Greenbelt Park Campground

First, I will acknowledge up front that this was a very tough couple of years for Greenbelt Park. This past summer in particular was bad, as a bad windstorm blew over hundreds of trees and made campsites and trails inaccessible. A water main break in the early fall didn’t help matters. The campground reopened Sept. 30th; we stayed from that day until Oct. 2nd. We shouldn’t have bothered: this campground was not ready to be reopened. As we drove to our site, we saw many sites that were not yet cleared of trees, limbs, and branches and yet were available. We spent half an hour clearing our site from debris. The restrooms were old and poorly maintained - the lady’s room had 3 dirty stalls, one with no door and the other with no lock. Shower was decent, with good hot water - but there were only 2 shower stalls per loop. The storm damage is forgivable, under the circumstances, but really the bath house conditions were inexcusable. I know the site only cost us $10 a night - but I’m not sure this was any bargain!

We enjoyed two quiet nights here. The park is an oasis of nature just inside of the DC beltway, nice trails and a good staging area to go see our nations capital. Beware of some low branches on the main drive of the park headed to the campground. Our rig is 10'9" and we almost hit some small branches. Nothing that would cause too much damage but may leave some scratches. We were on B loop and the bath house was pretty clean with nice hot showers, dumpster for trash and a couple potable water stations (one was not working).

The sites have picnic tables and fire rings and are paved. I would say none of the sites are completely level but here's a list of sites that are "closer" to level than the others...sites 44, 46, 48, 50, & 78, I will add pictures of these sites to my review. We also walked around D loop, we noticed most of those sites were not level either, some not even close. It would have been nice if they tried to improve the levelness of the sites when they repaved in 2020. To me this is the biggest problem with this campground.

Based on the review mentioning sites on level, I took a chance and arrive without a reservation after seeing plenty of spots open on Recreation.gov. Site 80, 79 and 78 we're plenty level and I'd say about 30 ft long. The row with 37 to 57 (see map) had a steep incline so beware. Bathrooms and showers were clean and there were plenty of water faucets. Great trails to walk on.

Was closed for main road and reconstruction of bridges. Reopened Nov. 1, 2021. Cashless park so reserve at recreation.gov. Not big rig friendly. Longest spots are in D loop and allow a TOTAL length of 35 feet. B loop allows up to 30 feet TOTAL. If you feel comfortable arriving at campground without reservation, do so as many sites are unlevel and you might prefer another site once you get there. Reserve after you pick your best site option… again, only if you feel comfortable arriving without a prior reservation. Dry camping only but water avail throughout park in many places. C loop is closed. A loop is for scouts and organized groups only.

We were supposed to get a pull through but ended up with a back up spot which is no big deal. The bathrooms were not maintained well. There was a lot of brush and briars around the site. I found two ticks on my legs and have been diagnosed with Lyme's disease. I have caught it early on and I hope I will not have the long term effects.

I would insure you have plenty of protection. They really need to weedeat the area and spray.

The Metro station is close. The ranger suggested the walk but I was told by several campers that it is about 30 minutes. I would drive rather than walk and pay the daily parking fee at the Metro station. After walking DC all day it is well worth it.

We would camp here again but we will make sure we look out for ticks etc. Make sure you have shower shoes.

There is a lot of traffic noise being so close to town. Bring ear plugs for a better nights rest.

Overall we had a decent experience here. The camp hosts were friendly which is what made our stay enjoyable. The campground is beautiful and pretty quiet.

The bathrooms are sub-par and not cleaned regularly. Plan on wearing sandals into the shower and a smelly, dirty bathroom. This is a real bummer when you are dry camping with no hookups!

The roads are very poorly maintained with lots of potholes. Makes driving and parking campers a bit difficult and uncomfortable. The entire campground is in serious need of ripping out the roads, grading, and RE-paving.

Generally, it looks like most sites are not level or graded properly. Our site was in their system as “level” but our leveling system couldn’t lift the back end up high enough to get us level front-to-back. Even with a 2x4 under the rear levelers, we can’t get level. Many of the sites are parallel to the road and right on the side of the road...we are glad we didn’t get one of those sites and probably would have insisted on moving, or just left altogether if we got stuck with that.

Access to the campground is fine. It’s a 1.7mile road off the Main Street and the road is windy and paved OK but still bumpy and needs repair. Lots of potholes on the drive in.

Location-wise can be a bit deceiving. It’s technically only 16 miles from downtown Washington DC, but with the freeways you have to take, it’s easily a 45 minute drive each way. There is a Metro station (Greenbelt) only 7 minutes away and it’s a 25 minute train ride into the city. This is a great convenience, but make sure to add this to your budget! Parking is $9/day during the week and then you’ll want to budget for your metro costs each way also. Generally it cost us about $10 per person, round trip, each day, in metro fees.

The dump station is pretty far away from loop B, so it’s a bit of a drive for us and a very bumpy road to get down there.

We heard they are doing major renovations later this year and hopefully they will address these issues

We really enjoyed our stay here. We got a site in the D loop which is the best area if you want to get some sun for solar. Sites D138 thru D145 are in a some what open area with sun. Most of them are pretty level sites, but they are close together.

I saw some bad reviews on this place, but we thought it was nice. Clean campgrounds and bathrooms. Showers were decent. Dump station was fine with plenty of water spigots to fill up at around the park. Cell reception was pretty good as well. It is also close to the subway in Campus Park. It is about a 10 minute drive to the subway depending on traffic, or a little over a mile walk from the D loop. There is a convenient trail, the "Metro trail," that you can take from the D loop and will pop you out right by Campus Drive, from there it is .8 miles to the station. If you do drive its only $5.75 to park all day. From there you can ride the subway to D.C. in about 30 minutes.

The park itself was really nice this time of year. It was not very busy and really pretty with the changing of the leaves. There are a few trails located in the park. I did the 5.6 mile perimeter trail. You are guaranteed to see some birds and deer anywhere you go in this park. There is some distant road noise due to the park being surrounded by busy roads, but nothing to bad.

Good: cheap; $10 with senior pass. Close to Metro stops. We parked our 25’ motorhome at the Greenbelt station and took the train into DC. Not so good: poorly maintained park. Filthy bathrooms, like a year’s worth of spider webs filthy, but the water is hot. We went to the dump station only to find it overflowing, which is a first for us at any park of any type we’ve ever visited. They closed it later that day. Several closed sites due to tree hazards and generally crappy conditions. Must reserve ahead or I suppose you could drive in (there’s no entrance fee) and look around and then reserve online or via phone. In loop B anyway, go for a site inside the circle since many of the outer ones are sloped. We had excellent Verizon coverage.

Pretty big park with lots of open sites even with loops closed (late September). Generators running until 10p and started up again before 8am. Bathrooms were in need of cleaning but everything was functioning. We needed cell service for work and some sites were too low for a good signal. Cell coverage worked better for us in the 130 sites.