Cloudland Canyon State Park

This was one of the best parks we visited on our trip. We were on our way to the Smoky Mountains and stumbled on this little gem. We loved it so much we stayed an extra day. The camping sites were great. They were well spaced from other sites, tucked in forest, easy access to showers and trails, and the park staff was wonderful. The hikes were easy to moderate and the views were amazing. There was a little trail with access in the camping area that was really short but had a great view of the canyon. Definitely worth checking out.

We stayed in a tent site by Foster Falls. When we called to book I asked where I could pull our jeep next to our tent site & Foster Falls was the one place that you could pull your car up to. What a blessing that I asked that question the camp sites where clean and well kept easy access to clean bathrooms & showers. Literally in hearing distance to the breathtakingly beautiful waterfall! We only had one night but will TOTALLY be returning here already planning our next trip and will bring our kids next time!!!

It was quite a hike but completely worth it! The falls are beautiful.

A bit out of the way and a mile hike to see the waterfall. However it was a very beautiful park and the staff was very helpful.

Great campground, many of the sites are spacious and shady. Georgia SP (and Texas SP) have a great system whereby you reserve a site, not a specific site, just a site. Then when you get there, you can pick the site you want that is open at that time. That way if you decide you want to be near the bathroom you can, but if you don't want to be near it, then probably no problem with that either. I loved site #45, it was not on the main drag and so therefore did not receive as much traffic.

This park is close enough (for me) to Chattanooga, TN that you can get your groceries and do other sightseeing besides hiking, like "See" Rock City (I just had to do it, have been seeing those signs for over 50 years and my family never did stop. Somewhat pricey like $25, but only going once), shop at Whole Foods, visit Museums. Also closer by are a grocery and restaurants if needed.

Big park, with lots of hiking, try West Rim Trail, Backcountry/Bear Creek trail, or Sutton Glutch. Also one of my favorite disc golf courses, mostly because I am a beginner and there were some open driver areas although I did lose one disc up in the pines.

This is by far one of the nicest parks that we've stayed at so far, though we did get a bit turned around on our way to it. As it turns out, the park is situated up in the mountains at the top of a long, tall, double switchback road. We took it slow going up and back down, but it's not something I'd like to do at night again.

When we pulled into the park, we chose the first site on our right when entering, mainly since it was next to the campground hosts and because the site we pulled into was a large, gravel spot with solid access to electric and water. What we didn't know that night is that you really couldn't have chosen a bad site to begin with.

Cloudland Canyon State Park has done a lot to set up some really great sites, and though it's situated in the hills they've set up solid gravel pads that are reinforced with railroad ties to keep each site as level as possible. Campfires were allowed and you can get bulk firewood dropped off at your site (which we did - it was only $20 and they delivered the equivalent of about 6 bundles of wood that you'd get from the main office for $6/bundle). Unfortunately the rain didn't hold out and we left the wood for the next people to enjoy our site since we were traveling across the state.

Chattanooga is only about 15 minutes away and there's a great little laundromat with a car wash next door on the way up there. They've got big industrial 60lb washers/driers and we were able to get everything done quickly and in about an hour and a half. While the campground has washers/driers on site, we didn't want to take up all 2 washers and 2 driers in the campground so we went offsite to do our laundry.

If you're looking for some cool things to do, the Chattanooga Aquarium is pretty awesome, as is heading up towards lookout mountain. We did Ruby Falls, but it's really commercialized and not something we enjoyed as much as we may have otherwise.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth 1000 pictures. Yoly and I spent 2 days here and almost had the park to ourselves. We were there on November 7th and 8th and there was still fantastic fall foliage. I made 2 separate videos (one for each day) and I'll post the better of the two here so that anyone can get a good idea as to what the campground is like and what the main West Rim Trail looks like. Read the video description for more information on the park.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_BUf11gzBk

The only negative (in my opinion) was that there was not a single trash can (other than a small one in the laundry room not designated for campground trash) anywhere to be found in the campground. Rather than break camp just to drive our truck camper to the dump station where a trash can is located, we had to store all our trash in the camper which was inconvenient. I realize that the state doesn't want to have to pay anyone to gather trash and dispose of it but for a normal $33 rate ($27 for seniors), I would think that they could accommodate normal trash within the campground itself. Other GA State Parks that do not have trash cans in the site area, have trash collection services by a host at least.

We've been to many of the state parks in Georgia and we've just discovered our new favorite. We were about a week too late for the peak colors (we arrived on Nov 8) but still got to enjoy some beautiful scenery. We stayed here for a Half Marathon at Chickamauga National Battlefield which was about 35 min away.

As others have mentioned, there're 2 RV campgrounds here, as well as a walk-in tent campground and a "yurt village". There are vast differences between the East and the West campgrounds.

The West CG is nestled in heavy woods and is very pretty. There are a couple pull-thrus but the majority of sites are back-in. The pull-thrus and one back-in are 50amp, the rest 30amp. There's a small playground and a trail from the CG that leads to the West Rim Trail. Take this trail left to see some amazing rocks and lookouts, go right to go to the East rim and the waterfalls. The West CG is NOT friendly to big rigs. If you have anything more than a 30-35' trailer you run a serious risk of damage. The lower loop especially has some hairpin turns that will cause your wheels to fall off the road. The problem is that there are 6-18" ruts just off the lip of the road. Couple that with 2-4' dropoffs along the road in other places it makes for a very dangerous place for your undercarriage.

The East CG is very different. It's very small and has almost no trees. There is no privacy and the sites are much closer together. The pads look nice and clean but none looked overly large. The benefit to this CG is its proximity to the east rim and the other recreation options. There's about a 3 mile drive between the two campgrounds (about 1 mile hike on the trails).

What makes this park so amazing is the hiking! WOW! The trails (and stairs...590ish of them) down to the waterfalls rival any national park scenery that you'll find, especially in the East. I highly recommend hiking down past Hemlock Falls to see a few more waterfalls and enjoy all the scenery.

There are other things to do here also. There's a disk golf course here ($4/pp), catfish pond (looked like you had to hike to it) and access to a long mountain biking trail.

This park isn't super accessible from the interstate but once you're here you'll be happy you made it. The National Battlefield is about 35 min away and Lookout Mountain is about 25 min away. You're 15-20 min away from the nearest grocery store and gas.

Stay here... You'll love it!

It had what we needed at a decent price, very near a natural wonder!

The sites are non-site specific but lots of good ones to choose from. We camped in the west rim campground we like it more than the east campground. The site was very level, private & big. The west rim campground has more privacy. Near our site # 43 you can walk through a path that takes you along a little stream with some walk to sites along the way. The trail runs along the rim of the canyon it's a good hike, some up & down hill yet the view is amazing.
The restrooms were clean we don't really use them but would if needed.

The camphost that were there in Oct of 2017 were some of the best. They were so helpful when we had a problems with the camper they showed us how to fix them. The hosts have wood for fires you can buy at their sites.

You can drive over to the waterfall & view it from a area where there are picnic tables, a museum and easy walks along the rim.
There is an Ingles grocery store close by & several places to eat out. Or you can drive the other direction into Tennessee there is shopping there too.