Sam Houston Jones State Park Campground

One of my favorite places to visit. I love that it's only a few miles from my house, too. :)

Overall rating is 3 stars with the Park 5 and the camp sites about a zero. Remind me not to stay here again, please. Sites in old loop where we were at are a mishmash of angles and tightly packed on the sides, behind and in front, too. Trees are there but mostly interfered with getting into our space. Didn't appreciate the noisy crowd around us but did like the fact they went quiet at the designated hour.

That's more than I can say for the jerks who overstayed a few hours and required the state park personnel to stand there while they broke camp at 3 pm with the new tenant waiting on the road. The jerk's wife dumped her two bags of garbage in the laundry room bin where a large sign politely asked people not to do that. I asked her to go get it because the garbage stunk ip the laundry and was attracting flies. Her lame "I didn't know" made me want to throw up (on her).

Meanwhile back in the otherwise already filthy but free laundry I just wanted to get out of there. I'd gladly pay to wash and dry if I can have working machines AND hot water. Hear that LA state parks?

This park has nice trails worth seeing and the weekend we were there was a free cast iron kettle lunch club that made pure deliciousness in a variety of items served to anyone for free. I did check out the newer loop which was a bit nicer but still crowded on top of one another.

One other gripe are the pigs who throw their garbage in top of the dumpster instead of in it. I watched a park employee don rubber gloves to clean up the mess that fell in the ground when the animals got into it. More jerkiness! Really, are their fingers too precious to touch the dumpster lid?

Bath house is OK, wirnbutclean. Shower has hot water set at moderate temperature.

Camped in campground II for 2 weekday nights. Both mornings woke up to very very loud leaf blowing machines operated by park staff. Continued on and off through the day. So annoying considering we are in an out of the way state park where we should enjoy peacefulness and serenity. Not so here. When we spoke to park attendant about it, our comments were sort of brushed off and we were told it was probably not going to occur on the second day. Not so. Workers with loud equipment started up just after 8 am and continued on. Otherwise, we enjoyed the nice trails, clean washrooms and campground II site layouts.

Ive grown up going to this park. Over the years I have watched it start to get neglected. Fortunately, funds have finally been allocated for improvements. With that being said, 2 years ago the park was in terrible shape. Grass up to your knees, so for those that have complained about the leaf blower, get over it! I for one am thankful that they are cutting the grass and blowing the sites. (by the way, when should they do the maintenance?)
There are deer (Maggie is friendly if you get the chance to see her) and other wildlife.
The hiking/biking trails are very good.
Overall a great park with friendly staff and campers.

This park is old and needs some work, but we enjoyed the stay. We were there mid-February 2019 and stayed for a week. It rained almost the entire time we were there so didn’t get to explore as much as we would have liked. However, one day we were able to walk the trail beside the river which was very nice and well-maintained. The campground is small and for the weekend it was full. During the week there were very few campers. We were in spot #53 and I would highly recommend that spot. We only had one neighbor to one side, and it felt a bit more isolated than the others. When things are full on the weekends, it can seem a bit crowded with spots being close together. It never felt like to cramped for us because we had (IMO) one of the best spots in the campground. Some spots have full hook-up, while others are electricity and water only. Ours was electricity and water only. The dump station is nearby and if you need to dump with a tote you could easily do so. Most of the campground is not level, but nothing bad enough that you can’t get level with blocks. There is a very nice laundry room that is free. That was a great perk. There are 3 washers and 3 dryers. Several of the units seemed brand new. We took advantage of that and did some laundry during our stay. Like I said, it rained the entire time, so the site was muddy, but not as bad as we thought it would get. Internet access was good. We had 3-4 bars of AT&T and Verizon. Lake Charles and Sulphur are not far away and have anything you need while visiting. The park has some nice scenery and the trail provided some good wildlife. The main things they need to do to improve it would be fix some of the roads/camping spots that have significant potholes. Also, the camping spots could benefit from some grading to make them a bit more level. It is my understanding that the park has made vast improvements recently and it shows. Give it a bit more time and it will be a great place to stay. Overall, we would probably camp there again. Cost is $20/night during the week and $28/night on the weekend. These price are for off-peak season.

Jan 10-14, 2020
Lots of rain and interior sites flooded. Our site was very uneven, but doable. Lots of places to walk the dogs. Set up for lots of day picnicking. We would stay again if passing through the Lake Charles area, but wouldn’t make it a destination. Bathrooms were very nice and free laundry.

We stayed here for 3 nights in Aug 2020. Hot, hot, hot but shady campsites.
The trail system is awesome for running, hiking and biking. The park is well maintained. Staff very helpful and friendly. Laundry facilities ($1.75 per machine) and the bathrooms were clean.
The campground area is quite small and at the weekend was pretty much full. The spots in the middle looked quite close together but the ones on the edges were better spaced.
We stayed in #35 which was great and quite private but I have my eye on # 33 next time!
We only paid $12.50 per night as we have a NPS card.

This is one of the nicest campsites I have ever stayed at absolutely beautiful ! It is deep in the woods so it is quiet in the evening,, it is quite common to have a friendly deer come up to you. They have tent or RV camping the showers and bathrooms are clean

Paid to stay at this campground for 2 nights and when I got here it was closed. Apparently they aren’t reopening until 2022.

We phoned the office around 4pm inquiring about availability and arriving later in the evening. The woman was incredibly helpful giving us gate code information for if we arrived after 8pm.

All of the spaces were concrete and ours was level. Great hookups!

We’d stay here again for sure!