Prince William Forest Park Visitor Center — Attraction in Dumfries

My daughter's collect Junior Ranger badges and we stopped here to do the badge. It was a well maintained national park and the rangers and volunteers working here were very friendly. I do have to admit though that the Junior Ranger books could do with a little update. There was a section saying that you could get an extra Junior Ranger prize if you completed three of the tasks. One of them you had to look for the old farm. It told you to walk down these two roads to find it. When we got to the roads there were no markers telling you where to go or how long it was. Once you finish the first road and got to the second road, the second road actually went to the right and the left. So we ended up having to guess which way to go. We ended up walking around for 2 mi looking for it. Luckily our kids are troopers. We never did find this farm but figured we did the hike. Little did we know once we got back to the visitors center and asked, they told us that there really isn't a farm it's just that the land has reclaimed it. So not quite sure what we were supposed to have been walking around looking for? The other extra credit was to walk down the mine road to see the old mine. We were expecting to see an old mine at the end but when we got there it was just a bunch of trees and a plaque. This is completely fine but the description was really misleading. We again hiked for another 2 miles just to do this. When we got back to the visitor center our kids were really excited to get the extra prize but we were told that they don't do that anymore. My kids were fuming because we had just walked 5 miles for nothing. My daughter wouldn't talk to us for an hour... haha. The books definitely need to be updated to...

Waze directions are wrong it should be exit 150b off 95 South, and the trails were killer, I fell and slipped and got dirt all over me. Glad today wasn't in the 90s!! My son and I were deep within one trail and got extremely lost (for a good hour and a half!!) due to the bad signage and lack of signage. Regrettable, google maps was also no help, in finding our way out of the confusing trails we were lost within either. And unfortunately the signage that they do have on the trails is really confusing, as it reads 1.1MLS (which I would guess to mean MILES) for one trail going left and 2M which I am assuming means minutes going to the right? You'll see once you get there. And please note for your trip out to this park that Waze took us more than several exits and several miles and minutes out of the way, waze took us to the cabins and RV entrances, when the actual trails and visitors center entrance is quite far away from the cabin and RV entrances. This was a frustrating experience, from the signage to the lack of the correct address being given to major GPS/mapping companies. This state park needs to be revamped in major ways, including the steep hills that are doused in red/orange slick clay, sharp edge rocks. There was quite a few areas that were really slick, especially after morning dew or a rainy night before or morning before your hike. I fell pretty bad, forever staining my clothes and hurting myself in the process on one of the...

Visited November 2022. Been here a few times with scouts for camping. Both cub scouts and scouts bsa troop. The groups sites are nice and much more affordable than most in Northern VA. Bathrooms have sink and flush toilets but no showers. I believe they are also heated for winter. This is a pack in-pack out park so practice Leave No Trace and be prepared to take your trash with you. That being said there is a set of dumpsters by the group campgrounds but it can be quite the hike. There is a fee of $20 per vehicle so best to have a national park pass or perhaps buy one while you're visiting. Great if you plan to go to Great Falls or Shenandoah NP as well. $80 for a Annual National Park Pass.

Vistor center itself is nice. Its not super huge but has a store front for merch and a handful of exhibits you can read about interesting things and history of the park. See my photos. They do have a junior ranger program with a wooden badge. 99% of the junior ranger program can be completed inside the visitor center. Took my 5th grader about 1 hr to complete. That said you don't have to be in the vistor center to complete it. You can request them online and mail them back completed for a badge as well. They do have cancellation stamps inside the vistor center. They have a few different ones including the potomac hertitage trail and one for junior rangers. There are bathrooms outside in adjacent building to the...