Walnut Woods State Park

We spent six nights while visiting family in Des Moines. Walnut Woods SP provides convenient access to the metro area. We camped with our 25 ft Mini-Lite.

There is one pleasant trail along the Racoon River and staff have really been working to clear brush and invasive species in the woods between the campground and the river. A new pedestrian bridge is nearly completed that will provide easy access to Racoon River Park that offers swimming beach, large playground, loop trail, and other amenities. The park also provides easy access with short drives to very nice trails at Brown's Woods, Maffitt Lake, and Purple Martin Lake.

Water and sewer were not available when we visited [mid-March].

I travelled here with a 35’ 5th wheel, long bed pickup and parked in the site #4, a FHU, BI site. The road is asphalt and the site was a combo of asphalt and concrete. The road was a little tight in a couple of turns. I ran over the grass to get backed into the site. I didn’t check the bathhouse. Sites were relatively close. No wifi, 4 bars 5G with Verizon at times, lots of OTA channels. There was partial shade. I never saw a campground host, but the rangers came though occasionally. It is only a 15-20 minutes to one of Des Moines’ largest retail areas (Jordan Creek). I would stay there again.

We've camped here a number of times, though it has been a few years since we were last here. The campground is very clean and quiet. There are a limited number of sites and half or more are just electric. We reserved our site two months ago and it was the only one available at the time, so we grabbed it.

The park is 10-15 minutes from the airport or downtown Des Moines, so is very convenient.

There are very pleasant walking trails along the Racoon River with easy access from the campground. The is a bird blind and feeding station close by that is fun to check out in the earl morning or evening. Brown's Woods Forest Preserve is roughly 2 miles east and has a very nice 3+ mile trail.

A serene natural setting that is also close to town. We had one of the few full hookup sites. They also have several electric only sites so be sure to watch for that when booking. There are generous cement pads in each site plenty of room for everything. There is a dump station at one end of the park which looks a little tight but we didn’t have to use it. We got all the Des Moines OTA stations using our TV antenna. The park was generally clean, although it looks like the previous tenants left some trash and a dirty sock in and around the firepit. Really enjoyed walking the road and paths inside the park, lots of pretty trees and birds chirping! As for noise we did here a couple airplanes each day and a train or two but they are very infrequent.