Bottom line: Don't come without a car. Come midweek or during off-season.
I had a negative experience but I can't blame that on the owners or the campground itself.
First, the good: it's a clean and well maintained campgrounds and the owners are friendly and attentive. My friend and I never had trouble finding a staff member when we needed help. As advertised, the area is beautiful and there are tons of trails and things to do nearby... if you have a car. Because there are no nearby towns, it gets very dark and we were able to see the Milky Way from the campground, a pleasant surprise.
Next, the neutral: yes, the tent lots are very, very close together. But if you come during mid-week or in the off-season, as we did, the place is fairly empty, which is great. We had the place to ourselves. Nevertheless, there are too many tent lots and I wouldn't want to be there when it's busy. It isn't particularly quiet even with no other campers: you can hear sound from the nearby roads, farm machinery, lawnmowers, etc.
Now for the negative, which is more about the overall experience. We found this place because it was supposedly accessible by bus and we didn't have access to a car. We live in NYC where owning a car is more trouble than it's worth. My friend spoke to the owners beforehand and did the research so I can't speak to what was said, but first of all, the bus did not drop us off at the campsite (some bus drivers will make a stop there, some won't, it's up to chance). We had to hitch a ride to the campground, and to be safe, when we left we called a car to take us to the bus stop in Saugerties. Warning: there is no Uber, Lyft, etc in this area.
While it's true that there are many trails and attractions within a few miles of the campground, none of them is accessible on foot unless you feel like walking Route 32 for 4 hours. You MUST have a car. And this is where local car services come in to charge you an arm and a leg, if they even have drivers available at all. Again, I won't name names and I don't know who said what to whom, but my friend believes he was told the cab fare to the nearest trail (4 miles, 15 minute drive) was roughly $10-15, yet the car service asked for $45 each way which is preposterous. That $90 round trip to the trailhead, by itself, would be more than we would have paid to rent a car ourselves for 3 days. So we didn't pay it and didn't get to see the trails at all. Oh, and did I mention many of the car services there close for the night at 6pm? This was all very upsetting for us. Getting to and from camp was more difficult than expected, and once there, we couldn't do anything because we couldn't get anywhere. If we had known this was the deal, we would have rented a car in NYC and driven and had 1000X better time.
But I can't fault the owners for that. Lessons learned for next time. I felt it was important to write this review in case other city slickers are considering this place as a car-free option. It's not. read more