Chester Woods Park

Chester Woods is a gem 10 miles outside of Rochester, Minnesota. I am writing this in the middle of a 10 day stay.

The sites are well spreadout, mostly gravel, with lots of grass around the pads, picnic tables and fire rings. Firewood is available for sale.

The park is electric hookup only. There is fresh water and a dump station at the entry/exit to the camping area of the park.

Chester Woods has a lake with canoe rentals, fishing and a swim beach. Lots of group picnic areas. A short but nice trail system. Lots and lots of trees!

The wifi is adequate. Bathrooms and showers are well maintained. Interesting point on the showers is that they seem to have a single temperature, that fluctuates between kind of warm and warm.

I wrote earlier in the middle of a 10 day stay. I have a few more items to share. The campground has been quite empty during the week and on Friday night it filled to capacity.

The wifi remains in and out. I think the strenght varies around the campground. If you are working, have a Verizon hotspot backup.

Avoid space 43. It has quite a slope to the passenger side. After the weekend I moved to 41, which is wide and more level. Happy camper!

If you want to be near Rochester, this is a fabulous campground. The sites do not have water, and it would be helpful to have had that hookup for a longer stay like ours. But we knew that, so we can't complain about it. The water spigots are accessible and there are several. The park is clean and well-kept, and there are lots of paved and unpaved trails for walking or biking. Some sites are level and others are not, but at #35 we were able to get our trailer level. It was difficult backing in because of railroad ties on the opposite side of the road. For most of our stay, we had lots of space around us because there was no one in the spot that is super close to us. But on the weekend the campground filled up so we were in close proximity to the nextdoor trailer.

The weather was very stormy here in early June, and we had an emergency announcement over the loudspeaker about the impending storm. We didn't enjoy sitting outside because of the bugs. Every Wednesday morning there is an emergency siren test, so don't be surprised.

My husband enjoyed paddleboarding on the lake, and there were a lot of fishermen (and women) around.

When the folks came to the spot beside us, they came with a crowd. With only about 15' between the trailers, they also had 4 cars, a tent, and we're not sure how many people. The campground went from lovely during the week to claustrophobic as all the spots were taken, many by large groups.

We had very mixed feelings about this campground. On the one hand, it featured nice electric sites with plenty of greenery and lovely trails throughout the park. On the other hand, the site we reserved was comically unlevel, as were several others. We had absolutely zero chance of getting level in our first site, and the second site we tried was just as bad. We finally found a site that, by using all of our leveling blocks, we could level in, but it was a bit much. There are plenty of sites that are ok, but it's a crap-shoot, and the online reservation system provides no information about the levelness of the sites. In fact the online photo of our first site was completely misleading. If we were to stay at the campground again, we'd try calling and getting advice from someone there.

This lovely park is just minutes east of Rochester MN. Electric Hookups avail. Dump station and potable water in the park. Great shade trees, campground hosts were great, they have a beach on a man made reservoir, nice walking trails, kayaks for rent. Bathhouse in the campground could use some deep cleaning/refreshing. Firewood available for purchase. Weekends fill up with local/regional campers. As mentioned earlier sites require a little extra to level but worth it.

We stayed on a Sunday through Wednesday. Very nice campground. The check in process was very simple and the camp hosts were very very friendly. Most sites are not level and require a little extra effort to get the coach in a position where we could get the jacks down. But it was honestly a pretty minimal amount of extra maneuvering. The sites are very spacious. Our neighbors were about 50-60 feet away in each side. There are lots of trees so satellite TV most likely won’t happen here. But there are a ton of local channels that came in great. Cell service is pretty good. Three to four bars of Verizon. We would stay here again.

The Park charges a $5 auto fee daily for each campsite. No senior discounts..

The pretty setting among rolling wooded hills with well spaced sites that have electric with water nearby. Part of a larger popular parks with creeks, small lake with boat rentals and biking trails. There is a dump station with easy access.

They do take reservations here so best make sure they have room during the summer season, especially holidays and weekends.

There is NO shuttle service to the Mayo facilities from here. It is a 20 minute drive and there is paid parking convenient to Mayo facilities.

This c/g is built on a hill, sites are level and most are wooded with hardwood trees. Children's playgrounds are nearby, there is a beach and nture trails.