Babler Memorial State Park

We were here for a Girl Scout reunion and did not take advantage of activities or amenities. Have hiked there in the past. The Virginia Day Trail is nice.

This is a beautiful and very well maintained state park campground well located for day trips into the St. Louis metropolitan area. There are many hiking opportunities which we did not have a chance to use on this relatively short stay but we will be back.

The sites are paved, level and well spaced out.

Verizon cell service was excellent and we were able to stream HD video.

This turned out to be a very nice campground at a great price (and no separate park entry fee like so many other state parks). The sites are very wide with lots of space between neighbors, concrete pads and patios, picnic table, fire ring, and grass lawns. The campground is pretty heavily wooded with a very nice feel. There's one walking trail (paved) from the campground, and other hiking trails within the state park, so we always had places to walk our dog. We were able to fit our 38-foot motorhome and tow car in site #10 but had to back up pretty far in the site so the back of the motorhome hung over the grass. It might be tough to fit a 45-foot motorhome with tow car into any of the sites, but not impossible. With no water and sewer hookups, we used the campground showers which were OK but not great. The shower heads are mounted very low on the walls (at about nose-height for me, and I'm 5' 9") so lots of ducking was necessary to take a shower. Sometimes the water was reasonably hot, sometimes only warm. There's only one lane at the dump station (it's a fairly small campground) so some patience is needed when arriving (to fill your tank) and departing (to dump). There are a few water spigots located throughout the campground but none close enough to our site for us to fill from. The campground has free WiFi that worked surprisingly well! It was fast most of the time, and usable the whole time, but it's worth noting that the campground was only about 1/3 full in October. Our Verizon and AT&T also worked fine. Supermarkets and other shopping are not too far away. We would return here. Note: If you're in a big (or even a medium) RV, do NOT take Eatherton Road to get to the park... take Wild Horse Creek Road instead. Eatherton is steep, narrow, and has very sharp turns.

Apparently this isn't a real closely guarded secret, the campground was about half full. Camp hosts were right on site, very cordial and helpful.
The site I had was not really level but that doesn't bother me much and afterall, I picked it.
There are showers, flush and vault toilet, fresh water at the dump station and it is very accessible.

If you need to be in St. Louis but want something close by, this is the place.

The campground has three main "arms" with different features and environments. Sites 53 through 75 are "basic" sites, with no hookups at all. The arm with the basic sites is very densely wooded and sits on hills so sites have really nice views and good privacy, but there's little chance of generating solar power. Some of these sites are also very small (tent only), so pay close attention to the site sizes when booking online. My favorite on this arm is site #57, because it is long enough for a rig and has great privacy on the passenger side but is open enough on the driver side to allow good solar generation.

Sites 13-33 are 30-amp electric sites, and this arm is very open and flat, with very few trees. There is mostly just grass between the sites, but there's very good separation between the sites so privacy is OK. This would be the best area to camp if you want room for games (frisbee, etc.). It's also the arm with the best site access -- the road itself and the sites are very flat and wide. We really liked site #20 because its position at the end of the loop only faces one neighbor. There is also a water spigot close by to fill up jugs.

Sites 39-52 are 50-amp electric sites. This arm is also densely wooded with a little of the hilliness, and the sites have really nice views and privacy. However, some of the sites looked quite small -- maybe large enough for a Class A, but definitely not the toad. Several also seemed tricky to get into. Again, pay close attention to site size when booking these.

The campground has potable water available at numerous spigots, and there are vault toilets on the primitive and 30-amp arms. The bathhouse has showers and flush toilets and is spacious. The campground is extremely quiet and the park is alive with birds and other wildlife.

My dings on the campground are fairly minor: The check in booth is located right in front of the bathhouse and dump station, so when we arrived on a Sunday in May we couldn't really get to the check in booth because of the line for the dump station. Also, there's no where to park to check in other than the line for the dump station, which is a little awkward. The bathhouses are older but clean and serviceable; the only weird thing is the very low placement of the shower heads mentioned by another reviewer. I am 5'4" and had to scrunch down to wash my hair. Lastly, for such a large park, the hiking trails were disappointingly short. The longest hike in the trail, combining the Dogwood and Woodbine loops, is less than 5 miles long. There is also very limited hiking from the campground; you need to drive to access the trailheads. This CG is also pretty far from the main attractions of St. Louis. While there are tons of stores, laundromats, etc. located along Route 100, most are at least 5 miles from the CG. Allow at least an hour to get from the CG to the attractions (Gateway Arch, zoo, botanical garden, Anheuser-Busch brewery, etc.).

Cell service was great on AT&T, with at least 2 bars LTE throughout the CG. Download: 44.53 Mbps Upload: 3.31 Mbps

We had a wonderful experience at Babler State Park! It is close to the St. Louis metro area, and is close to any type of shopping you need. However, it has a remote feel. The area is hilly and wooded (watch out for ticks!), with lots of trails to hike. The sites are large, and there were plenty that our 40'DP fit on with no problems. They have an on-line reservation system, but I wonder about it. We were forced to move sites twice, as people were supposed to be coming into our site with previous reservations, yet they never showed. The camp host said the park was full, but we saw a number of empty sites. If you want a weekend, you need to book early! Cell phone coverage was adequate (ATT LTE), and access was pretty good. Big wide streets, until you got into the actual camping area. Still pretty good, but a couple loops were rated "small turning radius". I was curious why there were so many tent campers taking up 50 amp sites, but it may have been simply due to what was available when they made their reservation. A premium (50 amp) site cost $23, and a basic (30 amp, I think) was $20. We are fully contained, so never visited the bathrooms/showers. I love that this park was so close to things I wanted to visit. Definitely would visit again!

Friendly, welcoming staff, Clean restrooms, concrete pads amid well kept lawns and plenty of shade trees.

We used this campground as a base camp for our adventures in St. Louis. It is maybe about 30 miles outside the city's most popular destination spots (Gateway Arch, Busch Stadium, Botanical Gardens, etc.). I'd say expect an hour of travel to and back from the city. We arrived in early July on a Sunday to find the campground mostly empty with the exception that a lot of the hookup sites were taken by what seemed like full time RVers. The campground hosts were very helpful, especially since we arrived without reservations. They helped us pick out a basic site which was priced at a very reasonable $13 a night. Clean showers and very quiet in the non hookup area.

We highly recommend this campsite for those seeking to explore the St. Louis region. Be sure to check out the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site also - it's often overlooked but it was a great experience.

Pretty park with big sites and level concrete pads. Good Verizon, sketchy AT&T. But getting there was terrible. Slowly being enveloped by suburbs so curvy, rough two-lanes roads in and out full of traffic, including big rigs. Plus the camp host scolded us moments after parking for not checking in first. But the check in kiosk is in a very tight location and the only way out is through the dump station so forget it if that's being used. And Babler has no laundry facilities. We planned to do a small load on our off day to get us by but we had to go into town. We'll look for an alternate place to stay if we visit STL again.

Large site with gravel pad. Lots of trees. Not sure the difference between regular and premium sites, but just go for premium. If I come back I'd try for #44. Good access to Chesterfield and ammeneites.