Looking for free camp sites in Georgia or bordering states

[Johnny M]

We camped this weekend close to home at Lake Sinclair Recreation Area a US Forest Service day use area and campground. This is a nice little low cost campground with over 30 sites, 5 of which have water & electric the rest have no hookups. All sites have picnic tables, fire ring, tent pad, etc. Many of the no hookup sites are on the lake shore. The have a bath house close to or in each loop. There is a beach, boat ramp, hiking trail and a fishing dock. The electric sites are $15/night and $7 for the regular sites. Most sites will accommodate a small rv, a few are suitable for larger rigs, and some of the tent sites are not really rv accessible. There is a full time host and we will be camping here again in the future as it is about 40 minutes from the house so we don't have to drive far when we want to go but have to work up to 5 on Friday.

[FishingBob]

Originally Posted by Johnny M

We camped this weekend close to home at Lake Sinclair Recreation Area a US Forest Service day use area and campground. This is a nice little low cost campground with over 30 sites, 5 of which have water & electric the rest have no hookups. All sites have picnic tables, fire ring, tent pad, etc. Many of the no hookup sites are on the lake shore. The have a bath house close to or in each loop. There is a beach, boat ramp, hiking trail and a fishing dock. The electric sites are $15/night and $7 for the regular sites. Most sites will accommodate a small rv, a few are suitable for larger rigs, and some of the tent sites are not really rv accessible. There is a full time host and we will be camping here again in the future as it is about 40 minutes from the house so we don't have to drive far when we want to go but have to work up to 5 on Friday.

Is that one you have to reserve? Can you get that done even on a Friday afternoon? Nice to have a handy place that lets you be spontaneous.

[Johnny M]

Originally Posted by FishingBob

Is that one you have to reserve? Can you get that done even on a Friday afternoon? Nice to have a handy place that lets you be spontaneous.

Bob,
This one is a first come first serve facility...with that said, we got their about 6:30 on a Friday and got the last RV hookup site available. Had we been a few minutes later getting there we would have missed out on it. A camper across from us left early Saturday so we switched to that site as we liked it better and the one we left was taken pretty quick. There only 5 sites with water & electric. Most of the other sites will accommodate a smaller rv like ours just without the hook ups. Some are tent only as you can't get a trailer to the tent pad due to the layout. Some sites will accommodate a larger trailer or RV in both areas, we even seen several motor homes setup here at different sites/times.

Lake Russel Recreation Area is one of my favorites too, no reservations needed, has 42 sites and they are all first come first serve as well but when we visited there last year it was well less than half full...nice 100 acre lake with boat ramp and a designated swimming area. None of these sites have electric except for a couple of handicap accessible ones that you must see the host to occupy.

Here is a link to the US Forestry Service designated campgrounds for the Chattahoochee and Oconee National Forests in Georgia:
https://www.fs.usda.gov/activity/con...10454&actid=29

I saw a ranger last weekend and asked about dispersed camping and the ranger told me you can camp anywhere in a US Forest Land for free as long as it is not a designated campground and that there are no signs saying camping is prohibited in that immediate area. If you have ever looked at the maps of US Forest Land in Georgia that encompasses a tremendous amount of wildland with plentiful camping opportunities if you like to boondock. Also note, Georgia Forestry Service Land and US Forestry Service Lands are not the same, GFS is owned by the state and has different rules than the US Forestry Service federal lands.

[FishingBob]

Thanks for the info, John. I've not spent much on that USFS unit, and that's a good point on the differences between state and federal forests. The places in the mountains I PM'd you would mostly be boondocking areas where you wouldn't be the first; basically, seclusion (absent Helen area Octoberfest) but places to back in between the trees, fire rings set up, etc.
Bob

[Timber Wolf]

Originally Posted by Byron Kinnaman

Only if you're paranoid.

Just because you are paranoid does not mean they are not out to get you.

[Chris Jones]

Got to looking and didn't realize there were so many areas around that are USFS! Looks like I'll be checking some of these out. If you guys get up around NE Ga let me know!

[Johnny M]

Definitely will Chris, trying to plan a trip now. We were schedule for a coastal trip but the weather for the weekend down their doesn't look promising so we may head north instead. We have been to Cherokee/Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge are many times both staying in hotels and in the camper the last couple of years. The last trip was in July just outside of Gatlinburg in Cosby area where we stayed at the Adventure Bounds RV campground. We have done most of the typical touristy stuff there but looking for something different, not sure what...We thought about staying in the Cosby Campground but again we done most of what the area has to offer, and really are looking for something different. Anyone got any suggestions?

[Al and Cindy K]

John - the forecast for the NC Outer Banks actually looks pretty good for the next several days. Temps in the high 70's, light breeze and 20% chance of rain at the most. There's a fiberglass rally going on at Camp Hatteras in Rodanthe over the weekend. I'd recommend the NPS Frisco campground a few miles further south if you don't care for that sort of thing.

[k0wtz]

ooohhhhcape Hattaras nice place!!

[k0wtz]

I like the fed park in the Smokies but no use for Gatlinburg and all that stuff we have Branson. Think about that for a bit!

[starsea]

Sitting around doing nothing at a Walmart? What do they think? That they work there. lol

[Johnny M]

This coming weekend I think we will try one of the NPS campgrounds in the Gatlinburg area. I have rode through several of them before when up there. They are very nice campgrounds but you don't have any hookups (no water, no electric) but I am okay with that. We have a good battery in the Boler tongue box with all led lighting and a 12vdc hengs fan. Everything else uses 110 (fridge, tv, toaster oven) so we will do without those this trip. Other than that we might use battery power to charge a cell phone, tablet or a portable dvd player.

Also, I totally forgot about this thread until this week, so I thought I should update that our last trip was to Clarks Hill Lake aka J Strom Thurmond and we stayed at the COE Big Hart Campground. It was AWESOME! Almost all the sites were waterfront with all sites having water and electric (no sewer but a dump station). And hardly anyone there considering it was still late summer. Also the sites are HUGE! Did I say how HUGE they are? I would rather pass up the sardine can type rv parks any day for the spaciousness of the COE's. The price was very reasonable at only $24 per night considering you have water & electric. Here is a couple of pics below. Oh, and for any fisherman, the tail race pier for stripers is beyond words if you can be there when they open the flood gates, its like they ring the dinner bell. I hooked the biggest fish of my life there on that trip, he broke my line when I went to lip him but he was around 28 to 30" in length.

We will try the Outer Banks soon but it will be too much driving for us for our short weekend trip, our son's out of school early on Friday and off Monday so we are trying to keep travel time to around 4 hours.

Also, we love the Gatlinburg area, the downtown strip and Pigeon Forge are neat if you are into the touristy trap thing but we have done most of whats to do there but I personally love the Townsend, Cades Cove and Cosby areas myself. Are there any other places similar to Gatlinburg in the Southeast anyone recommends?

Anyway maybe will see some folks from here in Cosby this weekend...