Stephen Austin State Park

Got to the park around 2:00 PM and pulled up to the stop sign in the second lane to use the bathroom and check in. Found out from a not-so-kind park ranger that we could not park and loiter at the front of the office building. There was a sign to that effect that we missed as most state parks have you park in front of the check in office and there wasn't really anywhere else to park with our 39' fifth wheel in tow. Check in was alright, but there was confusion concerning our Texas State Park passes for Disabled Veterans, which we both received a few years ago at another Texas State Park. For our stay here, only one person's pass was accepted and that pass was good for 1.5 people. Another employee thought we should each be covered with our passes and tried to add the additional pass in the system, but since we were camping, versus day use in a car, we could only use one. So, we had to pay $7.50 park pass for our 3 nites stay. Then she had to show the young man checking us in the rule book that showed we were entitled to the pass even though we were non-residents. This is the first time our passes weren't accepted to cover us both. After that we headed to pull through site 21 with FHUs but only 30 AMP. The wood posts and trees in this site determine how/where you park your rig. We needed our 15’ sewer hose and used a donut as there’s no screw in for the sewer connection. Water pressure was okay at around 40 psi. We got quite a few OTA channels and 3 bars on Verizon having no problem with internet and making calls using our MiFi. Most of the sites here are very spacious and well laid out so your neighbors are not close to you. Site 21 is one of the most spacious and we had no problem fitting our 39’ 5th wheel and F-450 on the pad. The restrooms/shower house in the RV area was clean and there was ice for sale at that location. What we really enjoyed about this park was the abundant hiking trails that interweave with each other. We thought the golf course in the park would be open, but it had been sold to a private owner and would hopefully open to the public in a month or so. The camp hosts were very friendly and helpful. Overall, we enjoyed our 3 night’s stay.

Finding our way into the park was pretty hard, so we finally had to rely on the GPS to get us in. This is due to all the construction on I - 10. Turns out everyone else came in the same way, but the Park could do a better job of informing campers in advance what to expect. Getting out was easy as the eastbound ramp was open. Campsite are all very similar, with plenty of room. I didn't see a bad campsite. We were here two days but didn't unhook our travel trailer as there really was no where to go. We had good OTA signal out of Houston. And we just needed to unwind after 4 busy days in San Antonio. There are nice hiking trails. We were told the place is a mad-house on weekends so we were glad we avoided that.

November 2020 ALERT! Due to Interstate 10 construction, the eastbound exit for San Felipe is closed so the navigation system took us further East and then backtracked on some horrible condition rural roads. Recommend going to Brookshire and using FM 359 and then FM 1458 to reach Park Road unless you want to really beat up your rig. West bound entrance onto Interstate 10 was a bit crazy also so you may want to do some recon before finding yourself down a horrible back road. No notice of this on the State Park website.

40 FHU sites here under Spanish moss-draped trees. Good spacing between most sites, but no privacy from neighbor sites. The site required leveling side-to-side. Quiet campsite. No highway noise. Train whistle in distant. Saw lots of deer that came fairly close to us.
Nice trails but very busy on weekends as Houstonians escape the city for some country fun!

A brand new toilet/shower facility opened in early November 2020 in this FHU campground that includes 2 family restrooms. Toilet stalls are very narrow with residential toilets which are water saving that required 4-5 flushes to empty the bowl. Dyson hand dryer.

In the FHU loop, there were 3 camp hosts and one campsite marked for the 4th camp host. Another site has a firewood wagon and an ice machine. Then another site is coned off. So 6 sites gone from the inventory! There is a camp host site also in the tent loop. Wow - 5 camp hosts?? That has to be a record for this size park! We did see Park Police drive thru the FHU loop very frequently.

A new toilet/shower facility is under construction in the tent loop. Construction just began so probably another 6-9 months to finish. In the meantime, there are 4 job johnnies and campers from the tent loop utilizing the new toilet/shower facility, with 3 toilets for women and 2 for men.

AT&T 1 bar.

I have to say that while the park is very nice, and for something close to Houston it’s great, but man they really get after you about everything here. $500 fine for collecting firewood debris, in a campground! I got a firm talking to in the morning for parking my vehicle on the grass near my site (because I converted my car and need to setup an awning, I sleep in it, it’s essentially my “tent”) and while I had a single beer can on a picnic table visible, that was worthy of some sort of a fine from a ranger. I get they’re doing everything they can to keep the place as nice as possible, but they might be cracking down too much on campers, which hindered my experience there. Look I’m an Eagle Scout, I’ve been taught to leave no trace, this felt like camping on a golf green the way this place is maintained. For some people, that’s awesome, but next time I’d rather go to a free spot where I can do everything I like responsibly.

We really enjoyed our stay here. It was a bit busy on the weekend but that’s to be expected. We had a full hookup pull through spot, which was great because the bath house in our loop was shut down for renovations.

There are SO MANY deer here! It was so cool to sit out and watch them come in for the night.

Just a few minutes to Sealy, and about 30 to Katy.

Also, the park store was seriously the best! So many fun items.

Stayed here the first two weeks of December '19 and enjoyed the wooded setting of the park, the trails, as well as the wildlife, and the clean facilities with genuinely hot water. The park is getting new shower houses and should be finished by year's end (2020) so piece by piece an area is being worked on while other shower houses remain available. A very quiet park otherwise and is also in close proximity to Sealy TX for laundry & Post Office, and Katy TX for the shopper of any sort. If you can't find it in Katy, you don't need it. A new Museum is across the road from the Park entrance and I advise a stop in there. Very quiet during the week, aside of the work crew for the shower house redo. Even the weekends were sedated unless the Scouts showed up, but even then it was entertaining hearing them off in the distance doing Scout games/activities. Sites were level and spaciously deep & separated, very roomy for a tent, Clam, or yard game set up and still have room left. The 21' trailer fit nicely on the pad, and the longer rigs did as well with some maneuvering to get it in & just right.