Willow Bay Recreation Area

Absolutely beautiful place and friendly staff. There was not that many people here when we were there which was nice. The Hemlock loop overlooks the water and site 69 in my opinion was the best site with electric. The sites on the water were also very nice without electric. We enjoyed traveling to the Kinzua Bridge to do some sightseeing. There was no cell service but there was WiFi when up at the booth you could access to check emails or texts.

My only complaint is that on the day we were to leave, the people who were going to be staying at our site next were there at 11:00am. We were told we needed to leave by 2pm when we checked in. So the early arrival caused us to have to hurry and pack everything up as they were waiting on us. I felt the staff should have told the new guest upon arrival that their site was still occupied.

Willow Bay Campground is the Northern most campground of the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania. It is mainly a location for water activities, including fishing and boating. We stayed at site 61, a non-paved grassy site and found it to be fairly level. Some sites have paved pads, many do not. There is good spacing between sites. There are 3 campground loops, each offering different camping situations, but less than 1/2 provide shade. The campground was moderately busy during the middle of the week in June, but weekend warriors really take over with boats and kayaks, a large majority were fishing. We were dry camping, living on batteries and solar. Water spigots were available with potable water. The campground hosts do a good job of keeping the sites clean. Willow Bay is a bit of a drive from any decent sized town so stock up on supplies!