Defeated Creek Marina & Resort

Defeated Creek Campground is our favorite place to stay in Nashville, although it's a bit of a drive to get downtown (1 hour+). You're set on a lake (technically a river), have water and electricity and sometimes full hookups. The price is right. We ended up spending about $25 per night here, some inland sites and some lakefront sites.

This was our second time here and we loved it even more than the first. My advice would be to try to get sites 71, 73, 74, 75, or 77. These are the most private and have the largest "yards" for the dogs to run.

This place books quickly, especially for the weekends. If you're thinking about staying here for a longer amount of time like we did (two weeks), book it in advance.

Honestly, the only thing that's lacking at this campsite is the cellular signal. We get two bars of Verizon 3G on a good day, and the internet is unusable on the weekends when the campground is full, and everyone is watching Netflix :-)

If you're interested in a day hike, check out the Bearwaller Gap Hiking Trail. The trailhead is walkable from your campsite and the trail is 12 miles out-and-back (6 miles out, 6 miles back). There's even a nice picnic/backcountry camp area for a break.

All of the sites have water hookups and electricity, at least 30 amps. Some sites have 50 amp. A dump station is inside the campground and some sites have full hookups.

It's hard to beat America's Corp Of Engineer parks. So far Defeated Creek is one of our top five. Over half of the sites are water front with a shore line that is very welcoming. Many come with their boats and tie up right in front of their site. This park is very popular so if you want to get one of the water front spots with full hook up, you'll need to do a little planning and reserve early.
We also enjoy the mountain bike trails and the Bear Waller Gap hiking trail that connect to the park. There is a marina next door where you can rent boats and the parks day use area has a great tennis court. You'll love the deer at night too!

The sites are all well laid out and even the sites without a lake view are tucked away and offer something special.

Price reflects National Park Senior Pass. We were able to reserve a waterfront site only a few days before our stay, under a huge walnut tree. Clean restrooms/showers and dog enjoyed open areas and trails. We’ll be back!

My wife found this camp ground while looking for someplace to go for our Anniversary. When I looked at google it is rated very high and we decided to go here instead of Cades Cove due to fear of being HOT and traveling with 2 dogs. Upon arrival, we were meet with 10 deer standing near the entrance eating, paying no attention to my truck. After we had got setup and cooked dinner, those same deer decided to come close to our camp site while grazing. While taking a walk around the CG we noticed that most of the site have room and arent crowded like an RV park, with a few spots that back a field like ours did. We had a site with water and electric.

This CG is on a peninsula with many sites on the water and others more towards the center with plenty of trees and some fields. Bathrooms are dated, but are cleaned every morning and the grounds are kept up daily as well. I believe there is a restaurant on site and there is a marina with a boat lunch in the campground as well. Dumpsters are in multiple spots hidden behind a fence. There is 1 hiking trail that is 5 miles ling ending at a lookout on top of a mountain and 1 long biking trail, neither of which looked heavily traveled. They also hold a church service on Sundays.

NOTE: There is no hose at the dump station to allow you to rinse the black tank out. T-Mobile gets signal, but only at the entrance and east side of the peninsula.

Price reflects senior pass discount. I would absolutely camp here again, if I didn’t need reliable cell phone service. Since I do, we likely won’t be back. The campground is surrounded on all sides by a lake. Site 117 only has a distant view of the lake, but it’s shady and well spaced from other sites and quite large. The grounds are very well maintained and while the restrooms are dated, they did appear clean. We’re leaving early because I need to work and can’t find a good place to do that nearby. If you are ok with being off grid or have a booster, this may work for you. Verizon has 1 bar of LTE, but it’s unreliable with periods of no service. I’ve got no service at all with AT&T.

We love Corps parks, and this one is the best. Full hookups on many sites. Mature shade trees everywhere. Clean facilities and very friendly staff. Deer by the dozens every night. Paved walking/biking trail through the woods. Multiple playgrounds. About 7 miles to the nearest WalMart. Minimal over-the-air tv channels, and iffy cell service (Verizon). Location is approximately 65 miles east of Nashville.

What a wonderful park.

Large spacious sites with a mixture of lakeside and sites on the hill. All site has more than enough space and between the sites are wide green grass laws and Heritage Oaks and other trees.

My only wish is that all sites would have full hookup.

This quite possibly may be the best COE in Tennessee...and one of the best in the Southeast. If you can score a site on the water it really elevates the experience, but be prepared to book 6 months to the day to do that. We stayed in site 20 (lakeside) for a few days on an existing Holiday reservation. We liked it so much that I was able to book another week last minute. Even though we had to move away from the lake, site 118 was still a good spot, mostly because of the site separation. This would literally be the perfect campground except for one thing.....ZERO CELL SERVICE. This was a huge damper as we were unable to work at all (the cell service was that bad/non-existent). For reference, we couldn't get a single bar of Verizon or Sprint. We have a We-Boost and my husband got it to shortly work on Sprint, but still not nearly enough. One bathhouse has "wi-fi", but even that was less than 1Mbps down and even less upload speed (enough to check the weather after you wait about 10 min for it to load). If you are a Full-Timer needing to work, it would be next to impossible to do that here which is a shame as beautiful as this place is. Relatively easy route for a motorhome off of the Interstate, but do NOT take Highway 263 as your GPS will most likely instruct you to save literally 1 minute - it is a very curvy and high grade road with no guardrail. Instead take Hwy 25 -> Hwy 80 -> Hwy 85 as the campground instructions email states.

This was a last minute find for us & totally fabulous. The deer and the squirrels are plentiful & are great to watch. These sites are amazing it must be wonderful to be a camp host here. I’m sure it’s quite busy in the summer as it’s close to the end of October & it’s still very very busy especially on a Sunday night. Definitely will be back here.

Super nice campground with walking paths and a challenging trail! The bathroom and shower house were spotless. My site (004) is a pull through with a large grassy area and no shade. This wasn't a problem for me because it's still early spring, but just be warned. I would definitely camp here again, but would try and book site#21...super private and a great view of the lake.