Turkey Run State Park Campground

It is a great place for a family or a youth group field trip. There are several trails throughout the park ranging in length and difficulty and hiking these makes for a nice day trip. However, if you are looking for some rugged terrain, not the best place to go. Their one, "very rugged" trail wasn't to difficult to tackle and was mainly rugged due to it's climbing through small "canyons" carved out by creeks.

This park is great. We stayed at site 203 recently and it’s nice because you only have neighbors on one side. We needed to raise our back corner by about 3” to get the rig level. The campground gets packed and both times we were on the side that’s high numbers because it’s under more trees (use google earth). Much of the campground isn’t as well protected and is more out in the open which we shy away from. I could see this campground getting pretty loud although both times the noise level was moderate but not too bad, mostly kids having fun riding bikes on the hill adjacent to the site. Nice bathrooms with good pressure and temperature control. The trails are incredible in the park, particularly across the swinging bridge in the nature preserve. A trail exists from the campground that takes you over there. It’s 1.2 miles from our site to the swinging bridge. We found a great mess of oyster mushrooms on trail 7 right by the campground. The nature center is very nice and I talked to two different naturalists, both very knowledgeable and friendly. If you come here, don’t be too fancy to get food from the gas station across the street. It’s legit. I had a double cheeseburger made to order using local beef and it was terrific. The other two places we ate had far worse reheated, mass produced junk from the freezer section.

This is a fantastic Indiana SP for the hiking. In my opinion, the majority of the sites are okay, usually enough room but not many trees in between. Get a site in the woods or back loop if you can. From a few of the sites, you can occasionally hear a faint highway noise. Many times can get a spot on short notice (except major holidays) but you probably won't get a wooded site. I come here for two reasons, I love the hiking and the kayaking on the Sugar River (I have found that any body of water with Sugar in it's name is for me). By the way, Q-dog loves the Sugar River too. There is a vast trail system, something for everyone with most trails crossing a span bridge that is awesome. It was closed one year due to flooding but its fixed and reinforced now. Even in that year, you could access the trails from the far end of the park. To kayak, go across the street to the outfitter, you can rent a kayak or bring your own and your dog can go with you, even on the school bus that they use for transportation to the kayak launch off site.

I am reluctant to give this campground a mediocre review but I must. I will note that we visited on a crowded summer weekend so my review is based my experience at full capacity. The campground is fairly large with over 200 sites ranging from wooded sites with privacy to those that are out in the open. The campground is also a bit close to the main road so the sites close to the gate are exposed to some road noise. Our site was wooded and on a slight downward grade. We camped here with three other couples on a hot weekend. The sites are electric only. The bathrooms and showers would be adequate if they were cleaned on a more regular basis. The same goes for trash removal. At full capacity, they do not have the staffing to handle the crowds. People are animals and regular and frequent cleaning could alleviate that problem. The biggest draw to Turkey Run are the exceptional hiking trails and the water sports on the Sugar Creek. The biggest drawback to this campground is that most of those attractions are located a mile down a road that is not bike friendly. There is a hiking trail to the suspension bridge where the best trails are located but it is a bit of a haul for the kids. Having said that, the scenery is spectacular even on the trails adjacent to the campground. You can hike through hemlock forests and there are ravines and scenic vistas above the massive Sugar Creek around every bend. This park would probably garner a much higher rating if my visit was not on a summer weekend. I would love to return here in the fall as the trees on the trails and the water features are magnificent. A pleasant surprise in the heartland. If you do not require an electric connection, the campground at Shades State Park just fifteen minutes down the road has similar hiking and is much less crowded.

I'll start with the hiking. Wonderful, fun trails with some stairs, ladders water crossings and rock scrambling. Beautiful forests and canyons. The lodge is nice, but would be better if it were restored to something more original. The brunch buffet was excellent. The campground has several loops with spots in the open and in the woods. Ours was a very level and wide asphalt pad. There are both picnic table and fire ring. My only reason this is not 5 star is the bathroom/shower house. It is very old and tired. Mostly clean. But the shower spray was at such an angle that I got soaked from the changing area when I turned it on. There was no way to stay dry to turn it on and let it run warm. Which it never really did get warm, much less hot.

We enjoyed our overnight here. I gave the noise rating five stars because our loop was very quiet, but an evening walk through Shady Lane and Sugar Ridge loops revealed some large, rather noisy groups. They were just having fun, but we were glad we weren’t camped near. The sites along side us (7-15) had nice shade, but were sloped. The sites on the inside of this loop (Twin Oaks) were out in the open but were level. The hiking through the ravine on the Turkey Run Hollow was amazing! We also hiked to the suspension bridge and on to the covered bridge. The only down side, other than the noisy groups, was the state of the bath house. It was old, not very clean, and had no ventilation. That said, we were glad we made this our overnight stop and would love to come back to do some more hiking and to kayak Sugar Creek.

It is sad that I can't give this place a glowing review. The trails here were absolutely amazing and unique. We camped in May and the early morning hours were the only time we could be outside of the camper as the bugs swarmed in and tried to take us away beyond that. The campsites are well pretty well spaced out and they had a lot to choose from. There were both vault toilets and regular bath houses which were dated but acceptable. Not a lot of trees in the camping areas but plenty of grass.

First time camping with our new teardrop camper. We stayed on site 081 which is right near the entrance to the campground. Site was small but since we have a tiny camper it was perfect. We were able to fit our teardrop with 12 ft awning extended plus have room to set up a pen for our dogs and shower / porta potty tent. We camped opening weekend as the state parks were closed for Covid-19. Due to the pandemic the bathrooms were closed and campground porta potties were the only provided toilet option. We chose to use our own porta potty most of the time. The shower houses were open and clean. Verizon offered very good connectivity at site 081 with 4G speeds (on memorial day weekend with a full campground) topping out at 15 down and 2 up most of the time. We are Verizon pre-paid (Visible Wireless) so you may have even faster speeds on post paid with better network priority.

Nice enough campground to provide access to the amazing state park trails, which are unique by their sandstone canyons and gulches, hiking through creeks beds that have carved these incredible geographic feature. Campground itself is fairly generic. Two of the bathhouses were under renovation for part of our stay, leaving the west loop facility as the only one fully open with shower and toilet. Campground is packed on weekends With limited bath houses these get trashed pretty quickly. Lots of local state residents here, very few out of state plates – probably due to the fact that this SP is not near any main highways and is 23 miles to the nearest town. CG has asphalt roads and camp pads in good condition. Most of the wooded, outer perimeter sites are very short and sloping making front to back level difficult. Lots of grass space between sites.

Love it except for how busy it is on the weekends.