Falling Waters State Park Campground

Call ahead about water levels! I came here in early August, and the water levels for the falls were nonexistent so that was disappointing. But I really enjoyed the park itself. There were hardly any people there so it was awesome being able to take my time to walk around the trails and such.

What we loved: Being able to walk out our door and take some nice hikes. This is a small state park. The terrain was somewhat challenging so that made up for the shortness of the trails. The walk to the Falling Waters was shorter than we were used to, and was on a board walk much of the way. So that made it safe for families. There is nice little beach. The sites were all flat. The camp hosts were attentive and even offered to help change a tire. The bath houses were clean. We met some great people, as is typical of most campers!
What was lacking: We love long walks and hikes. We had to be very creative to get in a 3.6 mile hike. We had to drive to town to do laundry. We knew there were no sewer hook ups. The website warned they were working on the sewer system, so when we used the dump station, and even walking by it, the oder was a bit unpleasant. Hopefully, this will be taken care of soon. We wrote a blog with lots of pictures, which is uploaded.

We camped here in March, 2016 in a 35 foot fifth wheel. The rate shown does not include the reservation fee for Reserve America.

Our large back in site was on a dirt and gravel pad. The site was level and had water and electric hookups with a picnic table and fire ring behind the site. The bath house was close by and was very clean. The dump station was easy to get to and we did not observe any bad odors. There was construction at the bath house while we were there.

The highlight of the stay was taking the trail to see Florida's tallest waterfall. There was construction on the lower observation deck and we weren't able to view all 73 feet of the falls. Still, it was worth seeing.

The park is a short drive from I-10 and just a few miles from the town of Chipley where there are restaurants and shopping.

Pros: Lots of shade trees; Fairly easy ingress and egress; Easy to find from the Highway; Paved roads in; Good Power and Water Pressure; Beautiful nature trails; Lots of Birds; Site 7 was a back in and we had plenty of room. We tried Site 5 first because it was a pull through, but it was too tight for our 38'. Under 32' would have no problems.

Cons: Dirt sites; Uneven sites, some very tight; Low hanging tree branches

My wife and I spent one night here on our way back home from New Orleans. The $9.50 was the Florida half price rate for us since we are Florida residents over 65. This is a nice quiet small campground. For some reason the ranger gave us a fully concrete handicap site, and it was a really nice pull-through. The site had water and good, clean electric per our EMS. We got there not long before dark, so did not get to see much of the park itself, but the campground was clean and neat and so was the bathhouse. The ranger and staff were very friendly and helpful. This campground is about 3 miles from I-10 (on the south side), so no traffic noise. Very woodsy. The approach into the campground has a short fairly steep climb. We recommend this campground.

We had business in Chipley and spent two days here in a site #12. It was a pull through, level, nothing special, but sand everywhere!

50 amp electric and waterhookups were nice. The hiking trail was pretty short. There are multiple sinkholes in the area which were interesting. The lake is tiny, but has a bathroom and outdoor shower.

The bathrooms were spotless and warm. Water pressure wasn’t great but that just gave an excuse to stay in the warm longer.

Cell signal was slow!

This park is gorgeous! We were headed across the panhandle and needed a quick layover since I had a few midweek conference calls. Verizon was slow, but acceptable for remote work.

I did take one star off because the sites are pretty tight and unlevel. We've got a 38 foot Class A and our site, the only one that was available, had a pretty hard slope to the passenger side. We had to wiggle around a bit to get a good enough angle to be somewhat level and not need a parachute to jump off our steps. Since we were only staying 2 days, it was not a deal breaker.

The hiking trail to the water fall was very nice, well maintained and quiet. The sink hole loop was closed for construction unfortunately.

We stayed here for 5 days and 4 nights. Nice quiet park. Some sites are smaller than others. Our site was the smallest at 24 ft but with only a small pop up it was fine. The waterfall was beautiful.(plenty of rain days earlier made sure there was plenty of water flowing.) Nice boardwalk trails.Not to far of a walk anywhere in the park. Close to town if you forget anything. Walmart only couple miles away.

Small campground, the bottom half of the stairs the waterfall were closed when I was there but I really didn't think they were as cool as they seemed online. Had no problems but the place was a little rougher looking. Was just passing through though.

This state park boasts of having Florida’s Tallest Waterfall. A twenty foot wide cylindrical sinkhole one hundred feet deep catches the cascading water falling seventy-three feet and disappears into a cave at the base. It is very pretty. The campground also boasts that one of the first oil wells in Florida was drilled here in 1919 but ended in commercial failure. The park brochure also states that campers can "spend the night on one of the highest hills in Florida. Situated in a pine forest 324 feet above sea level, it is one of the nicest campgrounds anywhere." Well, that is not exactly true. Florida has numerous state campgrounds and most all of them are superior facilities with plenty of foliage, hiking, biking, and water activities. This campground is clean, but Michael definitely made his mark on her with fallen timber and green leaves blown off remaining trees and bushes. Of note, the restrooms at Falling Waters are also clean, with good showers, plenty of hot water, but the campsites have little to no privacy. The sites however are level and the clean gravel drives keeps the dirt out of the camper. Our AT&T service was two bars of 4G so that was good for streaming the DirectTV Now application, writing a bit, and getting a few emails answered.

The hiking trails are being cleaned up, with detours and modifications made since Hurricane Michael blasted through last year. New elaborate viewing platforms were being constructed during our visit restricting the use of some trails, and not all the remaining limited trails were open for hiking. On our one full day here we took the same hike as the day before but this time we went to the picnic and playground area hit hard by Michael. The vista was pretty awesome and we noticed the fence line. We decided to take the unmarked two-track all around the park boundary as far as we could. We turned back at a point almost connecting to our campground but downed tree prevented us from going further. That was great hike and not included as one of the park’s amenities. Riding a bicycle is certainly a challenge for anyone with a disability such as myself with bad knees. Believe it or not, the hills are actually beasts to climb on a three or seven speed bike. Still, all in all a good camping experience, but a bit of a disappointment for us due to the limited hiking, hill-hard bicycling, and lack of privacy. The unfortunate poverty in the area, and devastation due to Michael for miles surrounding us on the way in, was also disheartening to say the least. It will take a very long time for the Florida panhandle to recover from the effects of that violent storm.