Best Tent Camping near Barboursville, WV

This is a strange campground, but not a bad one. It is minutes away from downtown Point Pleasant. I had spent the afternoon exploring the town and didn't feel like driving further. There aren't many campgrounds nearby, so this place came to the rescue.

The park's main feature is a lake that looks to be artificial. Maybe an old gravel quarry? The terrain around the lake is nicely landscaped. There is a paved path along the shore, along with picnic tables and shelters. Kayak rentals are available and the lake is stocked with fish.

Most of the campground is RV focused, but I stayed at a primitive tent site. These are located closer to the entrance. There are no site numbers. Just pull your car up onto the grass and set up wherever. A few picnic tables and electrical outlets are spaced out along the road. There were a few other campers here when I visited, but there was enough room for us to maintain good separation. No shade trees or shrubs for privacy, though.

This is not a particularly quiet or restful campground. The day use area around the lake was hopping, with people coming and going well into the night. No closing time, or just not enforced? Not sure. Having so much traffic was a little uncomfortable from a safety standpoint, but nothing untoward happened while I was there. There was also quite a bit of noise from the nearby road and railroad.

The biggest problem with this campground was the bathroom. It was one of the worst I've seen. It may very well have been cleaned recently, but it was so dark and dingy that I couldn't tell. No windows and just a single bare incandescent bulb for illumination. Reminded me of a gas station toilet. The sink barely drained, the toilet barely flushed, and the urinal looked like it was about to fall off the wall. I have used vault toilets that were much, much nicer than this. I found myself wishing for one of those. Gross.

There is only one other bathroom located closer to the RV area, and this looked to be just as bad. To be clear, there are only two single occupancy men's rooms for the ENTIRE campground. Yes, there are a few porta potties scattered around as well, but this is ridiculous. This place needs to invest in better facilities.

Camping: As far as camping goes there’s a little variety. On top of the hill there is camper sites with full hook ups which is actually quite spacious and spaced out from other sites compared to other campgrounds, but some sites are better than others of course. There is also primitive tent camping on top of the hill, but appeared slightly cramped. In my opinion the best sites are the boat in tent camping sites down the hill by the lake. The sites also run along a gravel rode that can be used to hike in. All sites throughout have fine gravel pad, picnic table, a fire ring and access to numerous bathrooms of which have a compost toilet and running water for the sink. Camp staff will deliver ice or firewood to any site if requested. Extras: The main attraction is the lake of course which is quite clean for swimming, boating or fishing, but can be a little busy at times. There are a few hiking trails near by, but I wouldn’t come here for that. There is a golf course and I did notice, but didn’t get to check out, there is a place called The Cove at Yatesville lake that has a beach for swimming with climbable inflatables in the water, kayak rentals and among other things. Conclusion: A great local place to have fun on a lake, but not somewhere I’d travel an extended distance to see.

Negatives: This campground is pretty hilly. Many of the spots don't have a great space for a tent. The flattest spots are in the middle of the circle with an open field behind them (but then you won't have any privacy or tree coverage). Even the RV camping on the inside of the loop across from us had its front tires suspended about a foot in the air to make it level though. Considering the flat spots are very limited, I don't think its a great tent campground and geared more towards RVs. One side of the campground runs against a golf course. If you're tent camping over a weekend, be prepared to have golfers tee-ing off next to you beginning at 7am. On Monday morning, be prepared for them to start mowing at 7am. The opposite side of the campground sits against a tree-line and therefore has much better spots. Many of the picnic tables are in pretty rough shape. The ones that have been replaced were done with the metal style that is dipped in plastic and are much sturdier. Likewise, some of the firepits are in pretty bad shape. I'd recommend having a grill grate with you just in case if you cook over the fire like we do. The firewood that is sold at the campground is kept in a shed but it was very wet, there also aren't any options around for buying wood outside the park. The office is supposed to be open until 6pm but one night it was closed earlier and the camp host wasn't on premises all weekend so we were stuck resorting to finding and burning downfall to get dinner cooked. 

The positives: Its a good location and there are plenty of kayaking spots on Grayson Lake. Going to "The Grotto" aka Clifty Falls is a must (4.5 mile round trip). The same boat ramp has a decent place to get in and swim. Lick Falls Loop hike can be done from the campground and was nice (4.5 miles). We also kayaked the Southern portion of Grayson Lake in Laurel Gorge and that was much quieter than the Clifty Falls area. The campground bathrooms were clean. Most of the campsites were a decent size.

This is a very cozy park tucked in between US60 and I64. We are in site 14 and its not quite level, but they were generous with gravel so the drainage is good! No parking in puddles!The staff is great, friendly, upbeat. The gentleman who led us to the site helped us get positioned, and squared up.The site has a patio, bench, picnic table, fire pit, and a huge gas grill. There is more privacy than usual at KOA, pine trees between sites.Well be back! You do have to watch for the entrance, there is a big KOA sign but its not aligned with the actual turn, so be careful.

The night we arrived it was pouring rain. After sleeping in the car to stay dry we explored the park. The park really came alive with the rain, which really made the trip. Water was running over the edges of cliffs and boulders throughout the park into the river that flows through the park. The cave tours were cheap and interesting, although the self guided tour was closed due to flooding. We did the Three Bridge Trail which was moderately challenging but worth the unique geology and natural bridge formations.

The tent campground was quiet but the RV campground was pretty full and lively. At site 110 we struggled to find a flattish spot—the sites closest to the road to the horse campground were much better. The bathrooms were randomly closed one night on a Saturday which was a little annoying. There wasn’t any clear communication of restroom hours.

It was hard to find firewood nearby, we ended up seeing a sign of a guy selling firewood and we called him. It was $23 for 35 logs delivered to the site. This ended up being way more than we needed and we left some behind after giving some out for free to other campers, which was a cool experience.

We left for the day on our second to last day and packed up most of the site in the car as we’d be gone a while. When we came back what we left was gone along with our reservation slip at the site entrance. It seems the rangers took it that we left and now I’m out a water jug.

There was some scavenger hunt race going on too and people would come out of the forest and run through our campsite with no regard to us being right there which was a little odd.

Overall I didn’t know what to expect as an out of stater but had a great time through the weather and all.

This state park was easy to find and we followed our RV GPS and the multiple signage to the golf course and campground(CG) area. Check in was a breeze at the gate and we headed in to find back-in site 30 with electric(50/30 AMP) and water. We were in a small cul de sac that we had to go through a tight spot with trees to get to, but had no issues getting our 39’ 5th wheel through. Once in the cul de sac, it was wide open and we easily backed into the 48’ asphalt pad(per reservation info on site lengths that seemed accurate). As we have a F450, we had to disconnect to get out of the road but the CG had no issues with you parking on the grass. We noticed that multiple campers didn’t even park on the asphalt site pad and instead moved their rigs onto the grass using the pad like a driveway. There are no FHUs. The electric was placed towards the center of the pad and worked well. The water spigots for 30 and 31 were located together and were on our door side so I needed to run about 35’ of hose going under the rig to connect. Water pressure was pretty good at around 42 psi. We got 4 bars on Verizon and a handful of OTA channels, but no major networks. We had a clear shot to the southern sky, as did the other cul de sac sites, for satellite but did not use our dish. The main CG has more tree cover so satellite service could be iffy depending on your site selection. Not all sites in this park are level with some having steep slopes. As far as bigger rigs, being able to back past the asphalt pad is a plus. The longest site in the park seemed to be pull through 50, which was also spacious but with some slope. Our site was spacious out the back and utilities side with 31 being nearby. During the weekend we got foot traffic directly through our site versus using the cut grass path on the back of our site that leads to the water. Sadly it was a mix of kids and grownups. There was about 1/2 mix of RV and tent campers. The partiers were up near the bathhouse and playground but were respectful of quiet hours. We did enjoy walking our dogs around the CG and trails. On one hike, we went down the cut grass swath behind us to the trail along the water and went right. This steep little winding trail brought us right back up to our area of the CG about 150 yards away. That trail is not one of the park’s formal trails but at the end linked to the Heritage trail where it ends near our loop. So we went up by the gate where the formal trails, Lick Falls and Heritage start as they are better trails. The dump station sits where the road coming into and out of the CG intersect, so when we got in line to dump around 11:00 AM vehicles were trying to get around the dumpers. If you plan to depart or leave or come back into the CG on Sunday, plan accordingly. We really enjoyed our 3 day stay and plan to come back during the week to kayak and again play the golf course.