Withlacoochee SF/Croom Tract - Crooked River - Silver Lake Rec

Boring and crowded full of retirees.

My boyfriend, myself, and 3 kids (7-8y/o) spent 4th of July weekend here and LOVED it! He has camped a few times, but for the rest of us, this was our first time!

The spacious, private campsites were a plus. It truly felt like we were camping alone in the forest and the kids loved getting to explore. The walk to the river from our site was so worth it. We loved exploring the trail and then letting the kids play in the water while we tried to catch some bass... no luck there. But we should have known. The kids really loved cooling off in the river and catching frogs, they all agree that this was there favorite part. We didn’t see any gators, which was disappointing but I’ll survive.

We will definitely be back to camp here again! We even wrote down our favorite sites with close walks to the river. 62-64!

We had site 74 and really enjoyed it. It was huge and secluded! Our kids were able to run around and be noisy and we weren’t worried about annoying our neighbors. My only “complaints” are that it flooded very quickly during the few thunderstorms we experienced and there was some poison ivy in an easy to run into area. Worth noting.

This site is in the Croom Tract of the Withlacoochee State Forest. Lots of wildlife abounds and it’s right along the river with a launch area. Very nice primitive campsites. Very quiet and peaceful. Site has a picnic table, fire pit with grill rack or grate.  There is an old but packed dirt road to the sites. Also connects to hiking trails in the Croom Tract. Also near many other Forest camp areas, trails, and launch sites. So many options available for nature fun. We enjoyed a group paddle down the river for a few hours. We shuttled some cars down that way so we could paddle far down and ride back. And have a lunch at the campsite afterwards. Perfect area for this. Got to say it was nice to have a clean bath house with showers!