Lake Carmi State Park Campground

The park is on a paved secondary road and easy to find with signs. Access to the camping area is through a closed gate that is controlled from the registration building. There are wetlands along the access road but few mosquitos in June- thank goodness. There are pay showers with hot water and the bathrooms are in the center of quite a lot of campsites. The area is wooded and there is lots of privacy. We stayed at a lean-to site. Camp fire wood is available $. Cell phone coverage very spotty and only one or two bars. Wifi available at the registration building.

very nice, clean lake.

I've quickly learned that what makes a campground great for one doesn't make it great for another. I'll tell you what we liked and what could be better. This is a wooded, pretty campground with well maintained access roads, level sites with a good amount of room and privacy between sites, water views but not water access from your site, several boat ramps to launch from. It was maybe 1/2 full when we visited and it was very quiet, respectful campers. The campground was large enough to take an hour walk just on the campground roads. Kayaking in the coves was fun for bird watching - lots of golden eagles, osprey, green heron, a blue heron, gulls, several duck species and more. Oh and otters. There's supposed to be walleye and pike but we didn't have any luck kayak fishing. The staff was very friendly. There's a bog with a small boardwalk to a sitting area. In the day use area there's a basketball net, nature center (closed due to covid), a few beaches and some nature trails.

What you need to know, especially if you have kids or plan to swim is that this lake has breakouts of cynobacteria causing the beaches to close. It looks like a green algae floating. We didn't plan to swim so it didn't bother us. The other thing is that this is farm country. On the first day, for the first couple hours there was a manure odor. It disappeared and did not reappear but we were told if a farmer is spreading or recently spread, that can happen. I took 1 star off for quality just for the water quality issue but we would return.

No cell service unless you walk to the ranger station. We actually appreciated being disconnected.

104 is perfectly level, we got our 24' trailer in with plenty of room for a pop up tent. The loop roads are narrow and some sites, while large enough, would have been very difficult to get into. We like quiet places like this so it was perfect for us. No hookups. Didn't try the bathrooms or showers.