Rickwood Caverns State Park Campground

Rickwood Caverns was the first car camping experience I ever had. My husband and I went sans kids to see if we liked tent camping and test out our gear. We are total beginners. 

We got there at 5:15 and the shop/office closes at 5pm. There was a sign with a phone number for assistance in late check in. No one answered and our VM was never returned. No big deal. We didn’t have a pass in our car and no one cared or checked.

The campground is small. Each of the primitive campsites has a fire pit and picnic table. Our table had seen better days and was missing one bench. Somewhere in the vicinity, there was a faucet for washing dishes, etc., but it was surrounded by a giant mud puddle. There’s another faucet area in the parking lot near the bathroom/shower building. 

We reserved site #17 and there were two other tents pitched nearby. I reserved the site on Alaparks’ website and I think I paid $14/night. The park is gated and locked each evening. It is an old state park and a bit run down. The bathroom/shower building is very old, but it was tidy and I did see someone clean it on Saturday morning.

We toured the caverns on Saturday at 10am with a small group and enjoyed the tour. Tours are discounted for campers. The tour didn’t include so much geological information as it was about rocks shaped as animals, etc. It would have been cool to learn more about the history and sciency stuff. Something really interesting about the history to me was that the caverns were basically blasted out and excavated by Boy Scouts in the 50s. Seriously. With dynamite. 

The caverns have steep stairs that can be muddy and wet. Lots and lots of steps, so definitely not an activity for folks with mobility issues. Children might struggle too. 

The park is kind of near a highway and I could hear cars in the evening and at night. 

Cell phone reception was fine. 

Temps were low 50s in overnight and bugs were only an issue around dusk. (This was in late April).

Because the campground is so small, primitive camping area is close to camper parking lot, so there was a little camper community close by but that didn’t bother us. 

Rickwood Caverns is a low frills place for tent camping for beginner campers. The caverns might be fun to tour again in December when they have their Christmas lights up.

I'm updating my review from 2 stars to one because not only are these the world's tiniest campsites with no buffer between you and next site, they apparently have no limits as to how many people, vehicles, or tents are allowed on one site. The tiny site 5 feet from my camper had 6 vehicles last night blocking the road so I could not even get to my site. They have 8 people a pop up camper and tent all encroaching on what little space I had. The other side of me has now set up two tents on my site. Horrible. Alabama state parks should be ashamed of themselves. What a rip off.

The park itself is fine but these are the tiniest campsites I've ever seen in a State Park, worse than an RV park even. When I am at the back of my camper cooking, I am literally 2 feet from the campers in the next site sitting at their picnic table having dinner. It is beyond awkward. Zero privacy and sites are about 10 feet wide with no space/buffer between sites. It's essentially just a parking lot with hook ups.