Mission Tejas State Park Campground

This little park is nothing short of a treasure!!!! First of all, it only has 17 campsites, including two tent only ones. I love that!!!! Second, there is a stretch of THE ACTUAL Camino Real going through the park. Third, it's very very close to another treasure, Caddo Mounds State Historic Site. And FOURTH (sorry, I can't help the caps), this area was mentioned in the classic travelogue Blue Highways. Like I said, a treasure!!!! The only trail I walked was the Camino Real Trail, which is not clearly marked in the standard map, but is marked on the pulled-from-under-the-counter-special-map they will give you if you express an interest in hiking. As well as the Camino, which was quite simply awesome (a footpath that was used by native Americans for generations upon generations, later used by the Spaniards, and now ME! so well traversed that it has literally beaten a trail about a few FEET into the ground!), it also has a historic building, the Rice Family Log home, which includes interesting explanation of historic log home building techniques. And, it's very green (east Texas piney woods) and very very quiet because there is no highway or busy road nearby. I highly recommend this off the beaten path Texas state park.

We LOVE this park. It is part of Davy Crockett National Forrest. The person who wrote the first review did a great job. The trails are beautiful. Lots of history in this part of Texas... and IN this park! The park is not really on the way to anywhere, but is worth the drive!

One word of caution - many of the sites have hookups on the door side of the site. For site 15 we needed extensions for our water & electric.

On our first trip we went to Rusk & road the Texas State Train to Palestine & back. If it a beautiful fun way to see the piney woods of East Texas.

For a video of our most recent visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy8ln-tUO94

This was our first time camping in East Texas, and we were pleasantly surprised by this campsite. Decent sites, great kids programs which included a park GPS for Geocaching. Kids enjoyed fishing in the lake and had fun catching nightcrawlers. Park staff was very nice, and the buildings are brand new Site 9 needed a bit of leveling (about 5 inches), and had some runoff sand from a recent storm, but we were able to manage without uncoupling the TV. Site 10 which is also a pull through would have been better. Otherwise, the only better thing to add would be sewer at the sites! Of note, we needed to dump upon arrival, and the dump station only has one way through it, so we just did a loop and came back. With the cell booster we were able to get limited service.

Disclosure: We were there in Oct 2018 so things may have improved since then. When we were there it needed some attention but still, we loved the park.

It's a small, quiet campground in a beautiful wooded setting and the staff was very helpful and friendly. The sites are $15 per day plus $3 per person per day. They waive the $3 fee with a Texas State Park annual pass. They have hot showers, one each for men and women, and clean bathrooms. According to their website, you can borrow a GPS at the headquarters for geocaching in the park. Nearby is Caddo Mounds State Historic Site and along the highway are various historic markers. 12 miles away in Alto you'll find gas, groceries, and a family dollar.

The issue was that the asphalt pads at the campsites were in serious need of repair. We tried to level in probably 6 sites before settling on site #10. The other sites we tried would have been pretty difficult for us to level our 30' class C. The ones we didn't bother trying were either way too rough, too unlevel or too short. Most sites were probably better suited to RVs smaller than ours. We arrived without a reservation so lucky for us the campground was empty and we had our pick of sites. We were told most of their campers are hunters in the Fall.

We'd love this park to see more business and be able to improve the campsites. Either way, we'd gladly camp here again.

I'll be up front, since I checked in late, I mistakenly set up in site #10. I realized my mistake the following day in the afternoon. So, I can actually review two sites. Site #10 was pretty level, it looked out to a creek bed, felt very private and was lovely. Site #8 on the other hand was not level, all the hook ups were on the opposite side and stepping out of the trailer was a safety hazard because of some narrow stone steps that led to the picnic table. If we hadn't been in a rush to clear the other site, we could have made some adjustments to make it better. Just don't pick site #8 and you'll be okay. Overall the park was a pleasant surprise. Lots of trails to hike. Lots of history. Nice staff. Super clean restrooms. I definitely recommend.

This park is small and the campsites are intimate and close together - But we found it rather enjoyable and peaceful. Our site had a narrow pad on a short pull through but we were under some tap pine trees so all was good.

The staff is friendly and the bathrooms are new and clean.

There are a TON of great hiking trails here and a few campsites you need to hike too.

We really enjoyed this park.