Stephen C. Foster State Park

We stayed here for 4 nights towards the end of January, 2023. We had reserved site 48, but someone in the office had accidentally put someone in our site. They (office staff & rangers are AWESOME here) gave us a choice of several empty sites, so we picked #56 as it was private towards our patio side (except for the trail behind us).
A bit on the sites: Sites 1-26 are a bit tighter than the longer loop. Sites in the 44-50 area are close to each other and kind of open to each other. But some are very long! Site 55 is really long, but open to 53. The pull thrus facing out: 59, 61 & 63 are nice as they face away from everyone. 59 & 61 were probably the best.
What we liked: the night sky was incredible! But a few people around us left their patio lights on all night... The boat tour! We tagged teamed it as we have a dog. I went on a morning tour - Alex was our awesome & incredibly knowledgeable guide. I only had 3 other passengers in the boat which was nice. Husband went in the afternoon and had a full boat - 12 or so people, but saw a lot more alligators and a larger flock of ibis than I did. The boardwalk trail was fantastic! Take the spur out in to the swamp.
Yes, it is a super long drive from the main road in to the CG, so just stock up! Nothing to complain about here at all - loved it.

We stayed 3 nights in January in a 22 ft class B. 30amp service and water at the site. No Verizon service but free wifi at the camp store. We rented kayaks for 2 hours and saw more alligators than we could count but probably should have rented for another hour so we could explore more. On the next visit we'll rent a small John boat with a motor so we can cover more area.

Such an awesome park. The facilities and amenities were great. Peaceful, quiet and lots of nature to explore. The trails are beautiful. The staff is incredible. Can’t wait to come back again.
We are always looking for great places to dock and this is one that makes our top 10 list.
As far as internet & cell service, we have T-Mobile and Starlink. Starlink was not very reliable or consistent but I was able to work using our T-Mobile home internet router. Cellphone reception was pleasantly unavailable which was enjoyable for me. To not be bothered by annoying scam/spam calls was great.

It can be tough to find a clear view of the sky. There is a open field that works for astrophotograhy. Trouble here is, you are locked in all night. Once they lock the gate you don't get out until the morning. They advertise this as a dark sky park , but like so many other dark sky parks they make it almost impossible to gain access. You must buy a camping spot to enjoy or photograph the night sky. Its swamp, so lots of bugs, etc. I will not return to photograph the night sky at this park. They should make the park accessable at night if they are going to promote it as a dark sky park.

My family and I tent camped here over Mother’s Day weekend, hoping to get a glimpse of the Milky Way. This is a certified deep sky viewing site, but if you’re looking to see the galactic core of the Milky Way, it’s not always visible. I didn’t realize there was a difference between seeing the Milky Way and seeing the galactic core of it. You have to come in August or September to see that. Just something to keep in mind if that’s what you’re coming for.

The sites were very clean, and the bathrooms are individually locking rooms with showers. I like that much better than the stalls at other campgrounds.

There’s no stores nearby, but the office sells some basic supplies. The closest other store is 18 miles away, so come very prepared!

I wish there had been more boardwalk trails than just the one. The land trails had way too many bugs constantly attacking us, even with high DEET spray.

Be VERY bear safe at your campsite. We had a visitor around 3AM, which was unnerving. The Okefenokee has a third of Georgia’s black bear population.

This is a beautiful campground and State Park. The real draw here is the swamp and bayou. Rent a boat, get out on the waterways to see gators, turtles, egrets, herons, cypress trees, and lilies. We rented a 2-person kayak for the day at $30 (a bargain), and saw all of these. We saw the most gators in the area around Billy's Island, however, we saw them in many other locations too. We saw only a handful of others out in boats and really felt we had the bayous to ourselves. The campground is great too. The sites are relatively private with jungle foliage in between them. The bath house is the best I've ever seen. Use the handicap showers. They are huge, clean, and have nice benches for setting out your clothes and toiletries. Cell phone reception is very poor - no bars or bandwidth without a cell phone booster. With a booster, the bandwidth was still very low, but fine for messaging, email, and surfing the net, but not for streaming.

huge disappointment— #59 is a pull thru site, quite a distance from the bath house. laundromat has washers, no dryers. the boat tours weren’t running & the visitor center wasn’t open...blamed it all on covid. no pool. nearest grocery is the Dollar General store, about 20 miles away. beer is at BP station. nearest restaurant (actually a gas station) is half hour drive, one way. the bugs were jurassic size. we saw deer, a black bear, turkey and a dead raccoon. there is a play area for the kiddos.

The park was ok, no cell service, the pic nick table and fire pit were were placed on the wrong side of the lot, probley because of previous campers, I managed moving the fire pit myself , seen 3 deer mozie right through my camp site, the yellow flies were extremely bad this time of year, it made it hard to enjoy the tripp, mosquitoes were bad also, I was instructed to go straight to the camp site, didn't have the opportunity to get a map of the place, that caused me to miss the dump station, it's not worth 35 bucks a night, 20 bucks, yes.