roadtripper5041122

We LOVED this park. We came Father's Day weekend, so it was busy - we saw only 1 or 2 sites empty. That being said, it wasn't horribly loud. We were fairly close to the playground so there were screaming kids until 9:30 at night, but as parents we could deal (if that's not your thing, I'd book further back in the grounds and you should be good!!).

Sites are FULLY shaded. Great for the heat but sucked for stargazing LOL. Sites are really big. Just watch where you book if you have a big camper - we watched a couple people get stuck because there are large trees in the middle of some driveways, plus the road in the grounds is very curvy so not ideal to try to back in a big trailer.

Everything was really clean. We were right next to the pit toilets and couldn't smell anything. We watched the staff come twice and empty trash in there. The shower building was also clean until someone clogged the family bathroom toilet on Saturday night, it still wasn't fixed when we left Sunday. The gendered restrooms/showers we fine though.

Great hiking in this park for sure. The beach is small but Lake Winnebago is beautiful and you can swim WAY out and it's still shallow so you're not crowded in there at all.

Sherwood is an adorable town. Definitely stop at Frog's for ice cream while you're there!

We spend the majority of our time camping in our home state of Wisconsin, so naturally my review may be a bit biased after experiencing some of the larger parks in Illinois's northern neighbor. That being said, we came here after a booking mishap in WI, because it wasn't a terrible drive and we didn't want our planning to go to waste. The park itself is gorgeous. Absolutely HUGE. I was surprised since it's literally 1 minute off a major highway. There's no fee to get into the park, which as WI residents was new to us. We got there around 1:30 and campsite check in was 3, but we decided to check out our site. The check in staff had no problem letting us check in early on a Friday, which was nice. We booked in the Prairie View (500s) grounds. Its...not private. Our neighbors across the path were like 10 feet from us. There WAS privacy on the sides which was nice. The campsite itself was small. It was tight fitting two tents (one 8 person, one two man). Many of the large trailers were almost on the path because the sites just aren't deep. Sites are not well shaded. There was also a lot of trash left behind from previous guests, both on the site and in the woods behind the site.

We visited the camp store in the Plum Grove (100s) grounds and those sites are literally ZERO privacy...campers on top of campers...so I recommend the 400 or 500 series sites for SURE, unless you're trying to have a large party.

The playground was...rough at best. My biggest complaint was the fact that the pit toilets in the 500 series sites was IN someone's campsite. Like, we had to invade someone's space to use the bathroom. Otherwise, it's about a 5 minute walk to the hard stand bathrooms which isn't fun with kids.

Aside from the camping aspect, we had good luck fishing both lakes. We didn't hike much because it rained all day our second day, but we visited the nearby paved trail (I think it was the Powerline trail) in Boone County which was a nice walk. The construction in the middle of the park made it a challenge getting around the park, for sure. I'd like to come back when it's done because I'm sure having full access would make things a lot easier.