Beavers Bend State Park - Hochatown Area — Attraction in Broken Bow

We camped at BlueJay Drive Campground on BJ11 in the Hochatown area right on the Lake. I researched a TON of reviews before choosing this site, so I hope this helps in your planning. Let's start with the GREAT parts. First off, the view and location is GOLD. The lake view is magical. Campsites 11, 12 and 13 are all together and bit close but not too bad. Easy access to the lake to swim and BJ12 has the best access and beach of the 3. We even had room to bring our lounge chairs down there and floated around. Complete privacy on the beach part! You can park right up to the campsite. No info on parking was given so we just hoped. That was a plus. The fire pits are great. all three of these sites have their own fire pit. There are 3 other campsites across the road and they looked snug as well. Lots of kids riding their bikes on the road so GO SLOW! There is a tall street light in the middle of those sites and its on all night. Just gave our tent a little glow at night and didn't bother us. The Grill was a plus to have.

Not so great parts.. We had read about how nasty the toilets were beforehand so we didn't even use those. Beware, they have no electricity or light and they are just wooden porta pottys and apparently they are GROSS. There is an RV site just half a mile down the road and the bathrooms have showers and flushing toilets owned by the park. That was a life saver!! They aren't sparking clean but a HUGE step up from the toilet holes on the campground. Downside, you just have to jump in the car to drive there if you want to use the bathroom. You may notice our tent was too big for the tent pad. Unless you have a 2-3 person square tent .. tents won't fit but it didn't seem to be a big deal. there was just a lump in our floor but we covered it with the air mattress. Temps were a bit too warm for us even in oct. 9-10th. So bugs were out more. Lots of Mosquitos on Saturday with temps the 80's.

Overall, it was a great site and I'd come again just for the...

Fun little town, but quickly turns nightmare during the weekend. Best time to do stuff in this town is during the week before the weekenders show up. Everybody loads in Friday night then then loads out Sunday morning. And if you are trying to do some offshore fishing at the lake, do it during the week before the people with boats show up. Don’t even bother trying to fish Saturday or Sunday. Got a crack in my windshield while driving the speed limit and keeping reasonable distance between me and the guy in front of me. I heard from a local that cracked windshields apparently have been an on going issue with lots of loose rocks on the road and all. Last but not least, I got chigger bites from my feet all the way up to my armpits. All of the new cabins that use rocks and gravel around the driveway and back porch area are more than likely infested with chiggers. I would recommend to anyone that before you go using the fire pit, to take large buckets of water or a water hose and wet down all the rocks around that thing, that should help wash away a lot of this tiny but insidious bugs. Grateful Head Pizza is the best pizza place I have ever tried and that place was the highlight of my trip. Janet’s House of Treasures gift shop is the best gift shop in town. The lake is beautiful. The people are nice. Everything is pricy. Typical tourist town. My recent trip there was my second. Still haven’t seen a Bigfoot anywhere. Seems like a silly reason to build up tourism. Could focus more on the history of the town or some other folk lore…but ya’ll chose...

Beautiful place but also busy place, its not the sleepy little park we all remember. The park is grappling with the increased demand. We spent 2 nights in April 2022, paid $58 with sr discount. We were in the Quail loop with water/elec 12 sites. Turkey loop next door has full hookups and about the same number of sites. Park has no gates so you can drive through free, but they have full time meter maids patrolling and running license plates to find parking violators. To pay for parking you must text a parking payment, $8 resident, $10 non-resident (fine$20). We use T-mobile and had no cell service anywhere in the park. It seems US cellular is the service of choice. Campers have a free parking pass. Dump station is on a gravel road and not finished, just a pvc pipe sticking out of the ground.

Hochatown has morphed into a retail community with at least a dozen restaurants and bars, a strip shopping center, two liquor stores and two medical camibus dispensaries. US 259 is a busy two lane highway with a lot of truck traffic, no turn lanes or street lights. This highway is dangerous in the daytime, but at night its a totally...