In this blog, I’ll review Suwannee River State Park in Florida. The park sits about 75 miles east of Tallahassee and about 37 miles west of Lake City, just north of I-10 in Florida’s Big Bend area outside of Live Oak. The state park is named for being right on the Suwannee River, famed in song. The river is 246 miles long and runs from southern Georgia to the Gulf of Mexico at Suwannee, Florida.
The campground at Suwannee River State Park sits among very mature oak trees that provide plenty of shade. All 30 campsites have full hookups, including electric, water and sewer connections. The main draw of the park is the Suwannee River which provides significant opportunity for fishing, paddling, and boating. The park is over 12 miles from the town of Live Oak, so it is somewhat secluded in nature. This is good especially if you want to get away from it all, yet the actual campsites lacked in quality that we’ll speak to shortly.
Before we delve into our five criteria for rating a campground, we want to remind you about our RV maintenance process document page on johnmarucci.com. We have detailed process documents on everything from Winterization and Dewinterization, to replacing vinyl trim, to backing in a travel trailer. Each process has a free downloadable .pdf that you can take with you when doing RV maintenance. Just head over to johnmarucci.com/docs-downloads.
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 easy to check in. We were able to remain in our vehicle to check in, making it very easy to confirm our reservation with the park ranger, receive our site tag, and be on our way.
Next in our review is Infrastructure and Amenities, which we are giving a 4 out of 5. The main park roads and campground loop road are paved and in fair condition, and it was fairly easy to maneuver with the truck and trailer. However, the loop road is narrow and most of the campsites sit perpendicular to the loop road, making it difficult to back into the campsites.
The bathhouse at the campground was in good condition and there were laundry machines available at the bathhouse. There is a very rudimentary dump station at the campground as well, yet with all campsites having full hookups, we didn’t see the dump station being used. Like most Florida State Parks, there is a security gate at the park entrance to enter when the ranger station is closed.
Site Quality gets a 3 out of 5 as most campsites were composed of loose dirt that will sink under the weight of the trailer. It made it difficult to level the trailer. There were a few sites that are paved for accessibility, however, most were the very loose dirt – some were not good at all. Also, the location of the sewer hookups is generally placed near the front of the sites, which made it difficult to reach, even with a few dump hoses hooked together. When backing in, you really need to be aware of this to position the trailer appropriately on the site.
While there are nice tall older trees above the sites, and although they provide nice shade, we did have a very large limb break off one night from high up and just miss the trailer. If we had had the trailer’s awning extended at the time, it certainly would have damaged the awning. The campsites also lack berms between sites and are generally less separated and less private than most other Florida State Park campgrounds we’ve stayed at.
Our Exercisability rating is 3 out of 5 as the trail system was somewhat lacking and roads near the park for biking and running were less than ideal. There was, however, plenty of ways to enjoy the Suwannee River. This makes the park much more of a destination park, especially for water sports, versus a work and live remotely destination.
The roads within the park itself are in good condition, but limited in distance, making them less than best for bike rides or running. The trails were fair at places along the Suwannee River, but inland at places they were not much more than deep sand dual track.
For our final rating, we are giving a 1 out of 5 for Workability as the bandwidth on Verizon was almost non-existent at times. The speed tests variated given traffic on I-10, since the closest cell tower was several miles away and close to I-10. If there is heavy traffic on I-10, the bandwidth is taken by the vehicles. There is no way one could bank on having decent bandwidth to work from. Also, the tall tree canopy would likely make satellite internet unusable.
Using an iPhone 13 Pro, we had speeds of 3.44 Mbps down and 0.06 Mbps up. Although there was some download speed, the lack of upload speed made surfing the web nearly impossible. If you do book here, be prepared for a frustrating internet experience. Better to just turn the device off, skip work, and enjoy the river.
Overall, I would not stay at Suwannee River State Park again, simply because of the way I camp. I look for places to work from and live remotely more than a focus of water sports and river fun. You may be totally different from me in this regard, and this park may really appeal to you. If so, the campground does have full-hookups and as long as you don’t mind being somewhat disconnected, and you don’t mind limited exercise options, and enjoy a big river, then you may really enjoy your time here.
All the best in your camping endeavors!
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