Cedar Hill State Park Campground

People of Dallas must feel very lucky for having so close to their city such a great place to escape during the weekends.

The Cedar Hill State Park offers some great views of the Joe Pool Lake which is ideal for fishing, cayaking, and swimming. On the other hand, if you are into hiking and bicycling, then you will find plenty of trails that will challenge your limits while surrounded by beautiful natural landscapes. Just don't forget to have a map and compass with you.

Overall, a great place for a weekend nature escape where you can camp and enjoy nature with your other half, kids, mates or even on your own.

The only quite serious negative thing about it is there are many snakes, especially rattle snakes. Therefore, be aware especially during the spring-summer period!

Lots of campsites, great boating, mountain biking and little beach. Fireworks over Joe Pool lake on July 4th are fun.

This campground has a ton of potential but unfortunately, so much of it is unavailable because of flood damage, it was a bit disappointing. About one third of the entire park, including most of the hiking trails, are currently closed because of a flood that occurred back in 2015. As a base for exploring Dallas, it's quite convenient, but it really could be a destination campground if they would repair the storm damage and reopen all of these areas.

The sites themselves were quite private. Most are narrow with lots of vegetation on both sides and a picnic table and fire pit at the back or on the side of the space. We felt we had ample space between us and our neighbors and, because the park has been there for a while, the sites have lots of mature trees that provide a sense of privacy.

The pavement on the sites was pretty beat up and many of the sites were extremely un-level. We also noticed severe cracking along some of the interior roads. The park had definitely taken a beating from the weather and is in serious need of some restoration. All that being said, our particular site was level and everything worked alright.

The park is ideally located just outside of Dallas. It took us between 20 and 30 minutes to drive into the city, depending on where we were headed and at what time of day. In the meantime, just about 3 miles down the road is the town center of Cedar Hill where there were numerous stores, restaurants, and services available.

All in all we liked this park as a base for exploring Dallas, but felt it could be a lot better if the state would invest in repairing the flood-damaged areas and repaving some of the roads and sites.

The roads to and inside the park were easily navigable with our 40’ 5th wheel. There is a new online reservation system in the works that will allow you to reserve specific sites, but at this time, it’s still about a year out. So, you don’t know which site you will be in until check-in. Honestly, I didn’t like this idea, but it turned out to work best that way. We were assigned site #181 and they told us that if it didn’t work, to pick any site just to call them before setting up to ensure they hadn’t assigned it to someone else in the meantime. We tried backing into site #181 but, due to the hill at the front of the site, our 40’ 5th wheel bottomed out. Deciding not to damage our RV, we drove around the loop and were easily able to back into site #166. It was a bit shorter, but we backed up until the wheels reached the concrete partition and had enough room to park our truck sideways at the front of the site. The site was almost completely level already and is much more private and wooded. We called the office and they confirmed it had not been assigned to anyone else and switched us to that site. We just had to run back up to the office to get a new vehicle pass.

In addition to the campsite fee ($30 per night), they charge a $7 per adult over 12 years old per day. It may be beneficial to buy a Texas State Park Pass. Internet connection with Verizon was great, streaming quality. We also picked up over 70 antenna channels. Each site has a firepit, but the office doesn’t sell firewood. We found enough dead wood laying around our site to have two nice fires and a neighbor gifted us a bag of firewood that provided two more fires, before we realized that collecting firewood is prohibited. I can understand not chopping down trees, but burning dead wood already laying around helps keep the sites clean and prevents invasive infestation from outside sources. Most state and national parks encourage this, and we noticed that rangers are leaving wood from flood damage cleanup in the vacant sites. The road noise was much louder than I expected for a state park. The highway just outside the park provides a shortcut between Hwy 67 and I-20, so it was very busy during the day but quieted down at night. Shopping and restaurants are only minutes away.

Park was large and very clean. Our site was pretty uneven but very large with lots of room to spread out. One seriously negative thing was the playground area was really dangerous. Rangers were exceptionally nice and greeted us every time we saw one. Road noise from the nearby highway was loud later at night but not enough to cause concern. Restrooms were clean and nice. Overall we'd definitely go back. Probably pick a different site due to the unevenness and length. We have a 30 foot class A and we barely fit in length without hanging over the road. We are new so next time we will just add a couple feet when requesting a site.

St Patrick’s Day 2018 we head out to Cedar Hill State Park on the banks of Joe Pool Lake. Cedar Hill State Park is one big Texas State Park! With over 300 campsites you are sure to find one to your liking! A visit to the historical Penn Farm and lots of paved roads for scooting make this visit to Cedar Hill State Park a truly unique Texas State Park Visit.
This is a great place to camp if you need to be close to the greater Dallas area but want to have a rustic camping experience.
We camped in two different site on our visit. the first was sorta rough the second was sweet but tons of road noise. I have posted several videos of my visit and they can be found in the Blog tabs.

We stayed for 2 weeks in mid-March 2018 in site 178. The site had a paved pad, FHU, (no cable or Wi-Fi) but was terribly un-level front to back. We had to go to Walmart to purchase additional leveling blocks. The site was on a hill with the picnic table down at the bottom. Because it was still winter we could see some of the water. Much of the park was damaged in a 2015 storm and has not been reopened. It has very good hiking trails. This park could use some serious maintenance on the roads and site pads. The staff was always extremely nice. Not very much noise at the park. Plenty of shopping near by. Verizon cell service was fair. We got a $70 Texas Park Pass to avoid the daily use fees of $5/day/person.

Mother’s Day weekend May 13, 2018 in tent. The best sites were taken when we arrived. We were unable to reserve online because the park was sold out. Tent sites are first come first served and a mile and a half walk from the trailhead. Several cancellations meant we were able to get a developed site. Please read reviews from RV’ers to get their opinion.

We witnessed extremely unleveled sites and were stunned by the ingenuity of some RVers to get those backnends level. We tent camped at site 205. Most of the sites in that loop had stairs going up on the odd numbers and stairs going down on the even numbers. Each site in the loop had a covered picnic table, large fire pit, tall trash hangers, and small mowed unleveled areas surrounded by tall grasses and trees of cedar, mesquite, hackberry, and the like. Did not see oak. Site 205 looks level but it’s not.

The view: There is a small shaded area for a small tent otherwise the tent area gets full Texas burning sun. The view overlooks the busy highway and lots of cellphone and tv towers.

Noise level: The echo of the highway is clear.

The rest of the view is green of the valley in the distance and RVs. I like that we were up a hill away from RV generators. I like the strong breezes and winds to keep temperature cool -but in cold weather it may be too cold.

The tent site: No tent pad.
The slope at site 205 was gentle but I should have listened to my training and pitched the tent for best sleep with the head at the top of the slope. Instead I spent a mostly sleepless night feeling like I was rilolling downhill. This would be a good site for a hammock tent. The fire pit has a heavy adjustable height grate on one end. Bring your own firewood. The park store is permanently closed and the nearby Walmart only carries firewood in the Winter months. I went to the grocery store named Kroger across the highway from Walmart to buy mesquite wood chips but advise you to bring your own wood because there was no available wood at the park or nearby stores. It seems odd that they don’t want you to bring wood yet have no suppliers of wood. A Duraflame log was our campfire that night and we could not cook with it. Other campers had harvested fallen wood and I do not like to harvest fallen wood unless the park has a policy permitting harvesting wood for campfires.

Night sky: Because the park is surrounded by cities - I could not see the stars at night.

Because the hookups are down the hill - a very long cord is required for electricity. All plug types were available including regular household current. Contact the park for specifics.

Parking: The parking for a car or truck was okay. A small RV could fit here- not a big rig. The parking pad is not level but not bad like other sites. I walked through some tall grass - not far just a few feet.

Insects: I have about 30 chiggar bites. Take precautions and bring spray repellant and use it. Also bring bite treatment. I did not see mosquitoes built the chiggars are just as bad.

Wildlife: I saw a couple of rabbits and interesting birds. I was not prepared for chiggars. There were 2 copper heads crossing the road at a nearby site. I saw zero snakes at site 205.

Site size: People have large family events at this park. The sites in this loop are too small for large events.

Weather: The day was sunny at about 80 degrees.
Night was considerably cooler. The winds picked up at night and the picnic table awning sounded as if it would be ripped off. During the day I could barely hear the awning. The winds are strong at site 205.

Restrooms and showers: The nearby restrooms were littered with dead and living bugs and spiders. There was also wet toilet paper here and there and some type of white powder on the seats. It would be a bathroom to walk away from if it was at a gas station. The shower had a strong stream of water and truly hot water which may have been what triggered my body’s allergic response to the chiggers. Bring shower shoes and your own soap because the bathrooms have none - not even for washing hands at the sink. This is one of the biggest Texas state parks with professional staff but it’s as if they don’t have enough staff or financial resources to handle the large crowds. People pay by the person to enter the park.

The beach: There is a gravel beach. The lake water is dirty brown in color. People fish in the lake called Joe Pool lake.

If you are assigned site 205 at Cedar Hill State Park in Cedar Hill, TX, I hope this review has prepared you to have a great stay and avoid my mistakes. Bring your bikes and water toys and enjoy your stay.

2 night stay.. turned in to one. Rude awaking ants every where including our truck... we are stll working to get them out. Be prepared if you plan on staying!

This park is HUGE with fishing, biking, hiking, water activities, and a lot of other things to do. There's even an old farm that's part of the campground that you can tour.

Many of the sites are very private with plenty of mature trees and bushes to provide separation between sites. The only downside is that the loop we were on was near the highway and so we heard some traffic noises at night. There are several other camping loops that are further into the park however, so the sites there would probably have been quieter.

Overall, this was a great park with lots of outdoor activities you can do but also with easy access to get into town.

Blog Post: https://www.travelswithletwinkie.com/blog/2018/7/2/3-months-on-the-road-recap-of-the-places-weve-traveled-to