RV camping | Roadtirement

Entrance to the campground

Sometimes you find a campground that, for your use, just works well. Shady Trails Family Campground is near Hillsboro, Ohio and close to Rocky Fork Lake. You can see a portion of the huge lake from the entrance to the campground, and there is a public dock and boat ramps a half mile from the campground.. Primarily filled with seasonal campers, this campground does have several nice spots for transient travelers.

The owners are starting their first season as the new owners of the facility. The facilities are not fancy, but the rest rooms and showers are very clean as is the small laundry room. There is a nice playground for the kids and a large shelter house for picnics and other gatherings. Propane, ice and firewood are available.

The park is hilly with decent roads. Extra long rigs will have to be careful negotiating some of the turns.The sites are level and each has a nice concrete pad for the picnic table. Most sites also have a fire ring. This facility is very pretty with lots of trees. The campgrounds offer nice tent camping sites, too.

The rates are very reasonable and extremely reasonable ($12.50 a nite midweek) with your Passport America discount. Shady Trails is open from April through October. It features full hooks-up including 30 and 50 amp, some pull thru and some accomodate double slides. Check the Shady Trails website for the number and other information.

I would recommend this campground for its price, beauty, very nice and helpful owners and the peace and quiet. I have to also say that their free WiFi is very strong and fast. This campground is worth a look if you are in the area.

Short term sites on the right, seasonal on the left

The camp office

Hideout on a level grassy area, sales canopy on the gravel path.

Our Hideout trailer on a level grassy area in back, sales canopy on the gravel path. We paid for 30′ of frontage.

The Annie Oakley Festival was over, and our next event was going to be two weeks away in the same location. Would we travel during that time frame or would we stay and camp at the site? I spoke with a fellow vendor who had a food concession trailer set up at the Annie Oakley Festival. He was going to another festival the following weekend that was very close. I got the phone number from him, called and got a spot reserved.

So off we went to the State Line Heritage Days in Union City Indiana and Ohio. Yes, the town was split by the state line! The great thing was that it was only 11 miles from our current location. Talk about saving on travel costs, this was ideal. We left on Monday and drove to Union City.

We had to drop the trailer a fair distance behind our canopy due to the ground level. This was not a real problem and there was plenty of room to park the truck. This place also had water in addition to 20AMP electric service. And the cost? Would you believe that the total cost for a 30′ space and seven nights of camping was only $60.00?

This was not a huge festival attendance wise, but we still sold a lot of our necklaces. With the low cost of the vendor space factored in this was a very profitable festival for us. We really enjoyed this festival and it is now on our calendar for next year.