William O'Brien State Park

Had a site close to showers/restrooms. Most of the sites here are good sized and allow some privacy or brush borders. You have book online or call reservations. Daily fee paid by envelope due to COVID19 and they will patrol to verify. Showers are decent with timed usage. Water from pumps is very clean. Please be safe if you go on river. They had to do another missing person search today. :(

I love MN State Parks and I've stayed at a lot of them. This was my first experience at a MN state park with our 34' 5th Wheel and William Obrien accommodated us well. We were in the Savanah campground (which is a ways car or bike ride with a steep hill) from the lower campground and beach. Our site had 20A 110, 30A, and 50A hookups, but no water/sewer. Site 94E was very secluded and the upper bathrooms and showers were older, but very well up kept. Some of the Savanah sites weren't near as secluded, but the ones in the 90's loop seemed to be some of the better. Being that I needed to work I was afraid as I had little to no connectivity coming into the park and entrance. That said at our site I had 40M+ LTE connectivity from our site with a Sprint phone that is now capable of using Tmobile networks. Would definitely stay in the same exact site again and try to enjoy more of the park and work less ;)

Easy to get in and out of this large campground split into 2 areas. The area near the river is busier and more congested. I stayed in the Savannah campground and it was semi private, quiet, and the site had plenty of room. Regular cell service and local channels are no issue here being close to the Twin Cities. Dark and quiet at night. Very wooded and great for taking a walk. Dump station was a plus!

We stayed here as a shakedown run of our new camper. We knew from satalite maps and pictures that it wouldn't a particularly private Campground but we didn't expect it to be as open as it was. There was no brush or trees between out campsite and the two behind us and the one to our right. There is absolutely zero privacy. You are exposed on all sides. Our fire ring was as close to our camper as our neighbors. Every direction we looked out of our camper we could easily see people. This Campground is also swarming with kids who were apparently not taught to look before running or riding their bikes into a roadway. The closeness of the same sites along with the number of them and being in a river valley made the air quality from all the camp fires in the evening very poor. We didn't use the shower or bathroom buildings so I am unable to comment on that. The good: the site was fairly easy to get into, it was pretty level, the electric pedestal was in a good location, firewood is for sale right in the Campground, and there is drinking water available to fill your camper at the dump station. We probably wouldn't stay here again unless we need to do a shakedown again.

Note: I marked cell service as 1 bar of lte which is what our phones indicated but it was functional useless as pretty much nothing would load.

There are 2 campgrounds here. The lower campground is on the river and is close to the beach, picnic area and accessible walking trails however the sites are not as private and much closer together.

The upper campground the sites are large and very private. You can get to many hiking trails from this campground as well.

There is a trail center between the campgrounds and you can bike to the small town of Marine on St. Croix.

Also, about 12 miles south is the town of Stillwater with great little shops, restaurants, etc.