Best RV Parks & Resorts near Wright Patman Lake

OPEN: Year round

Sites: 5 paved sites 

Fees: $13.00 (Mar-Oct) Sites with no hookups $10.00 (Mar-Oct) 

Limit: 14 days Day use fee:$5.00 Sitting below the dam is a tiny well maintained campground. Heavily wooded across the site. Picnic table, fish cleaning table, trash, toilets, playground, fire pit, pedestal grill, water and electric hookups. Pads are back in hard surface. Nice space between sites with medium amount of trees and shade. Sites 1 and 2 are like double sites you have shower access and a dump station one mile north at Beards Bluff Park. Beards Lake is an oxbow lake and is one of the top fishing lakes in the country. Area surrounding the recreation area is open fields, swampy grasslands and heavy hardwood forest. 

AIS Clean Drain & Dry 

LNT

Travel safe

I stayed here for five nights in mid-March. The campground is a mix of tent/RV loops and has multiple boat ramps into Johnson Creek which feeds into Lake 'O the Pines. I was in site E210 (RV area 2). Place was packed over the weekend, cleared out quite a bit during the week. I check out all four RV loops, and it's one of the most crowded COE campgrounds I've seen (and I've seen a lot). Site spacing in pretty close, but slightly better than commercial parks. I lucked out on E210, it was a pull-through that perched overlooking the lake. It was among the more private sites. Fairly level sites in loops, some asphalt, some concrete. Water/Elec, picnic pad and table and fire rings at all sites. I would definitely recommend and go back but pick your sites carefully if you want privacy - think Google satellite view or Google Earth. Pretty decent cell signal for Verizon, so-so for ATT.

I stayed for 4 nights from a Thursday through Monday. The owner is very nice and helped me with choosing a drive thru site. It is well maintained. Mix of long term and short stay resident s. It is near a busy arterial highway so it's not especially quiet. The hookups worked great. I was two spots from the very front of the park. I used Passport America pass for my first 3 nights. I felt safe. It is very pet friendly. Keep dogs on leash and clean up after them. I have 3 black labs. No fenced dog park yet, so I drove them to the city park with tennis courts every morning to run free. I will most likely stay here again. I mostly boondock in the forests, but when I need a place to resupply and take care of business needs, this place is very nice.

Reserved on-line 152 days prior to arrival. 

Pros 

Pristine clean restroom/showerhouse. Seemed recently renovated 

BIG PINE camping area only big rig friendly(longer than 20 ft) out of 40 FHU sites. Big Pine, Dogwood and Mountain View Campgrounds FHU so 40 FHU sites with no park dump station. 

Aluminum picnic table and fire ring with cooking grate 

Very quiet campground except for highway and train noise 

4 camp hosts 

Good night sky viewing in BIG PINE 

Good view of lake in BIG PINE 

Privacy from side neighbors 

No leveling required from side-to-side 

Asphalt parking pad heaved various places due to tree roots creating numerous tripping hazard 

Campsite utility hook-ups in good condition with no problems encountered 

Security gate that closes overnight 

No street lights in BIG PINE 

Campsite and entrance fee discount with Texas State Park Pass 

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

CONS 

Most FHU sites (other than BIG PINE) are extremely short in length. Barely room for single axle TT, so need to review site details carefully 

Site 8 had an extreme amount of above ground roots causing tripping hazard

Picnic table approx 50 feet from Site 8 parking pad

Highway and train noise

BIG PINE sites barely off campground road, so therefore no privacy from campers across the road

Restroom/shower facility not heated

No lantern pole

No wildlife sightings

No park Wifi

1 bar AT&T in BIG PINE

Made a reservation via telephone for two days a month in advance, but was not given a site number.When we pulled up to the office there was a note with a telephone number to call, but no answer. I saw a gentleman walking around and it appeared he saw us. After waiting about 10 minutes, I decide to driver further into the park. The gentleman I saw earlier was one of the owners/ managers, I would would have expected him to go to the office to meet the newly arriving guests. I will say that he was friendly enough and later, his wife stopped by to collect the fee and she too was friendly. The park itself has full hook ups and is on the banks of the bayou. The campground require you to sign a waiver because of the water moccasins from the bayou and because of the potential of falling tree limbs. The. Campground is pretty sandy so leveling may be problematic for big rigs. The do allow long term guests to store all kinds of equipment and gear, the site next to us look like a junk yard. Our fellow campers seemed friendly enough with the gentleman on the other side from the junk yard introducing himself.

1/19/23- 1/26/23: We stayed one week and it was a quiet and enjoyable campground at a reasonable price, but it still has some misgivings. 

Good Points: The park was mostly empty and very quiet. The views of the lake are particularly nice. The sites are grass(good for dryer weather) and spread reasonably apart for privacy. 30A electric, fresh water, picnic tables, Verizon 4G: 4-bars with 4.8Mbps(down) and 3Mbps(up) can be found here. 

Other Points: 

* Rainy days completely saturates the grass with large puddles in the uneven areas; while walking to the office I discovered that the road had unavoidable puddles too. 

* 40 of the 75 sites have sewer; site#36 does not. Those with sewer were uncapped PVC pipes stubbed out of the ground. 

* Pricing: On Campendium, the facility is listed as Army Corps Of Engineers(COE) with a daily rate of$20. Naturally, with a Senior Lifetime Pass I expected to get a spot for$10/night. No so. The owner Leon Jennings(903-585-5453) said that it is a privately run(and leased) campground and the rate is$20(also posted in the office). After I said that I’d move on to a COE site he offered a spot for$13/night matching what the Clear Springs Park campground(COE) nearby would charge me. Rates on Campendium, the Wright Patman Lake website, and the RoverPass list at$20,$13, and$17 respectively. My interpretation is that the real rates are $17 (30A) and $20 (50A). I didn't see a distinction between sewer or no sewer sites. 

* Odor: There can be a sewer-like odor that I'm told is coming from a paper mill in New Boston. 

* Un-level sites: The sites are rolling grass hills; it is possible to park in a direction that is even (L/R) but may take some finesse. 

* The dump station is a PVC pipe protruding diagonally from the grassy ground across from the office and there is no water spigot for cleanup. I pulled the diagonal pipe out and inserted the dump hose directly into the drain below grass level. After dumping, be sure to use your gray-water to flush your dump hose. 

Summary: The owner and staff are very nice and accommodating. However,$13 at the Clear Springs Park campground would have provided level sites with good drainage, a proper dump station, and perhaps less odor from the paper mill.

Texarkana RV Park is a very nice, clean, and friendly RV park. They have a gated entrance for extra security. The park has nice amenities such as pool, playground, laundry, restrooms, dog run, and park-like setting with duck pond. Most sites are pull-thru and plenty long, but narrow. Beware of your slide placement before parking, as site poles may be in the way of a slide fully opening. Each site is gravel with a patio and they have 50 amp FHU. We enjoyed our stay at this campground and would definitely stay again. 👍🏻😊

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

We arrived about 3:30 PM and check in was quick and easy. We proceeded to back-in site E139 with water& 50/30 AMP. The signage to our area had a R in front of the site numbers but all the site numbers on the posts have an E in front of them, so be aware of this discrepancy if coming in late. Back-in was easy on to the narrow pad that was long enough for our 39’ 5th wheel and F-450 truck parked in front, but not by much. There was a very nice deck with the fire pit/bbq nicely placed right off the deck. Site 140 next to us with the other deck is actually a pull through double site. Longest sites in this area of the CG are 109- 113. Other sites had short pads so be sure to check the length when you reserve. All of the pads in the CG looked fairly level. We got 2 bars on Verizon and a handful of OTA channels. With the amount of trees in the CG satellite could be iffy. Water pressure was okay at around 35 psi. The CG also had a separate and very nice tent area near the playground. They were remodeling the main restroom/shower so it was closed during our stay, but there was another facility in each RV area(100 and 200) that had toilets and a shower but were older and in need of updating. We stayed over the weekend and the CG was very busy. We enjoyed the great water view from the deck on our site during our 4 night’s stay.