Stephen Austin State Park Campground

The sites are nicely spaced and the park is very quiet except for the occasional coyote howl. There is a good trail system where several trails could be accessed very near our site in the full hookup area. We walked among tall sycamore and cottonwood trees and saw lots of deer. Very enjoyable. The San Felipe de Austin museum which is right across the road from the park was fun and informative. We have lived in Texas our entire lives and learned things about our roots that we did not know. The museum is well set up and definitely worth a visit. The park office gave us a card to use to get half off admission prices and 20% off items in the gift shop. We camped here to be close to Sealy for a softball tournament and it was the perfect spot. The first week of December (on Saturday) Sealy had a festival during the day and a big parade at night. A word of caution - if you are not attending the parade and need to drive through Sealy, you will encounter lots of traffic and numerous closed streets in the downtown area. We thought we would never make it through the area to get to our game. But driving through the neighborhoods, we saw lots of beautiful festive lights and the parade looked awesome!

We booked on line the day before for a Friday & Saturday stay. Only one site left… now we know why. Even though it was a pull through it was tough to maneuver. We should have asked at checkin if there had been any cancellations. After we got set up we went for a walk and saw a few that shows available. By that time we were situated. It was quiet and it rained all night Friday and most of the day on Saturday so we really didn’t get to enjoy the trails. So, if site #9 is the only site available any you have anything more than a camper van or very small
TT, I wouldn’t take it.

I travelled here with a 35’ 5th wheel, long bed pickup and parked in site #23, a FHU PT site for $25/night with a TX SP Pass. Roads and sites were asphalt and it was easy to navigate. The sites were crescent shaped and most were shallow curves making it easy for large rigs to get into them. A few had a tree in a bad spot so you may have to back in if you have a longer RV. #23 had a huge yard space, but the picnic table and fire pit were fairly far from the RV (no big deal for me.) There was a ton of space between sites so it felt pretty private. It was really quiet even though it was Spring Break week and the park was almost full with lots of families. Bath house was clean. I didn’t use the showers but they did have a shelf and seat inside to put stuff. My site was somewhat unlevel and I used two boards under one side to get level. I noticed that many rigs had some kind of leveler on one side or another. 2 bars LTE with Verizon, lots of OTA channels, no wifi that I knew of. I really enjoyed this park. The camp hosts were very friendly and helpful. Go to Mesquite Mexican in Sealy for dinner. One of the best Mexican dinners I have ever had. I would definitely stay here again.

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.