We glamped this weekend at Cedar Hill State Park. It is located close to the Dallas/ Fort Worth metroplex. From our home in Southlake, TX it was less than an hour away. It is a large state park that has over 300 campsites. We booked a few nights there this weekend (Thursday and Friday). There were mixed reviews for this Park on TripAdvisor. The park experienced serious flooding and damage in 2015. The main beach area is closed for repair, the marina is permanently closed, and about 1/3 of the campsites are temporarily closed for repair. In spite of those closures there is still so much to see and do there! If you didn’t know previously that those parts of the park even existed they wouldn’t be missed! They still have areas to swim, areas for boat launching, lots of picinic areas along the water, a great historical farm area to tour on the property, three developed trails for hiking and biking, and plenty of modern camping sites with full hook ups.

Here is some information from their website: http://www.cedarhillstatepark.org/index.html

When we checked into the park, the ranger gave us a map and highlighted all of the portions of the park that were open:

We camped at site 220. The kids and I explored other campsites that weren’t occupied and I can say that they were all nicely wooded with a good amount of privacy compared to other RV parks or campsites. It is a beautiful State Park!

One of the cool features of this State Park is Penn Farm. It dates back to the 1800’s. They have old buildings you can explore, old farm equipment on display and plenty of signs that explain farm life and how the Penn family lived. It was neat to walk through and explore. We had the place to ourselves on a Friday which was pleasant.

The main attraction at Cedar Hill is Joe Pool Lake. The main swim area is closed for repairs. However, the boat ramps and swim areas on that end of the park are all open and accessible. Our kids swam and played for several hours and we enjoyed a picinic area along the beach at one of their covered picnic table areas.

They have three developed trail areas. The Talala is closed for repairs at this time. However, the other two are open (Duck Pond Trail and Dorba), as long as there hasn’t been heavy rains. We experienced a storm on Thursday night and unfortunately the trails were closed on Friday. I called the ranger station and she was helpful in explaining temporary closures because of the unsafe conditions of the trails and did direct me to Cedar Hill Preserve, just down the road for open hiking trails that day. We didn’t mind, as we filled our time at the beach, Penn Farm, and walking around the campsite areas.

I would recommend this Park based on our experience. They had the cleanest bathrooms and facilities of any State or National Park we have visited. That says a lot since we have visited many! Just keep in mind that there are closed areas of the park and there is an ant advisory in place. We saw ants around the beach area, but none at our campsite. They didn’t bother us at the beach though and we only saw them while walking the boardwalk primarily. The ants are Argentinian ants, so they don’t bite either, just an FYI.

This State Park is great for boaters. I noticed most of the campers had kayaks with them too. We will camp there again, as our experience was very nice. It is also conveniently located less than an hour away too!