Best Tent Camping near Nelson, WI

Stayed here in a tent while on a bicycle camping trip and it was adequate. It is located in a city park within a couple minutes walk of the downtown area. The bike trail crosses the south end of downtown so close to that too. This would not be a good place to camp if you'd like to be out in nature

Biggest gripe is the slope of the tent sites. The majority of the tent sites are on an incline around a pond. There are also a lot of ducks that aren't very afraid of humans. None got into my gear though. There are fire rings at the tent sites. No picnic tables at the individual sites but there are some nearby in the park and there's also a covered picnic shelter. Hammocks would be difficult to impossible as the tent area is a strip of grass between pond and bluff, which has mostly brush or too whimpy of trees to hang from at the base. There are a couple huge oaks but none in pairs.

Quarter showers and clean restrooms are available. $20/night/tent which seemed a bit steep to me considering how slanted the sites were and quarter showers. It is cheaper than the other places within immediate biking distance which were $25/night.

We are new to tent camping and are fortunate to live a short drive away from Whitewater State Park. We have heard from our friends who go camping that this is a highly sought after destination and I can see why. Beautiful lookouts on trails, quiet camp sites (non electric sites are much more peaceful), and very nice amenities. The main shower/restroom area looks brand new and is very nice.

Most sites are for car camping or RV's. Tent site was nice and clean and a good size. Could have set up 2 tents with no problem. Not a ton of privacy from other campers. Showers/bathrooms available. Lots of hiking trails. Camp store was never open when I checked. Swimming beach was available, but there were geese (and their poop) everywhere. This state park is nice because there are NO mosquitoes. But beware, there are bears.

Small rustic campground with no hookups or electrical sites which is perfect if you are tent camping! Sites are smaller but nice, the outer sites have better privacy with most inner sites backing up to the restrooms. The hiking here is amazing with numerous lookout points to see the river from the bluffs. There are short and long hikes to get to the views, so it’s good for all levels of hiking. Overall this campground has a lot to offer and we will definitely go back!

This is a convenient small campground next to a city park. The touristy shops and biking trails are within a few blocks of the campground. The RV campsites have water and electricity. We found the sites to be rather close together. The sites are first come first served (no reservations). There are also numerous tent sites, as this seems to be popular with the bicycling crowd. This really is a beautiful area of southeast MN.

This is one of my favorite campgrounds in Southern Minnesota! It is only 1 1/2 hours away from the TwinCities which makes it an ideal getaway. The campsites are wooded and have enough distance between them that noise is minimal. I especially love the view of Lake Pepin and the nice little swimming beach. On our last stay, we were able to watch eagles from our campsite, which was amazing. They have recently added 3 small cabins to rent which would be a nice alternative to tent camping. If you do plan a camping trip to Hok-Si-La and you're driving in from the Twin Cities, be sure to take Wisconsin Highway 35 through Maiden Rock, Stockholm, Pepin, and other small towns. You can loop back into Minnesota through Wabasha. This adds about an extra half hour to your drive but it is definitely worth it!

Its nice to have a place this nice only 35 minutes from Rochester. Beautiful campground with great amenities available. The hike to the site is steep but worth it once you get up there. I stayed at the Talia bell tent site so I didn't have to bring much so it made the hike a lot easier. Short drive to White Water State Park. A lot of great trout fishing spots along the river. Very peaceful campground, great view of the stars on clear nights! Will definitely be back.

There is a lot of hiking (the view from the bluffs are amazing) you can rent kayaks canoes etc. and they have a boat landing. No shore fishing or swimming which is disappointing.

The nonelectric sites were a bit small (compared to many state parks I have been too) -especially considering the gravel spot they leave for pop ups - not great to tent camp on and takes up most of the space that is safely far enough from the fire pit.

The bathrooms were decent but quite a hike (which stinks late at night) the showers were clean but I never used them.

However, the bugs and mosquitos were almost unbearable. We fogged the site daily, had thermacells, and coated ourselves in bug spray - still came home completely bit up and trying to play cards at night the constant hum of bugs was a bit much.

Walking distance to downtown and easy access to Root River Trail. RV sites were close to each other with little privacy. Many tent sites around the perimeter. Short walk to bathhouse. Showers are not free, 4 quarters for 5 minutes. No laundry available. Campground is first come/first serve and doesn’t take reservations or online payment. Payment is made at adjacent city office.
Sites are gravel, fairly level. Water and electric available at rv sites.
Nice park nearby with stocked fishing pond. There is some noise due to the park being tucked into the city. Garbage and dump station free for campers. They ask for a donation for dumping if not camped there. Tight access at dump station might make it difficult for larger rigs. Strong Verizon signal.

We ran across a little camp ground called Sleepy Hollow Campground W922 Lower Eagle Valley Road, Fountain City, WI. 54629(609) 687-8351 This is one of the nicest places we have found. It is not marked on RV Trip Wizard or any others that we could find. I found it by accident through Google Maps. It looked like what a campground would look like from the air and by querying the address I found the name of the campground called Sleepy Hollow. They do not advertise and it is a small camp with little amnesties. It has a shower house with restrooms and a laundry. They are clean and well maintained. They have 13 pull through sites 80” in length and very wide with full hook-ups, eight back in sites with just water and Electric. And tent sites as well. It is on a quiet road called Lower Eagle Valley Rd. It is set in a valley with 3 to 4 hundred foot hills full of trails on a working farm. About a mile from the Mississippi just north of lock and dam no. 5A if you are looking for a quiet place to recharge this is the place for you. This is a camping site where there are adults, not designed for kids.

Campsites are beautiful, each one seems to have unique qualities. We stayed in site 42, it didn’t seem to have very much privacy. I was also hoping for a view of the river but I couldn’t see it from the site. We found a dream catcher in the trees, so we made another one to leave. The tent sites along the river are amazing! Each one has a path down to the river. Site 69 has a private beach and it’s deep enough to swim in. For being a stocked river, we didn’t get a single bite all weekend. I only saw 1 person actually catch a single fish. We did a couple trails while we were there. It says Chimney Rock has “over 100 step” I think it’s 199 each way! We tried using the campground’s GPS units but couldn’t figure them out. Others said the same thing. We drove through the newer campground Minneiska, the pictures online made it look bare, but it was beautiful! It was a prairie full of wild flowers! The trees were newer but old enough to still create shade. There was an abundance of staff always driving around yet there was a bathhouse that had clogged up toilets all weekend long. There is also ZERO cell phone reception. Whether that is a plus or a minus, that’s up to you.

First thing you need to know: It's completely in the woods, and sites are FULLY shaded. Sites 28-38 are on a loop with a picnic pavilion in the middle with some openings for sun on the road and in the picnic area. Other than that, the rest of the campground is rather dark all the time; there aren't as many sunlight openings on the road to the other sites. This is not a good place for solar panels, but almost all sites are electric.

Nice price: Cost is $20/$16 for electric/non-electric. This is an Army Corps of Engineers park which means you pay $10/$8 if you have an NPS Lifetime Senior Pass.

Services: There are full services at this campground - flush toilets, sinks, showers, trash receptacles, and drinking water/dump station near the entrance. There is an interpretive center for Saturday evening ranger programs and a playground next to it.

Roomy sites: This campground is small, but almost all sites are large. There are 38 sites plus walk in tent sites A through G and a group site. It looks like sites 28-38 can be rented for a group; the entrance was blocked off when we were there.

Equestrian section may be open to campers without a horse: There is an equestrian campground about a half mile before the main campground entrance. You may camp in the equestrian area (E1-E10) without a horse if the main area is full. We were able to reserve a site in there a couple days ahead of time because the main campground was full. It was just us and one other family on a Saturday night, and neither of us had a horse. We moved to the main area on Sunday morning because lots of sites were open on Sunday.

This campground has two sections, north and south. The southern portion has been closed all summer because of flooding. We stayed in the north section in site 12, which has a small grassy overflow parking lot across from it. The campground is clean and very open. The campsites are arranged on both sides of a circle drive with trees surrounding the circle and some in the middle.

There is a play ground for the kids, but you need to drive or walk about half mile to 3/4 of a mile to it. It is located at the nature center. During our stay, they had a presentation on birds and our boys really enjoyed it. The park also offers a boat landing, which was clean and easily accessible. You could also bring your boat up to a walk-able landing near the north campground, but this is inaccessible by car. This landing did offer a sand beach, but I don't know that I would recommend swimming here because of algae. During our stay we were also plagued by little black flies, but the mosquitoes weren't bad.

The campground offered very clean restroom facilities with both bathrooms and showers at one end, near where we stayed, and at the other end there was a bathroom that offered pit toilets. You are able to tent camp or bring in a pop up camper or larger pull behind. I'm not sure that a large RV would fit in any of the sites, but a small one definitely would. There are specific sites that are reserved only for tents and some sites do offer electrical access. There are no sites with water access, but there are two water access points within the North Campground, one on each end. Roads in the park/campground are paved. The campsites themselves are not paved. They are grassy. There are no additional amenities at this campground.

While the campground itself is quiet and all campers were respectable, the frequency of trains and the loudness of their horns at night was enough to drive me nuts. Every time I was almost asleep another one would go past. I finally moved from our popup camper to our car, which blocked out enough noise to allow me to fall asleep. Because of the trains, we will not be returning to camp here. If you are not able to fall asleep right away or are a light sleeper, I would definitely not recommend staying here.

The rest of the park was quiet and did not have much car traffic. I am not sure if this was due to the fact that the south campground was flooded or if it always has few cars. I was able to run the length of the park without encountering many cars (3.8 miles round trip including running through parking lots in the park). I did not, but you are able to walk through the flooded section of the park. They are just prohibiting people from driving there. Close to fishing, boating, and unique shopping opportunities.

This was an interesting state park, I’m glad we came here for a day trip instead of booking anything for the nicer months. There is basically one trail that goes along the river between the two campgrounds, and that appears to be it.

Most people were there for ice fishing at this time of year, and everyone else was kind of just walking along the road through the campground since there wasn’t much else to do.

I didn’t take any campsite photos since there was still enough snow cover that I couldn’t really tell that the sites were like. Tree cover seemed to be decent for most sites, and some were even along the river. This is cool, but it also means that there is a chance that your site will get flooded out. Besides the lack of trails the biggest deterrent for me camping here is the fact that there is a train track right there. Close enough that I don’t think ear plugs would cut it for me.

We managed to snag the one picnic table by the boat launch, which was very pretty. It was a fine location for a pandemic meetup with my in-laws, but I don’t think we will be returning.

If you are coming this way from the north take time to stop at Nelson creamery and get a baguette and cheese curds. There is also a winery on the way called villa bellezza that has nice wine and flatbreads.

General: There is a main campground and a bonus sites section; we stayed in the Main campground and this review is based on that. There are approximately 90 sites laid out in typical RV park fashion with the sites close together and no physical privacy between sites. 

Site Quality: Sites tend to be very long and could accommodate even large-size Class A rigs. The “driveways” are a mix of grass and gravel and were not very well defined. Each site has a picnic table on a concrete pad. Our site had water and electric hookups. Our challenge was that we arrived after dark, and the site numbers were posted at the back end of the sites, necessitating a sleuthing operation with my flashlight to find our site. Only a few sites had fire rings that I could see. 

Bathhouse: The women’s area had three “all-in-ones” with a toilet, sink, and shower. They were very clean with hooks, soap, and paper towels. The entire bathhouse appeared to be in a state of remodeling, and it wasn’t clear what was going to happen with the remainder of the space (plumbed but not completed when we were there). Did not use the shower so cannot comment on that. 

We arrived after dark and left the next morning but our stay on a Friday in August was quiet except for the loud trains running along the Mississippi. We heard two around 10 pm and either there were no more until the next morning, or we mercifully slept through them! This RV Park is located in the small town of Nelson and accessed through a residential neighborhood. Although not our preferred camp stay, we chose it since we knew we wanted to eat at Stone Barn Pizza (a must if you are in the area!) which is why we arrived after dark!

They have gravel on all there campsites with tents horrible on the tent put a hole inn the bottom of the tent with sharp gravel. I would bring a padded floor with next time.