Caddo Lake State Park Campground

PROS
Saved $42 With TX STATE PARK PASS
No fee to reserve online.
No sales tax.
Upon arriving at Site 23, we had no power at the pedestal. Called Park Headquarters and 2 park personnel were at our site in 10 minutes and resolved problem
Site 23 level asphalt
Site 23 partial shade
Aluminum picnic table, 2 hook lantern pole and metal fire pit with cooking grate
Donation firewood available
Soap and hand dryer in toilet/shower facility
3 bars TMOBILE when not storming

CONS
No overnight security gate closure
Site 23 was 1/3 covered with poison oak and remaining living area covered with tall weeds.
Some highway noises.
Two PARK HOSTS occupy sites in Woodpecker Hollow. That reduces full hook up sites to 6. One of those sites were used as a temporary dump station due to out-of-service park dump station
Woodpecker Hollow toilet/shower facility needs some deep cleaning
Most pets we saw were NOT on leash
No privacy from surrounding campsites
No ranger drive thru Woodpecker Hollow
11 windows in Woodpecker Hollow women’s toilet/shower Only 4 open. Floors were continuously wet and slippery. What a mess! This place needs a fan or two.

We love camping in this park. The pull through sites in the full hookup loop are the way to go. Large private sites with forest views. We've been here twice now and enjoy just taking it easy and enjoying the peacefulness of the park. We enjoy walking down to the pier and seeing all the Spanish moss covered cypress trees in the water. It would be fun to rent a canoe here as well and the prices looked reasonable. The price for camping is good and even better using the Texas state parks pass we had. We'd come here again!

We drove into the park in the evening, so we planned the next day to go kayaking (along with a picnic lunch). There are two places to drop in, but I definitely recommend to drop your kayak (or canoe) at Mill Pond. You can also rent canoes there (sorry, didn't check on fees) and there were plenty when we went there (then again it's January).

The park itself seemed nice and well-maintained. The one bathhouse we went into was stocked and clean. We stayed on a small "culdesac" of the campsites. Unfortunately, they were pretty close to the road and we heard quite a bit of road noise (engine braking, etc.) throughout both nights. We definitely cranked up our white noise during our stay.

On our way out, we used their dump station. The area to dump was angled heavily which caused us not to be able to fully empty our tanks.

If you're interested in more (including videos) of this trip and our other exursions, check out: https://www.joslynjourney/e108

We stayed here 2 nights in June 2022 in a travel trailer in the Squirrel Haven loop. It is a beautiful, unique, & interesting park. The well- maintained, level sites are spaced out nicely with plenty of tall trees in between. Of course the highlight is the Saw Mill Pond nearby which leads to the Big Cypress Bayou, which leads to the HUGE Caddo Lake. It's easy & fun to paddle a state park rental canoe around the photo-worthy pond, then on down the bayou. We also enjoyed paddling our 1 person kayak as well. I recommend the Caddo Forest Trail with interpretive signs. Don't miss the state park visitors center where you check-in. It's small but packs in a lot of good information. For an interesting historical perspective of the entire area, visit the nearby Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge. It's not that scenic, but the visitor's center tells the amazing story of the huge munitions plant once located there & how the land is being returned to nature. The only reason I give 4 stars instead of 5 is because the restrooms are not cleaned as well as one would want. But overall it's great & definitely a worthy destination.

This is a nice campground to camp among large pine trees. I prefer a view of a lake and there is not one in Amarillo run at least. The restroom which is not very nearby is very clean and new. Lots of good cell signal and we picked up over eight channels with a small HD antenna. There’s a family dollar really close by for forgotten items. Our site had a super level pad.

Great TX State Park. The only reason this isn't 5 stars was the end of the loop we were on (Armadillo Run) was somewhat close to the road that you turn off to enter the park - occasional loud trucks. But otherwise, perfect sites, beautiful natural setting, nice early hiking trails (it's fairly easy to take them all in within an hour or so of steady walking), and canoe rental to explore the cypress lake. $15 nightly fee plus $8 online reservation fee, but otherwise no daily entry fee or extra car fee. I wasn't able to measure AT&T speed but T-Mobile 5G was 241 down/72 up.

This was a stop on the way somewhere else for us. We stayed 2 nights but were all recovering from a stomach bug so we mainly rested but it really is a beautiful spot and we’ll be back.
We have a state park pass and a spot with elec and water was $23 for 2 nights.

Now for the GPS warning. We were headed south on 59 and our GPS had us get off 59 way before Marshall and go some crazy back way to get there. The roads were fine, but there were no signs indicating we were getting close to the park. Nothing wrong with that except our GPS then led us past the entrance and we didn’t see it so we missed it and it was pretty difficult to find somewhere to turn around.

As photographers, we wanted a picturesque location to shoot photos after a long haul from Florida. I had seen some beautiful photos on line and decided that we should stay and photograph the cypress trees in the morning. I made same day reservations online for a full service campsite. We pulled in at night and had a great night sleep in spite of the frog sounds. There was a light rain in the morning but it stopped long enough for us to use the showers. I used the family one which was large but quite wet throughout. The tiles on the walls were stained with mildew but I imagine that is to be expected since we are surrounded by a pond and bayou. After our showers we headed to the dock for photos. There were several families already paddling around in the aluminum boats provided by the park. We spent a couple of hours taking photos of the moss covered cypress trees in the pond. It was beautiful.

Although it dates from the 1930's, Caddo Lake SP has the most updated infrastructure of the many Texas SP's that we have visited. New asphalt park roads and site pads, like-new restroom and shower facilities, good road and camping signage, etc. The main attraction of course is the beautiful Caddo Lake and its spectacular cypress, pine and hardwood forest. Get a good view of the forest on the easy, well marked, but short, hiking trails. (Take the driving tour of nearby Caddo Lake NWR to get a broader look at the lake if you have the time.) RV sites in the Woodpecker Hollow camping area are level, pull-through, FHU, nicely spaced. We spent 4 January nights in #21 and were treated to a rare overnight 2" snowfall. Nights were seasonably chilly, but the days were mild and clear. Didn't see any 'gators, but did manage to photograph the elusive, for me at least, Pileated Woodpecker. The only negative to our visit was that traffic noise was noticeable whenever we were outside. This could be a bigger problem in Armadillo Run which is nearer high speed truck traffic on Hwy 43. Probably less so in summer, when the vegetation is very dense.