Click here to sign up for reminders when new blogs are posted.
In this blog we’ll review Lake Manatee State Park just 15 miles east of Bradenton Florida. This small and beautiful park has decent hiking as well as access to water sports at Lake Manatee. There is an array of wildlife in the 556-acre park, including some large tortoises near the campground and some really amazing creatures.
Lake Manatee was created when a dam was built across the Manatee River in the 1960s’ and according to the Florida State Park website, there are no actual manatees in the lake since the dam blocks them from access to the lake. The campground has 60 sites set in a natural setting with plenty of privacy and space between sites. While there are no full hookup sites, each site does have water and electric, a picnic table and fire ring. Most campsites are gravel or a mix of dirt and gravel and are generally large and level. The campground sits in the midst of nice, wooded and open scrub brush area.
There are four accessible sites that are paved with easy access to the nearby modern bathhouses. There is one dump station that can accommodate one RV at a time, giving the 60-site campground only a fair ratio of sites per dump station. If you depart during busy periods, you will likely have to wait to dump your tanks.
There are five criteria we look at when rating a campground. First up, Hospitality and Check-In. We give this a 5 out of 5 as it was very easy to check-in. We didn’t need to leave the vehicle to do so, as the ranger confirmed our reservation and gave us our site tag and we were on our way.
Next in our review is Infrastructure & Amenities which we are giving a 4 out of 5. The main park road and campground loops are paved and in good shape. Yet the campground loop road is very narrow and can be difficult to drive, especially if there are campers walking on the road. There are modern bathhouses and like most Florida State Park campgrounds, the campground is well maintained and cleaned by the campground hosts, and there is a security gate with passcode to enter the campground area after hours. The day-use area has excellent amenities for picnics and pavilion use. There is a full modern bathhouse there as well.
Site Quality gets a 4 out of 5 as quality of the various sites is good and privacy also very good. There are some berms and decent space between most campsites. Some campsites have good shade. While there are no sewer hook-ups at the sites, all sites have water and electric. And while most of the sites could use a load of fresh gravel, they are generally in good shape, large and private.
Having stayed at many different campgrounds, the campsites at Lake Manatee are of decent quality in terms of campsites stayed at. If the campsites had full hookups, they would be an incredible value.
Our Exercisability rating is a 4 out of 5 as there are paved park roads to run on with very occasional slow traffic as well as the trails close by within the park. Some of the trails are suited for mountain biking. The main draw, however, is Lake Manatee, with water sports available including fishing, canoeing and kayaking.
So, opportunities for recreation and exercise abound at the park. Running is somewhat limited on the park roads, however. Hitting all the roads within the park gave us a 2.4 mile loop, so accumulating any real distance would mean rerunning the park roads or having to leave the park.
Finally, we are giving a 4 out of 5 for Workability as the bandwidth for AT&T was somewhat poor, with Verizon contrarily being stellar. Using an iPhone 10, we had speeds of 1.88 Mbps down and .94 Mbps up on AT&T, making it difficult to use. Using our Verizon Jetpack 8800L MiFi, we experienced excellent speeds of 48.6 Mbps down and 20.9 Mbps up – some of the faster LTE speeds we’ve seen at any Florida State Park. This made working remotely effortless in terms of bandwidth while on Verizon. This was yet another park where we were glad that we carried devices from both major carriers.
Overall, we thought Lake Manatee State Park was a good overall value and would stay here again. We could work remotely and exercise, and the hiking was good. The campground quality, privacy and spacious sites, at a Florida State Park price, made for a recommended experience. Although full hook-ups would have put the icing on the cake for this state park, it was certainly enjoyable enough to want to return.
If you are looking for a relaxed state park with natural beauty with access to water sports at a state park price, this should certainly be on your list. The biggest issue will be planning enough in advance to reserve one of the 60 campsites. The Florida State Park booking window is 11 months, so you need to plan well in advance to hook your site.
All the best in your camping endeavors!
Remember to sign-up for blog reminders so you don’t miss when new blogs are posted.
We’d love for you to join the On The Road Team by subscribing to the YouTube channel. If you want to dive deeper, we put more content and photos on Instagram and Twitter @JohnMarucci. You can also follow John on Facebook @JohnMarucciOnTheRoad.
As always, thanks to our teammates who support the channel by watching the YouTube Ads and by starting their shopping from the On The Road Amazon Storefront at: amazon.com/shop/johnmarucci. Your support is greatly appreciated!
Watch the more than 100 videos from John Marucci – On The Road!