Dingmans Campground

My husband and I like to stay in public parks (state, national, blm, national forest, city, county,) and boondock at times. We are use to rustic places. This is our first visit to Dingmans Campground. For our eyes, it is a tired campground and needs some TLC and some site work, especially if you are charged $46 a night and it is unclear if your senior pass discount is valid for one night. It says you have to stay two or more nights.

The website says it is under new management of two young men who have fond memories of staying here with their families. I do hope they have the energy and the ability to improve the campsites. I am not sure whose responsibility is to do upgrades to a national park campground - the government or the concessionaire. If it is the national park service, with a recent infusion of money a few years ago, this campground should be high on this list. I spoke to both young men about my observations. Do provide them with constructive thoughts and give them a chance to improve the campground.

1. You now can make a reservation on line, but there are no pictures of the campsites. Nor are there any at the website Campsite Photos. So you are assigned a campsite within a price range. We prefer to pick our own site to suit our needs.

2. The signage for the road names has appeared to be updated but the wording doesn’t match the campground map. Perhaps they are using up old maps, but it made things confusing. There is no signage for campsite numbers at the beginning of the road, which would have helped. We ended up in a loop around and couldn’t move because of another trailer who was at the dump station. We had to wait for him to finish.

3. There are two dump stations. You cannot get by someone who is dumping or pull over to wait your turn. I can’t image what this is like when this campground is busy.

4. The roads are narrow, which might make getting into a site difficult with a trailer if people are in a site across from you.

5. Some sites are narrow and some are spacious. Some are closer to others and others are not. The woods are open. The one thing they all have in common is the uneven ground of rocks and roots. I don’t know what tent campers do. We used the unevenness to our advantage, since we didn’t want to unhook. Walking around one does need to be mindful of roots and rocks.

6. Our trailer is only 9 feet 3 inches tall. Our site had hemlock branches that should be removed since they scraped along our side and top of the trailer as we backed into site #22. Luckily they were flexible and didn’t mar our trailer.

7. There were several signs warning you about having a campground permit, but there wasn’t one left for us.

8. We have Verizon and had no service. There is no wifi for public use at the office. There is an emergency phone outside the campground office.

9. This has been mentioned other posts, but I’ll bring it forward. The electrical and water are near the front of the campsite versus to the rear, since the ground is so rocky and rooted. So bring extra hoses and cords if you have a electrical and water site.

10. The campground is near route 209, so you have road noise during the day and less in the evening.

11. There are two bath and shower buildings that were fresh and tidy. There are only ten to twelve showers for this large campground.

12. We were there on a rainy night over Indigenous Peoples Sunday and there were only a handful of campers. It was very quiet and dark. Based on what I read, this place can be very busy on the weekends and allows large number of people on one site. That can lead to a very noisy campground and probably annoying lights. So keep that in mind if you want to camp on the weekend.

We got rained out earlier in the season further north near Hancock, New York, on the Delaware river. We wanted some more canoe camping time, so we reserved a spot at Dingmans later in the summer. The staff are friendly and helpful. Because we’re retired we could go mid week, and had no trouble finding good and ample spots. The whole campground is well wooded, and therefore shady. There are several river’s-edge tent sites with access to the Delaware. We stayed three nights with some friends a couple sites away and had a great time. We will definitely return. The only downers are nonexistent Wi-Fi (which one of the co-owners said they hope to have within a year), but I try not to check my phone when we’re camping anyway. The other thing was a really funky odor that at first we thought was from the dumpsters across the way, but we found out later it was more likely an animal that had been hit on the road and had died in the brush near the campsite. Can’t really blame that on anybody. The brand new, looking electric/water posts are situated a little closer to the front of the sites than in many campgrounds, but we were able to maneuver our small, fiberglass trailer to reach them and be spotted nicely on our site anyway, so that really was not a problem.

We stopped here on our way to Maine. The campground is nicely wooded, in the Delaware Water Gap Recreation Area. We have an America the Beautiful Senior pass so we got a 50% rate reduction from $44 to $22 which was nice for a site with water and electric.

However- we stopped on a Saturday and this park was very crowded with noisy, rude people who were not wearing masks even though the official policy required that they be worn in the bathrooms. And the bathrooms themselves were filthy and not well maintained. Thankfully we have our own facilities in our trailer.

It would probably be much better on a weekday, because it appears to be a weekend party location for people from nearby New York and New Jersey.
There are sites to accommodate any size rig, but reservations are needed especially on weekends.

It was not a pleasant stay.

Dingman’s Campground is located in the Delaware Gap National Recreation Area, right on the Delaware river, about 25 miles NE of Stroudsburg, PA on US 209.
We had an rv site with water and electric. The daily fee is $44 with a 50% discount if you have an “America the Beautiful” pass. Tent only sites are $ 40.
All the rv sites are in the woods, roads are narrow and some turns were tight with our 28’ trailer in tow. Most sites are level and spacious. Bathrooms are modern, clean and well maintained. We were there in mid September along with only a dozen or so other campers, but were told by park staff it is usually full during the summer season.
Don’t miss the visitor center a few miles west of the campground. There is a boardwalk trail there that meanders through the woods along a mountain stream leading to a very nice waterfall - an easy walk less than a quarter mile.
Food, fuel and fresh baked goods at Arnold’s Country Minimart about 3 miles north on Pa 739.
*WATCH OUT FOR POORLY MARKED SPEED BUMP AT PARK ENTRANCE*