A lot of the camping experience is dictated by the weather. Good weather often leaves you with a good camping experience and vice versa. Well, the weather this weekend was “outstanding”!!!  In Florida, we anxiously await the arrival of fall. The first crisp day without humidity sends chills up our spines.  This was that weekend. The lows were in the high 50’s and the highs were about 80, with almost zero humidity. I imagine it wouldn’t matter where we were, we would have been happy campers.  But this place is absolutely beautiful!  Our campsite had a magnificent live oak tree and we were surrounded by so much vegitation we could almost forget that other people were  nearby. The sites are level, dry, wide and long. And, if that’s not enough, each site has a large bump-out with picnic table, fire pit, and grill.

Since we were about an hour from Sarasota, we headed out to see the sunset over the gulf on the first night. Sarasota and Longboat Key are beautiful. We could spend more time there enjoying the restaurant, shopping, and beach, if we weren’t camping. The sunset was not spectacular that evening, but we enjoyed ourselves just the same.

The campground has boat tours of the large lake, canoe and bike rentals, and a cafe and gift shop with free wifi. (FYI – we had zero cell or wifi at our campsite.)  There are nature trails, fishing areas, and a canopy walking bridge suspended over the trees. Of course, as our luck would have it, the bridge was closed for renovations during our stay. However, I was a little disappointed in the canopy bridge.  I imagined that you would actually cross over a canopy of trees on the bridge.  But the bridge here is really an example of a canopy bridge.  It doesn’t actually cross over any trees.  Regardless, I can tell for sure, we will be back to this park!

• POPULATION:  This place gets fairly busy on the weekends.   But not so much that you are in each other’s way.  We had heard that it gets really crowded in the winter, though.  We were here in mid October, right before their season started.
• CLEANLINESS:  Bathhouses were very clean and conveniently located.
• SITES:  The sites are level, wide, long, and have beautiful trees and vegetation.  Full hook-ups in the newer loop.
• AMENITIES:  Large lake, fishing, airboat tours, canoe & bike rentals, cafe with wifi, large general store, walking trails, sample canopy walkway.
• RATING: