward to visiting again!

We had a 3 night stay here and it was our first experience with a COE campground. It is located on Belton Lake. It is a gated entrance and the gates locked at 11:00pm. Our site was situated at the end of the loop and it was very spacious. It had water/electric with a dump station. It had a picnic table and fire pit. It also has a laundry room near the entrance. There is a playground, restrooms, and showers. There is also a boat dock. It is a very well kept campground. I did not use the bath house, so I cannot give a review on how it looked. The laundry room was spacious and the machines were in working order. It was a perfect campground. My review would have been 5 stars but there is no swimming area.

Peaceful Army Corps of Engineer park with 12 sites, half are shaded. Clean vault toilets, dumpsters, and water between most sites, covered picnic tables and fire pits, a few have stand up grills. Some locals take the sites for day use fishing so those might open up towards evening. Entry gate closes at 10pm, but there is an exit gate always open. My visit was during a Texas’ rainy stretch and lake levels were on the rise flooding out the lower sites. In fact, the ACE host had me move with expected 10’ rise overnight. I’d been in trouble if I hadn’t. Thanks Mark!!