Love this state park. Very clean and campsites are not stacked on top of each other. Nice trails…read moreand a nice lake for fishing. Lake is known for crappie and bass. The staff is very nice and friendly. Just outside the entrance is a little store that sells all your basic needs in case you forgot something or need something like food water toilet paper, etca.. and has fishing tackle and live bait. If you are hungry, they have a little grill that you can get a burger or a fish shrimp basket or other items to eat. Very friendly owners.

A great trip was enjoyed by all. Halloween was very successful and all the children enjoyed going…read moresite to site.. The staff was out and about helping campers locate their sites and helping them to park. Wonderful time..

This place is gorgeous!!! Only thing I suggest there is no microwave so bring one if you can!read more

With everything in life, you get what you pay for…read more You pay for cheap park, you get cheap park. BUT- with that being said, it's a wonderful park to be in. My family camps there at least once every 6 weeks. A lot of families within the 3 surrounding counties spend a lot of their time there. It's just what you do. Bonus- If your there on a Saturday, stop by the Pike County Speedway for some redneck, dirty boots required fun. Yehaw!

If you love he outdoors, solitude and dirt roads, the Clear Springs Recreation area is the place…read morefor you. Most people who visit this part of the Homochitto National Forest do so for either camping or lakefront activities. The lake here is typical of Mississippi lakes which is to say that it is beautiful, filled with fish and if you really want, you can swim in it. Surrounding the lake there are several picnic tables, shelters and permanently mounted charcoal grills. The lake has an area sectioned off for swimming, but let me warn you, this is no swimming pool. While I haven't personally swam in this lake, I have swam in many like it. Feel a little nibble while you're swimming? That's not your girlfriend, that's a perch. If you think that will freak you out, don't swim here. All of the stuff I just wrote about is great, but it is not why I visited here. My visit was a result of a guy at work telling me all about the dirt roads that run throughout the forest. Since it was a holiday weekend I couldn't get a map to find the roads so I just set out exploring. If dirt roads are what you are interested in, this is the section of the park to find them. Right before you come to the area to pay your fee there will be a gravel road toward your left. Do yourself a favor and follow it. The roads that traverse this park offer an amazing journey. There are actually several different roads, many of which my GPS picked up. The roads were labeled with numbers, but the main one was listed as Wagon Wheel Road on my GPS. Since the roads are gravel even a car can pass easily, but a truck or 4x4 would allow you to do what I did. Along the gravel roads there are many smaller dirt roads. I believe they are all part of the national forest road system, but they are not labeled. They are also more difficult to traverse and some even required high ground clearance and four wheel drive. I spent hours exploring this forest. During that time I never saw any other people. It was very peaceful. So why would anyone want to drive through a great expanse of forest on a dirt road? If you have to ask, this is probably not the place for you. If you enjoy this sort of thing, this is a great place to get away from it all.

A group of us took a trip here this past weekend. It was picturesque. We did hiking, mtn biking and…read moreswam in the lake. I strongly recommend it. We tent camped by the lake, but there are primitive sites way off the beaten track. It is a large forest with 20+ miles of trails. They were well marked along the trail itself but hard to find when you are crossing over the fire roads and connectors. We spent half the day on the trails and would have kept going if we would have brought more supplies. We only found the Richardson Trail worth biking and the pine smell and rolling hills were well worth all the energy we exerted. The Mill Road is a nice hike, just very rooty. Tally's is closed at the camping entrance, but we had to take it to connect to the Richardson for biking- it is also rooty. Highly recommend this spot! Note You can't make camping reservations early and RVs are not allowed.

Large tracts of unadulterated wilderness. Sasquatch would love it here. The sandy/gravelly river…read moreit's named for is loaded with secluded sand bars, but beware the quicksand!

Very nice place and well worth going see. It is only 5 dollars a car to enter and they have so many…read morethings to do you can launch your boat, go swimming, fish, BBQ, or just enjoy the view. They have a playground for children and located near it is the swimming area. Which includes a changing facility, BBQ pits and tables to sit on. Not to mention the great views they have the entire place. Definitely my go to place for a get away and relax location.

Chatauqua Park- Nice maintained park, playground, lake and walking trail. Great for picnic and for…read morekids to play. Has trees for shade.

It's ridiculous that you have to pay $17 per person to enter the park and nothing works. Showers…read moresuck bathrooms not even cleaned nor operable! Fishing is fantastic though

Likely one of the best of the BREC parks. Large fishing pond that's stocked with catfish in summer…read moreand trout in the winter. Large paved walking trail as well as a wooded, unlaced trail. Also has a dog park and multiple ball parks. Areas able to be reserved for parties. Outdoor exercise equipment included too!

Lovely location for an outdoor birthday party. Beautiful playground equipment. Water splash pad…read morefor the children to cool off. It's October and 98 degrees. Thankfully they have the water to cool off the children.

The Afton Villa plantation house burned down almost sixty years ago, but the owners decided to…read moremaintain the property's extensive gardens despite the loss of the antebellum mansion. What remains today are a series of various gardens, ranging from formal parterres to a rolling stepped lawn in the English style. (This is fitting as planters in the Florida Parishes were usually Englishmen, not French like the inhabitants of the plantations further south along the River Road.) Access to the gardens is down an allée of old oaks draped in the ubiquitous Tillandsia usneoides (better known as Spanish moss) whose branches practically intertwine overhead, forming a sort of living arcade. Along the paths are benches to enjoy the garden "rooms," one of which happens to be an old cemetery hidden away by a wall of hedges. (Among the graves ― most of which are above-ground in the Louisiana style ― is one for a little girl of less than nineteen months.) There was very little in bloom on my visit, which came near the end of the gardens' spring season. Despite that, it was still worth a visit to experience the sheer lushness of Louisiana's vegetation in a more manicured and maintained environment than the rambling forests that surround Afton Villa. Despite Louisiana's famously hospitable horticultural climate, gardens of such ambition are now rare in the state, so a visit to Afton Villa Gardens is not only a chance to glimpse a bit of lost Louisiana history but all to contemplate what sorts of things could be done by garden designers and landscape architects in the area someday.

The drive into the gardens were so beautiful with all the azelas. There use to be a plantation…read morehouse, but it burned down years ago. If you go in the spring, so much is in bloom. Azelas everywhere. A wonderful daffodil garden. Wisteria, a beautiful pond. Among other flowers. It's worth a trip out.

This was a great stop for us in between Birmingham and New Orleans. Now-a-days, a stop for our kids…read morethat gets energy out has become pretty crucial. So for a ride back, we looked up a park to stop at on our way home. Optimist Park came up on Yelp and the pictures looked promising. We stopped here and I dropped off the fam while I went and grabbed lunch. It was not well covered, but it wasn't way too hot for our kids to play. Once I picked up lunch, they had great tables for us to dine after a good playtime. The bathrooms were clean and I would recommend this park for anyone in our same situation. I wish we had this park in our neighborhood. Great stop if you are looking for a good place to get some energy out for the kiddos.

My granddaughter really enjoyed the park, I was glad to find something close to home for her to…read moreenjoy and allow my other grandkids to enjoy as well