Salt Fork State Park
Megan M.
Reviewed Aug. 16, 2021

Typical State Park

The park itself is huge with many hiking trails, a huge lake with unlimited horsepower (bad for kayaks), an interesting historical museum, a cave overhang and lots of Bigfoot lore. 

The campground is average for an Ohio State Park- think huge, exposed fields with no tree cover, and hundreds of RVs parked 12 feet apart. The sites are tiny and exposed, and the main campground is constant chaos in the summer. Think 6-10 dogs surrounding your site and barking all at once, all night long. 8-15 children on bikes going back and forth, mostly on training wheels (NOISY!), screaming from your driveway from 7am to 10pm. Adults who think it is appropriate to yell at full volume to people ten feet away, all day and all night long. Parents who scream at their children from four feet away. You get it- the opposite of peaceful. I left a day early, I was so frazzled by the five dogs across from me barking at each other all day and all night (they were all at the SAME SITE. Why did they bark at each other? Why did no one stop them?) and all the yelling people. Insanity. 

I drove by the primitive site and it looked much more peaceful, but it was also a big grassy lot with the tent spaces side by side, maybe 18 feet apart. Not sure if they were sloped or not. Note it is a long drive from the primitive site to the shower houses, and this site has pit toilets. 

The bathrooms in the main campground were average- not clean but not disgusting, so that's a plus. 

This park has a reputation for having a party atmosphere and I didn't observe that from my site, but when I was in the nature center, this dude walked in and he was one of the drunkest people I have ever seen in my life. Don't get me wrong: I drink a lot, I've experienced a lot of drinking environments, but this dude was HAMMERED. He followed me all around the nature center, wouldn't leave me alone, and the ranger just asked him if he was feeling ok. I shudder to think that this dude was driving a boat- he would have killed someone. But this isn't the park's fault, just note that I think that there is a big party atmosphere on this lake and take caution.

In all, I would try the primitive site to see if that's better, but I'll never camp in the main campground again. There are other campgrounds nearby that are probably more peaceful than this one.

SiteC07
Month of VisitSeptember