Rock Island State Park - Rock Island, Tennessee (October 2022)

Several of the campground review sites we trust convinced us to make reservations for Rock Island State Park. Their reviews were positive and we decided to check it out for ourselves. 

The RV GPS was helpful in that it alerted us to multiple sharp turns and narrow roads as we weaved our way through Tennessee's hills to get to the park. It became clear that you had to travel some state roads to reach this park. After checking in, we were given a map to our site. 

Bridge heading into the park

Sign at the entrance to the park

We found ourselves saying “Oh my” as we pulled Rosie, our Airstream trailer, to our site. The campground had many mature trees and their leaves were in the process of changing colors. 

The colors of the leaves were amazing

That changed to, “Our sons would have loved this campground” as we arrived at our site. It had trees all around it and it was on a slope. We felt like we were in hill country. Also, there was space between Rosie and our camping neighbors. It really felt as if we were camping in the woods. Yes, this was a campground that our sons would have loved when they were small. 

Rosie in the campground

We quickly figured out that this was not a park that we would be riding our bicycles around. There were too many steep hills and we knew we would be walking our bikes up them. 

The main features in this park were the waterfalls. There were several and you ended up having to drive to them because they were five or more miles from the campground. The multiple waterfalls were impressive and fun to hike to after parking our truck in the parking lots. 

First view of the waterfalls

Selfie by the falls

The falls in this park

There were other things that were interesting to see in the park. There was an old cotton mill and something we called Rapunzel's Tower, a water spring house for the mill.  

The water spring house in the park

One of the reasons for this trip was to enjoy the fall colors and we were not disappointed. While the colors were not at peak, we enjoyed seeing them. 

Rosie's site in this park

The temperature did dip below freezing while camping here. Between Rosie's heat pump and furnace, we were warm and hoped the people in tents had cold weather sleeping bags. 

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• There were multiple loops in the campground
• Our site was a back in
• Our site had lots shade
• Most sites had some space on both sides
• Our site was paved with asphalt and was level
• Our site had 20, 30 and 50 amp electrical service 
• Our site had a water connection
• Our site did not have a sewer connection
• There was a dump station in this park 
• The trash dumpsters were near the dump station. It was easy to walk there with your trash
• There were several bathhouses in the campground 
• The park provided WiFi service. We measured 5.89 mbps download and 3.05 mbps upload speeds
• AT&T provided 2 bars of 4G voice and data service over our campsite 
• We were unable to pickup any TV stations using Rosie's antenna 
• There were restaurants and shopping nearby
• This was a pet friendly park