Lisa S.

Kingfield, ME

Joined September 2020

Retired full time camper.

Well managed family campground

Camper van off the grid. Large site with privacy, but not many campers early season New bath house with multiple shower rooms. Wonderful hiking trails. Pond for fishing & swimming. Kiddie pond, children’s playground, Deli across the street is poorly managed but OK for a sandwich. Beautiful surrounding countryside.

Frisco Campground A++

Apríl 19 to May 3,2021 Camper Van Each one of us is different, but for me after 10 months of camping this was hands down my best experience. Most, but not all, camp sites are attractive and afford privacy. Some have oceán views so choose carefully Walk to beach is an easy 1/2 mile mostly on the boardwalk. The beach is wide and long. Many shells along the high tide line. Many people surf casting for Red Drum. It’s a lovely, friendly scene. The beach is why you come and it doesn’t disappoint. Enjoy! Showers are clean and cold but not freezing. All sites are primitive with picnic table and grill. Water available at bath house. Dump station about 10 miles away. Ferry to Ocracoke Island is free and it runs every hour.

Crowded

Camper van Site 34, Outer loop. Water only
Bathroom clean, but Grade C.
Great walking trails. Just too crowded with sites, especially the inner loop, on top of each other. Lots of kids on bikes. The roads in were no problem.

Amazing Park

Camper Van Excellent Verizon coverage. Water and Electric. Site #100 (best lake front site in Eastern Loop). Direct access to Small beach for swimming from this campsite. Direct access to lake front trail. Bath house clean but grade C.

BeautifulPark

April 11,2021 Van Camper Verizon service good. Propane and laundry available. Site #2. Lake front view. (Sites 1-10 are lakefront view. I like #4 best) Sites are quite close to each other but well landscaped with trees and foliage between. All sites heavily shaded. CLean and well maintained with full hook up.

There are well maintained walking trails around the lake and a big beach and swimming area at one end. Several picnic pavilions, boat and kayak rentals and fishing gear are available.

Bath house was clean but ‘C’ grade. Not enough trash bins. Park location is close to Winn Dixie and Walgreens.

Difficult

Apríl 9,2021 Site #4 Camper Van GPS will not get you there. Go to Middleburg. Take Long Bay Rd. Left on Old Jennings Rd. Follow signs. Picnic table, fire ring, pít toilet. Old campground deep in the woods. Many white spotted ticks. No trails, but miles of unpaved road. I left before first nightfall because Nearby campers having loud, ongoing domestic dispute sent me packing.

Overlooked

Apríl 7 to 9, 2021 I had a Sopchoppy River front site w/ water & electric, picnic table & fire ring, bench swing. Sites are first come, first served. Hot shower. (Ask Camp Host, Tom, for key when He comes by early evening to collect camp fee.) $20 per night. Swim, fish, boat launch, pavilion. Beautifully landscaped, clean campground and facilities. Handicapped accessable. Friendly locals are day users & will engage in conversation about the area if you’re interested. Sopchoppy, pop. 500+, is a little known, out of the way, inland Florida Panhandle location worth visiting.

Too Bad

Apríl 6, 2021 Site:49 Pidock Rd. Remote, secluded, primitive camping Use GPS coordinants but still very Difficult to find w/o assistance from Park Service Office about two miles north of access road. Very pretty site is off a woods road on a river with wetland on two other sides

I have two dogs so worried about gators which are no doubt here.

Too bad that thoughtless,idiot campers left fair amount of used toilet paper and empty cans and bottles a few feet away from the picnic table. Not putting up with that. Booked three nights, stayed one.

Beautiful Well Maintained Huge Park

April 4, 2021 Camper Van Site: Harper #7 Primitive $20 Over 2,000 acres crisscrossed with trails. Interesting replication of the ghost town of Blakeley which disappeared around 1830, but before then it rivaled Mobile in population and economy. Harper loop, where I camped, is at least a mile into the woods and has no hook ups. The sites have picnic tables and fire rings and offer decent privacy. Bath house is 7 minute walk. My shower was cold. Dumpsters near bath house. Staff house nearby. Staff very pleasant and helpful. Wish I could stay more than two nights.

RV park closer to entrance.

Pretty Park

March 30, 2021 Site #65 for three nights. Well maintained park with clean facilities and laundry. (Bring quarters. Nearby Dollar General dispenses them by the roll)
Sites in the circles at end of campground roads offer the most space and privacy with water and electric. Bold Wild hogs came into my site and disturbed my dogs. Hogs stood their ground, and did not back down. Trails for walking and a couple of ponds, one for swimming.

Crammed

Apríl 2, 2021 Van Camper Clean facility. Well maintained grounds. Huge picnic park
Friendly staff. My site #35 is on the outside of the loop and on two levels. I can see the bayou through dense brush and trees. Little to no privacy anywhere in campground. Lots of car traffic, bicycles, dog walkers constantly passing by. Sites literally on top of each other. Walked with dogs to Nature Trail but found it to be closed due to hurricane damage. Lots of activity at the Boat Launch.

Group Campground

I had difficulty booking online so called, and was told this campground is for groups of 15 or more only.

Miles of Beach Camping

Or stay in the small, open campground with picnic tables, fire rings, water and electric hook up and a nearby comfort station. There’s an outside cold water shower and an elevated walkway crossing wetland to the beach.

The birding is absolutely fantastic so come with binoculars. I saw great flocks of Avocets feeding at the waters edge along with Willets, and a variety of sandpipers and terns including Caspian. There’s a paved trail to hike through the wetlands. Bug spray is essential.

Beach camping is available to any vehicle or camper. The upper beach sand is hard packed like a road and it goes for about three miles on the East side and about 10 on the West side.

I can’t say enough about the staff who became dedicated to rescuing me after a major storm dumped three inches of rain in a couple of hours causing an inland pond to overflow cutting a channel through the beach to the Gulf. I was stranded about two miles out in my 2X4 camper van for two delightful days before they brought out the heavy equipment and towed me across the channel and back to the real world.

Gas up in Port Arthur before driving down.

Authentic Charm & Free Camping

Magnolia Beach is a mid-nineteenth century beach front community that offers authentic charm because it has not been gentrified. No high říše condos or pretentious sea side mansions, and no casinos or fancy resorts. There is a large inland estuary for birding and an elevated walk way with an observation deck leading into it. An interesting early history of the originál settlement Has been documented on about 20 plaques sited in the area of the estuary walkway.

There are a number of options for where to park your rig, but all are waterfront and on the beach. The further down the beach side road you drive, the less congested sites become. There are dumpsters but that’s it.

Free Beach Camping

Saturday, March 20,2021 Surfside Beach Access Road #4 Third day here. Temp 72°, light breeze, bright sun.

A couple of other camping rigs in the distance early this morning along with two část fishermen with pickups at water’s edge. My dogs ran free.

I moved up here from Access Road #1 two days ago to get away from people and noise congestion and was successful.

Any vehicle can drive on the upper beach and there is light traffic during the day from beach day users. Late Last night, there were kids doing wheelies in their pick ups and a very loud ATV blasted by around 2:00 AM so if this kind of thing keeps you awake you’ve been forewarned.

You won’t find camping amenities here, just sun, sand, and surf rolling in with waves big enough for light surfing. Apparently, the fishing is pretty good, too.

The Freeport beaches are popular, but clean (I picked up one small bag of trash from around my site. The County came through this morning with a clean up detail of four.) The beach is wide and there are very small Dunes on the up side to camp against. No chance of water encroaching on your campsite.

Love it here.

RV Park in

Feb/March 2021. I did not camp here but used their very clean showers ($10) and laundromat several times while camping in Big Bend Ranch State Park. There is free WiFi and cell service available, which doesn’t exist in the State Park. I also had to have a document printed from my phone, which the camp office personnel was kind enough to do. Every staff person I interacted with was pleasant and helpful.

There is a beautiful and inviting swimming pool with lounge chairs and tables for picnics. Next to the pool area, there’s a large recreation room with TV.

There is a small grocery store (very limited) an easy walk away in Lajitis that also offers simple take out breakfast and lunch.

Maverick Ranch is an excellent place to stay in Lajitis if you have a big rig.

Interesting and Busy

This is an active and protected archeological site. About two or three miles before the park, you will be stopped and questioned regarding your intent. The attendant then radios the park registration desk to inform of your pending arrival. Once registered, you will be sent on to a 10 minute orientation delivered by a volunteer offering lots of information about the park.

The level gravel campsites are spaced well apart and have plenty of natural landscaping for privacy. The sites have cabanas over the picnic tables, nearby trash disposal and on site water and electric are available. The bathrooms with showers are well maintained and clean.

There are many hikes to interesting archeological sites and unique geological formations, but (understandably) dogs are not allowed on those trails. There is, however, a trail that circumvents the park where dogs are allowed. The park has many day visitors who come to hike the well maintained, rocky trails.

My original intent was to spend just one night, but I stayed for three. January, 2021.

Quiet, Views

March 1,2021. Small RV park off Rt. 118 ten minutes south of Alpine. Self check in. All sites have hook ups, some 30 amp others 50 amp priced accordingly. Sites are very close to each other. No water. Could not find a Women’s bathroom, only Men’s and never saw anyone to ask while I was there. No tent sites or sites w/o hook ups. Rough gravel pull through was level and had a few evergreen trees on one side. WiFi weak and unreliable from my site #13. Verizon cell service one bar and unreliable.

With a little investment this could be a very good campground, but currently, it falls short.

Better Than Most RV Parks

I stayed here for two nights during the Texas snow and deep freeze of Feb. 14 to 16, 2021. It was comfortable to be in the company of so many as the park was packed, RV Parks are not my thing so I left on snow covered roads (no snow plows in TX) and drove 80 miles south. The manager called me a few hours after I left sounding in disbelief and to confirm that I had relinquished my spot. I’m from Maine. We have winter and snow covered roads are normal.

ThIS RV Park has all the amenities of a KOA including friendly service, nice dog walk and play area, clean bathroom, and laundry, and spotless grounds beneath the pines. The end of row sites cost an additional $10, but my dogs enjoyed the bonus of a large, private grassy area and a couple of shade trees offered on site A20.

Rio Grande Access

Stayed at Grassy Bank (this is not an “interior primitive site”)off and on over a three weeks period in mid to late Feb. 2021. There are 17 designated sites and several dispersed. All numbered sites are large, offer moderate to total privacy, and all have cabanas, picnic tables, and fire rings. #15 is the only camp site directly on the River. Síť there in total privacy and watch canoers maneuver the little rapids, turtles sunning on River rocks, birds and ducks coming and going and a few hundred feet across in Mexico see three horses and a donkey grazing or javelinas coming to drink at the river’s edge. It’s paradise. There’s a canoe launch or go tubing or take a dip. There are two separate but adjacent very clean pít toilets and plenty of open space to walk the dog.

Cost is $12 pěr day plus $5 park entry fee which unfortunately has to be paid every day you camp. There is no cell service or WiFi. Closest access is seven miles away in Lajitas at the market. The woman Ranger who manages the Bartoň Warnock Center during weekdays where you register should not be dealing with the Public. There’s water and a dump station at the Center.