Chewalla Lake Recreation Area

It's been a couple years since we stayed here, but after reading other reviews I decided to put in my two cents worth. When I made the reservations for a stopover on our way to Arkansas in June 2018 I thought this would be a perfect location. Locationwise, near the interstate is the only plus I can give it. The site was described as full hook-ups, it was water/30 amp elec only. The roads inside the park were overhung with branches that required dodging. The park host site looked like a permanent resident at a decades old trailer park, and the bathhouse wasn't much better. And to top it off, when we were leaving the next morning, the dump station was unusable due to standing water. Unknown if this was due to rain or overflow, I didn't bother to find out. I was so dissatisfied that I cancelled the reservation for our return trip.

We have camped at Chewalla a couple times a year for the past 4 years. We had always enjoyed it, mainly due to it being only an hour drive from our home and it was nice to not be in a crowded park. However, a very scary thing happened during our 9/2018 visit. We were the only RV, but there were a few tent campers nearby. At 3 am one morning, we had a knock on our RV door. We did NOT open the door, but we were able to hear the men yell at us. They said they needed to borrow a lighter-??? We told them to leave and that we were calling the cops. They left in their car and we were able to see them drive out of the park. We left for home immediately and came back the next day to get the RV. I did phone the police as well as the Mississippi parks staff. Recreation.gov issued a refund. The park is very remote and it’s always deserted. Turns out this is NOT a good thing. No patrols from rangers, and no park staff to speak of. They do have quite a few locals there for day use of the lake and shelters, but I wouldn’t recommend camping AT ALL.

We booked a site here, sight unseen as an over night stop in late May 2018. Arrived about 5pm and found the park basically deserted. The "camp host" trailer appeared to have been there a long time with a deck built around it. Very cluttered. Never saw the host or any other staff. There was a gentleman cutting grass but he never made eye contact.

As I parked my wife checked out the bath house, she came straight out stating she would not use it under any circumstance. We opted to drive another 4 hours than stay here.

Recreation.gov was nice enough to refund our money.

This was a very quiet Haven in the woods. We would have stayed longer if we could have had more sunshine for our solar power. Also, because of the trees, television services were patchy and there was no cell service. Despite the lakeside location, RV campsites have minimal lake views. The speed bumps were quite high and caused potential damage to our trailer contents, even at walking speed.
Apart from those issues, the back in campsites are quite long and far enough from neighbors to make campers feel that they have enough privacy at each site