Vogel State Park

Vogel has a lot to offer. Nice lake that is stocked, waterfall, mini golf, beach, boat rentals, several playgrounds, trails and cottages. It’s location is within an hours drive of plenty of other North GA attractions.

Access to the park is something that comes up. If you approach from Cleveland, the road is a twisty uphill pull that could cause some large rigs concern. The turn into the park from this direction is a bit sharp. Approaching from Blairsville is much easier. I do not recommend approaching from Suches if you are pulling anything.

The bath houses are very clean. The campsites are a mixed lot of RV and tent. We stayed on the upper loop which is for shorter trailers, pop ups and tents. The middle loop is for larger rigs and has the biggest sites. The lower loop is more compact and tight. In all the loops there are some sites where you are on top of your neighbor. Most all the campsites are set in the woods. Numerous sites are creek side.

As for our site, 71, it was not tiny but a bit tight. Took a little effort to back in the trailer. The lot was level. Didn’t use any leveling blocks. Very close to the bath house and dumpster. We did have to move the behemoth picnic table to accommodate our set up. The fire pit was located below the camping area via steps. We didn’t utilize, but firewood is for sale. The campground was pretty quiet. AT&T service was fine for phone calls, but not much good for anything internet related.

All sites are electric and water only. There is a dump station. This brings me to my 2 issues. First, I was quite glad I installed our voltage regulator as it cut off the power twice our first night. No issues after that. Second, the main dump station only has a hand pump to flush out your tanks and it didn’t work. Why this hasn’t been replaced is puzzling. There is a 2nd dump station on the other side of the road that does have a regular spigot, but is not easy to pull up to without blocking the road. You almost need to go down and turn around to have the best access.

There is wildlife active in the area. Heed the bear signs. There were sightings in the campground during our stay. Practice bear safety.

We stayed here for two nights and really enjoyed it. There are streams to explore, a short hike to a waterfall, a beach on the lake, putt-putt, and lots of other things to enjoy. I highly recommend hiking to the far side of the lake to see the great view of the mountains.

Our site was very large even for our 38' fifth wheel. We had lots of extra space. There was a picnic table and a fire ring. There are also bathrooms and showers, but we didn't use those. It was raining a lot when we got there and the back of our site was a little under water, but it wasn't a big deal.

We have a 50 amp RV, but they only had two 30 amp outlets and two 20 amp. If you have a 50 to two 30s splitter you'd be in good shape. No sewer, but they have two dump stations. It was very busy when we were there, but we never had to wait or saw anyone else waiting to use the dump station.

FYI, there's NO cell reception in the campground. Around the lake we could get 1 or 2 bars, but at our site we got NOTHING. We have Verizon and AT&T.

4/17-4/19 - the loop we stayed in was for smaller rigs and tents, and the sites were large and spaced enough to provide a decent level of privacy (site 77). Being one of the oldest state parks in GA, it’s well taken care of and I would guess has been recently updated within the past 3-5 years. The park was patrolled frequently by both hosts and rangers. Cell service spotty being able to make calls and occasionally send and receive texts. We typically don’t stay in state parks preferring forest service roads in the national forests, but with those areas closed due to covid-19, decided to come here and are glad we did. The lake, waterfall and overall setting make this park very scenic. Only negative was that the dump station didn’t allow much room for being in line if you were # 5,6 or 7 . You could block a campsite or the entire road.

Definitely one of the best state parks we've stayed at w our RV. The sites are situated among really tall, beautiful trees. Ours backed up to a creek. The sites are large and the bathhouse is very clean, new, and nice. Staff is super friendly and helpful. ATT service was spotty and a little slow if you could get it. Phone had none but hotspot with external antenna had one bar. The turn around at the end of our road was a little tight. Wouldn't recommend for big rigs.

We stayed here after a very rainy few day’s. The nearby waterfalls were overflowing. So we chased waterfalls during the rain, hiked to Blood Mtn on the sunny days and had a wonderful time. Word of caution, some sites are extremely small and have a ton of trees. We had a small tree fall on our 3 days old F450 😬 love this area, close big and moonshine.

Although we had been to the park before this was our first time camping here. We love this area so had to make a trip here. We came the weekend before Thanksgiving and it was pretty busy. Our site (26) was in the 40 ft section so we thought we'd be fine. But the road is very narrow and the sites are a tight squeeze - very tight with a lot of trees. Thank heavens there was a friendly neighbor (thank you Chris) who helped us navigate parking. Once we were in it was a great spot. If you like more privacy you may want a spot by the river but we were happy with ours since we made some really nice friends in our area. Beautiful area for stargazing as it is very dark at night - minimal light pollution.
Restrooms were new and kept clean. The park was very quiet at night despite being full over the weekend. Nivea hiking trails - we did the lake loop with the offshoot to Trahlyta Falls, Byron Reese Nature Trail and Bear Hair trail (4.1 miles) gives you a fabulous overlook of the park and if we had more time we would have tackled the longer hike - Coosa Back Country which is 12+ miles.
Visited the Sunrise Country Store - oldest grocery store in Blairsville and the Hole in Wall Restaurant in downtown Blairsville for a yummy lunch.
Since the park is in a bit of a canyon/bowl don't plan on any good connectivity - we didn't have good reception on Verizon and AT&T was only slightly better. But for us being disconnected was a good thing.
We missed the peak leaf season by a few weeks but definitely plan to come back again.

First time towing our rig in mountain terrain and survived. Road from Cleveland Ga. from the south wasn’t too challenging. We chose a pull-through site knowing we’d be road weary after the trip. While the site was level east-west it had a steep drop off at the truck end and with the loose gravel I had to add some weight to the bed of the pickup for hitching up on departure. The park is just beautiful. Georgia’s second oldest State Park a Civilian Conservation Corps masterpiece. If you go make sure to visit the CCC museum on property. The museum host Don was super friendly and really helped put in perspective the monumental work of the CCC. We hiked the Bear Hair Loop trail(4.3 miles) which gives you a gorgeous view of the park at around the halfway point. A much easier trail is a mile loop around the lake with a not to be missed spur trail to Trahlyta falls. The park offers a lot for kids playgrounds, bike rentals, kayak and paddle boat rentals, even a putt-putt course that my wife wouldn’t allow me to play. But none of those things compared to the streams throughout the park that allowed kids hours of fun moving rocks around. According to regulars we were lucky to get a spot as they fill up quickly. Only negative is the the sound from Hwy 180 on the weekends. The road is a favorite for Harley riders and it was pretty constant during daylight hours. We pulled out on a Monday and it seemed they had all gone home as we encountered very few on the road to our next campground on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Place was truly beautiful, the whole surrounding area is awesome. I just don’t know if maybe it was we came on a bad weekend, but the bathrooms are absolutely atrocious. I mean really really bad, to where I thought my wife and I might have to consider using our pop-up campers latrine. Luckily were able to find another bathroom down the street that was a little bit better.

We were here for a ultra race that started in the park and finished in Amicalola Falls State Park. Vogel is a great park that has many camp sites. We loved that our site (27) was off by itself at the end of the road. Just across the road we’re 3 sites nestled together, one with a path leading to one of the trails in the park. While we were there the bath houses were being remodeled. It look as if they were close to being completed. They did have portable shower facilities that could be used if needed. Park fills up on the weekends and appeared that car limits per camp site were not being enforced.

Check in was easy and cell service was good. Short drive in to Blairsville for any supplies was easy. Will come back if in the area again.