Ross Prairie Campground

The above rate reflects all of the costs associated with staying here -- the $22 base fee, the absurd $7 "utility fee" which FL State Parks began imposing about a year ago on all sites with hookups at every park, the reservation charge and taxes -- all prorated over the 12 day stay. Pretty pricey for what you are getting here.
The campground itself is OK -- as others here have said, plenty of space, long pull throughs and enough separation for a somewhat private feel. Water and electric at each site, though my water connection -- no matter how many different connectors I tried -- dripped incessantly the entire 12 day stay. Level sites are a mixed bag here as well -- some good, some not so good. Quite a bit of water ponds (especially at site 2) when a large storm comes through. Nice two-lane dump station and the camphosts are pleasant and helpful.
Now the dings. The bathhouse -- while new with spacious and nice showers and stalls -- had no soap dish nor shelf for necessities in one of the showers, leaving one to place shaving kits, soap bars, shampoo and razors on the floor. In addition, in the men's room, the one stall is fabulous (large, with a soap dispenser and its own sink) unfortunately, the paper towel dispenser went empty for the final 9 days of my stay. So, if you wanted to wash your hands, you had no towels to dry them AND the air blower out in the main bathroom area was busted and didn't work at all for the entirety of my stay.
The road noise here is truly awful. Route 200 is unbelievably busy -- almost all the time. At times, it takes forever even to make a right turn out of the campground. Going left? Good luck! Normally, road noise doesn't really bother me but here there are 2 factors which make it really bad. First the road is lined with tall trees on either side which gives it a very loud, "noise tunnel" effect. Secondly, and the most annoying factor, is the fact that the warning grooves cut into the center yellow line and outside white line are very close together, essentially because the grooves on the outer white line were cut right onto the line, rather than to the right. This makes for many, many, many cars hitting these grooves the sound of which is extremely loud. The road literally buzzes all day and night, non-stop. And the campground is, unfortunately, right next to the road.
Finally, it seems some FL State Parks -- Ross Prairie is one of them -- have a silly policy of locking its gates at 7:00PM. Now, I have been to dozens of camps with locked gates, but have never seen anything earlier than 10:00PM for closing time. And the gate, which definitely stops vehicles, would stop no one from walking right into the Park and/or campground. To make matters worse, there is no key pad to unlock the gate. They use a combination lock which holds the two gate arms together. And, campers are required to re-lock the gate after opening it. So, one has to get out upon arrival at the gate, fumble with the combination lock and open it, swing open the arms, move the vehicle thru, then get out and close and lock the gate behind them. Ugh!! I was here visiting numerous family members in the area. It sucked to spend a day or go out for a dinner to return to a locked gate so early. I made certain to do all of my store runs well before 7PM. Not a huge deal, but still, 7:00?

A quirky little place. Probably more of a 3.5. The positive is that the sites, especially around the outside loop, are spaced nicely and private. It’s not a bad drive to Crystal River or Ocala. The bathroom, although not particularly convenient to the sites, is newly remodeled. And there are biking and hiking trails right at the campground. However the layout is somewhat funky and the road noise is bad. I suggest a site as far from the road as possible, 3 seemed like the best site to me. Some sites are fairly unlevel. Also, this is now a Florida state park, but you wouldn’t know it. Seems a bit of an identity crisis between the state park, state forest and greenway that goes by here.

This is a great find for exploring this part of Florida. It is small which keeps it pretty quiet, good spacing between campsites. Trails all around and horses are allowed. Great bathhouse and showers, friendly and helpful staff. We have stayed here and nearby ShangriLa and found both to be nice spots for privacy and natural settings (ShangrinLa doesn’t have hookups but water is available)

We came here specifically to explore the trails along the greenway. The campground itself is rather oddly laid out with all pull-thru sites. We had site 8, and with just a van to fill the space, we had to put out our collapsable cones to keep other campers from using our site as a road to theirs.

Several of the sites on the other side of the campground were rather unlevel, so definitely be careful there. The campground is small, well maintained, has two dump stations and an immaculate bathhouse. Camp hosts are extremely friendly and helpful.

And the trails!! OMG.

They're not well marked at all, but once you figure it out (find the maps online) - there's so much to explore! Just about 2 miles on the twisty trails from the campground you connect in with the new 16-mile paved path that links Ross Prairie to Santos via the land bridge over I-75- and it's simply some of the best biking around (lots of flow and slight hills!) Several dirt trials off the paved bath, and we absolutely loved 'Tricycle' - 8+ miles of easy 'mountain' biking that was simply luscious.

We had no problem with any of our cellular carriers here, all had excellent signal. And there's lots of ammenties nearby for shopping and dining.

We'd definitely return to hit the trials again!

What this campground lacks in on-site amenities it makes up for in site quality. Every space is a large pull thru with plenty of room for slides/awnings. Some sites are more level than others. The best sites are 2-5 (face away from the campground) or site 7 (most space of interior sites).

This campground is extremely convenient to the coast-to-coast greenway. There’s a Walmart 5 minutes away and several chain restaurants in the area.

Bandwidth speeds:
Verizon (iPhone 11): 140mbps down, 15mbps up
AT&T (Pepwave router with external antenna): 50mbps down, 5mbps up

We used this as an overnight stop heading down the Florida peninsula and it was perfect. All sites are long pull-throughs so it was easy to get into our spot and we didn't even need to unhitch. We found the camp host to be friendly and helpful, even though our stay was short. The campground was very quiet the night of our stay (a Thursday night) with mostly RVers (few tents and no horse trailers that we noticed). It's true that there is no foliage separating sites to give any sort of privacy, but we thought the sites on the outer portion of the loop were pretty acceptable. The had enough physical separation from the other sites, and nice views to the surrounding forests, to make them comfortable. We definitely would not enjoy a long term stay in one of the interior spots, but it's no worse than a private RV park and the price and location were perfect for us. We also saw lots of people hiking, so the trails looked attractive.

This is an ok place to spend a night or two if you need activities that are nearby. However, there is absolutely no privacy between sites. Barely any trees. That's the only downside I can see, although it is a pretty big one. That aside, the place is quiet and clean. Also the hosts are super nice. The gate at the front needs to be opened manually with a combination lock, it's not electric. This can be a pain in the cold, the rain, or at night, but it's not horrible. The bathrooms are very clean and have everything you need. Our site (7) is probably one of the closest to the bathrooms/showers. It was also one of the closest to the highway so you do hear the traffic. All the sites here are pull-through so that is convenient. I was afraid there would be horse poop smell since this is equine-friendly but there wasn't at all. Each site has a picnic table and a fire pit. We were told there was the possibility of bears on the property but we didn't encounter any. The Walmart is very close by in case you forgot something and so are some restaurants. Overall, not a bad place to spend a couple of nights.