Best Tent Camping: Alabama. Joe Cuhaj
and magical underground rivers; hike to cascading waterfalls; spend hours bird-watching or admiring wildflowers; play historian with a trip back in time to historic Civil War battlefields, ancient Native American mounds, and towns that are all but memories; or canoe and kayak meandering blackwater rivers or Class III, IV, or V whitewater rapids. And that’s only the start.
The number and types of flora and fauna in Alabama keep botanists and zoologists up at night. Some of the most rare and beautiful wildflowers bloom here, wildlife range from wild turkey to black bear to the American alligator, and when it comes to fish, the state’s thousands of miles of rivers, lakes, and streams are home to more than 144 species—more than the entire state of California has. I guess one statistic sums the state up nicely—Alabama is the fifth-most ecologically diverse state in the country.
Camping in Alabama lets you experience this diversity first hand. You can camp beneath a rock shelter in a beautiful, deep canyon with glowing insects called dismalites that illuminate the rock walls; pitch your tent atop the state’s highest mountain, Cheaha, for spectacular views; settle in for a night along the banks of the second-largest river delta in the country; or sleep under the stars at the site of the last major battle of the Civil War.
As for the organization of the book, I’ve divided the state into the four regions defined by the Alabama Tourism Department. The first is the Metropolitan, or Metro, Region. Located just above the middle of the state, it includes Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, and Anniston. Here you will find spectacular mountain camping in the Talladega National Forest, as well as plenty of outings in historical state parks.
Next there is the Mountain Region, which is located in the northern quarter of the state and includes the cities of Huntsville, Florence, and Fort Payne. Not only will you experience mountains here but canyons as well, such as in the Sipsey Wilderness of the Bankhead National Forest and the deepest canyon east of the Mississippi, Little River Canyon, near Fort Payne.
The River Region includes the state capital, Montgomery, as well as Auburn, Dothan, and some smaller but remarkable historical towns on the state’s west side. The region gets its name from the myriad of waterways crisscrossing this area as they meander southward to the Gulf of Mexico. And I mean a myriad! Take a look at the state seal and you will see this tapestry of rivers, and that’s only a small fraction.
Finally we have the Gulf Region, which includes the city of Mobile plus Baldwin, Escambia, and Monroe Counties. Although its coastal miles are minimal compared with, say, those of Florida or Texas, Alabama still has some of the prettiest beaches you’ll find anywhere, fantastic resort-type camping, and beautiful campgrounds along some of the major rivers flowing into the Gulf of Mexico.
The most common question with a book like this is about my selection process for the 50 campgrounds. My primary goal was to make this guide a sample of the many wonderful campsites the state has to offer and to provide a little something for everyone. Whether you’re a beginning or veteran camper, whether or not you have children, or whether you want to use your campground as a base to explore historical towns or beautiful landscapes, I think that you’ll find a campsite just right for you. I hope that you’ll find a good cross section of camping experiences so that you can visit the landscapes and people that make camping in Alabama so special.
But the campgrounds you read about here are just the beginning. There are hundreds more for you to visit, all equally impressive. I hope that this book inspires you to go out and find your own special campground in Alabama where you’ll make memories for yourself and your family.
INTRODUCTION
How to Use This Guidebook
The publishers of Menasha Ridge Press welcome you to Best Tent Camping: Alabama. Whether you’re new to this activity or you’ve been sleeping in your portable outdoor shelter over decades of outdoor adventures, please review the following information. It explains how we have worked with the author to organize this book and how you can make the best use of it.
Some passages in this introduction are applicable to all of the books in the Best Tent Camping guidebook series. Where this isn’t the case, such as in the descriptions of weather, wildlife, and plants, the author has provided information specific to your state.
THE RATINGS & RATING CATEGORIES
As with all of the state-by-state books in the publisher’s Best Tent Camping series, this guidebook’s author personally experienced dozens of campgrounds and campsites to select the top 50 locations in this state. Within that universe of 50 sites, the author then ranked each one in the six categories described below. As a tough grader, the author awarded few five-star ratings, but each campground in this guidebook is superlative in its own way. For example, a site may be rated only one star in one category but perhaps five stars in another category. This rating system allows you to choose your destination based on the attributes that are most important to you.
Beauty
Beauty, of course, is in the eye of the beholder, but panoramic views or proximity to a lake or river earn especially high marks. A campground that blends in well with the environment scores well, as do areas with remarkable wildlife or geology. Well-kept vegetation and nicely laid-out sites also up the ratings.
Privacy
The number of sites in a campground, the amount of screening between them, and physical distance from one another are decisive factors for the privacy ratings. Other considerations include the presence of nearby trails or day-use areas, as well as proximity to a town or city that would invite regular day-use traffic and perhaps compromise privacy.
Spaciousness
The size of the tent spot, its proximity to other tent spots, and whether or not it is defined or bordered from activity areas are the key consideration. The highest ratings go to sites that allow the tent-camper to comfortably spread out without overlapping neighboring sites, or picnic, cooking, or parking areas.
Quiet
Criteria for this rating include several touchstones: the author’s experience at the site, the nearness of roads, the proximity of towns and cities, the probable number of RVs, the likelihood of noisy ATVs or boats, and whether a campground host is available or willing to enforce the quiet hours. Of course, one set of noisy neighbors can deflate a five-star rating into a one-star (or no-star), so the latter criterion—campground enforcement—was particularly important in the author’s evaluation of this category.
Security
How you determine a campground’s security will depend on who you view as the greater risk: other people or the wilderness. The more remote the campground, the less likely you are to run into opportunistic crime, but the more remote the campground, the harder it is to get help in case of an accident or dangerous wildlife confrontation. Ratings in this category take into consideration whether there was a campground host or resident park ranger, proximity of other campers’ sites, how much day traffic the campground received, how close the campground was to a town or city, and whether there was cell-phone reception or some type of pay phone or emergency call button.
Cleanliness
A campground’s appearance often depends on who was there right before you and how your visit coincides with the maintenance schedule. In general, higher marks went to those campgrounds with hosts who cleaned up regularly. The rare case of odor-free toilets also gleaned high marks. At campgrounds without a host, criteria included trash receptacles and evidence that sites were cleared and that signs and buildings were kept repaired. Markdowns for the campground were not given for a single visitor’s garbage left at a site, but old trash in the shrubbery and along trails, indicating infrequent cleaning, did secure low ratings.
THE OVERVIEW MAP & KEY
Use the overview map on the inside front cover to pinpoint the location of each campground. The campground’s number follows it throughout this guidebook: from the overview map, to the