Clinton State Park

Stayed from Friday 6/30 to Thursday 7/6. When left I thought I would not be back. Then reflecting on stay. Decided to give it another visit later in the month. Issues with this visit. Most bathrooms and showers were not kept clean. Too many were closed. Was told by other campers that full hook up’s (sewer, water and electric) was only available to volunteers. As I walked around Coneflower site. Found that to be true. Not sure what the volunteers do there. The bugs were horrible ( not the parks fault) just an observation. Was not able to have a fire due to not having a fire pit. Cell service another issue. To get to the beach. Was not all age accessible. Could not imagine being a senior and being able to enjoy the long hike down and back up from the parking lot. Will still go back and give it a second try to see if I eliminate it off my list. Did walk the site and mark which site would be worth reserving.

BAAAD mid August visit. Lots of seeming residential RVs that appear to be volunteers but I NEVER saw anybody working or even cleaning sites, it felt weird. Our site had cig butts, trash and food bits everywhere... gross. The weekend lake party RVers could do whatever they want in there sites, just no ranger or host control at all. Little kids playing unsupervised, sites with like 8+ cars in them, almost NO campsite access to trail system, no good dog access to the water, dirty bathrooms that had not been cleaned well in a whilke and bugs Bugs BUGS!!! We left a week early because of the 100s of thousands of gnats. They were EVERYWHERE!!! In our ears, nose, car, storage, trailer, clothes, bathroom, etc. It was horrible... visit at your own risk in summer.

Easy access to Lawrence is the only positive thing I can say. Beware some gps directions send you down a gravel road that does NOT go to the park.

We stayed a week at Clinton State Park’s campground at site 92 in the middle of July with our two dogs.

Pros:
The park itself is very big so the sites were pretty big which is always a big plus. Sites come with a picnic table and a fairly large fire ring which we unfortunately never got to enjoy because we were here during a heat wave (100+ almost every day).
The park is also at a lake so there’s a beach access area where you can go and swim or just sit by the very large lake. There’s also a marina and boat ramps for anyone who has a boat, which we sadly did not.
Of course, it’s important to mention this was one of the most affordable places we’ve ever stayed, granted, it was with a non sewer site but still.

Cons:
The check-in situation was not very good. We received our site number upon reservation but we didn’t receive any instructions on when and where to check-in or if anyone would even be there to check us in. We also weren’t aware we’d have to pay for a parking pass for both our RV and towed vehicle which is normally $5/day but since we were there 7 days they gave us the annual passes which came out to $50 total for both vehicles.
This one obviously most likely just has to do with the time of year we were here and it’s out of the park’s control but there were SO MANY BUGS especially at night. We hung our outside string lights like normal and, as you’ll see in the photos, they were absolutely swarmed with bugs. We’ve never seen so many bugs in one place, not even close.
We also, as mentioned above, stayed at a W/E only site in the Prairie Clover Campground and each campground only has one dump station (2 total for the whole park) and the one for ours was closed for construction, which we were not made aware of, so we had to drive a pretty good distance to take our honey pot to the only one that was open.
The bathrooms/showers were extremely hot because of no ventilation, had a lot of bugs, and the showers only give you one temperature and one pressure level, neither of which were great, and the lights in both are on a sensor and they went off within about 5 minutes of being in there and no matter how much you motioned it wouldn’t come back on so you’re stuck showering in the dark.
Lastly, our Verizon service wasn’t very good, only about 2 bars of LTE. We both work full time remotely so this was concerning but luckily with our jet pack connected to an antenna we were able to get around 3 bars of LTE which was enough for us to work off of.

Overall:
This is a nice, affordable state park/campground overall, not exactly the prettiest but it’s big and offers big sites and a large lake you can enjoy. It would have been much more enjoyable to stay during a cooler time of the year when there wasn’t so many bugs and on a site that had sewer (a non sewer site was our choice to be fair) so you didn’t have to worry about the dump station situation. Also not having wi-fi or great phone service was inconvenient but we had enough to make it work. We don’t plan to spend a whole lot of time in Kansas but if we came back through anytime that’s not spring or summer we’d definitely consider staying here again.

First impressions: signs are needed to show you where to find your site. I stopped at the camp host site to find where to go and was immediately accosted by the law enforcement who told me where NOT to put the camper (if I can’t pull over, then where?), not “can I point you to where your site is” or “are you okay?”. He was full of attitude.
For the nice scenery, I was able to somewhat overlook the outdated table and fire pit at our site. The gravel site was clean and level. The little walkway (well lit at night) went through our site and so did those hiking… Sure, I might come back again but find another spot.

Stayed here passing thru KS on a pretty cold night. Plug in and water were available at the site. It was an open grassland type site. Woke, opened the blind by the bed and saw a fox catch a mouse right outside the window. Also saw a rough legged hawk hunting. Saw deer and rabbits and many small birds, dark eyed junco I believe. I’d definitely stay here in winter again. I think it might lack elbow room and wildlife in summer when it’s full.

This was a quiet campground close to Lawrence with level sites and good spacing. There was easy access to nice walking trails near the lake. We struggled with internet connectivity resulting in us having to move again sooner. Verizon was averaging 6 or 7 down and less than 1 up. AT&T was hit (22 down) or miss (none at all). There was a $5/day vehicle charge for our toad and a $5/day vehicle for our Class C in addition to the site fee, which was odd.

Clinton SP is a large sprawling CG offering lots of roomy, quiet campsites. While we enjoyed our campsite once we were in it, our site was fairly unlevel and had a low hanging tree that made our arrival trickier than we’d hoped. Otherwise our 50amp and water worked fine throughout our stay, and the park has 2 easy to access dump sites that were never busy.
Clinton offers tent sites, 30apm/water, and 50amp/water ($23 a night plus a $2.75 booking fee), and in addition to the nightly fee, there is a $5 a day park entrance fee for those of us without a KS State Park Pass. Sites are very natural (what you hope for in a state park) and offer plenty of privacy, and while they are generally big rig friendly, they also obviously vary in shape and ease of access. Clinton SP is conveniently located off the highway, and relatively close to town. We were in CG 3, which meant we were about 2 miles from the park entrance, so when we Ubered downtown, we drove to the office and parked there to meet our driver there. Verizon worked fine during our stay without the booster, and check-in at the office was quick and easy with kind helpful park staff.

Unfortunately this has become the norm on state side. Clouds and clouds of some nat like bug so bad it’s hard to even take a walk and depending on the day impossible to sit outside. It was the same way here last year as well during summer months. Spiders also were worse here than any of the other 24 states and over a year worth of solid traveling. I’m not sure why this would be the case in a state that gets hard freezes compared to other places we have been like Texas, Arkansas, Florida etc. I would avoid state side and go to Bloomington on the other side of the lake where there are far less bugs. Also slots on state side are just gravel.