Greenbelt Park — Attraction in Greenbelt

This park doesn't even try to be accessible by walking, biking or transit. How sad to be a park filled with trails, only a mile from a metro station but not try to be accessible.

Over the past couple of years, trails have been constantly closed. I empathize with the weather / storm challenges, but the big problem is that they only communicate with drivers. On their website they'll say there are a couple detours, but when you get there, it's actually just closures, and there are a bunch of other closures they don't bother to report. All of these detours / closures are communicated in mile markers, which doesn't really tell you where the closures are, because mile markers don't appear on the maps you can find through Google. Also, good luck if you're on foot and an entrance is closed, because it's 3 extra miles of walking down fast-moving connector streets without sidewalks and crosswalks to get to some of the other entrances. They don't communicate about entrance closures. You can waste your whole day traveling up here, just to find out that most of the park is closed or unsafe to get to.

Speaking of "good luck"... It's always been hazardous to walk to this park, because coming from the metro you have to cross the intersection of MD-201 and Good Luck Road, which only has crosswalks on two sides of the intersection, neither of which connect to the park. You end up having to play the frog from Frogger, trying to hop across multiple lanes of speeding traffic headed for 495. Good luck indeed. I realize the roads are managed by local government, but has the park ever bothered asking if the city could paint a couple crosswalks and touch up the signal timing? They could have influence. But I don't think this park cares.

So yeah, if you come here, drive your biggest, most gas-guzzlingest SUV. Even though this is a park filled with trails for walking and biking, they act like only drivers come here. ¯(ツ)/¯ I used to come here several times a year, but I'll be going elsewhere...

I can't really recommend this campground for tent camping. My family stayed four nights in mid-July. Let me start with the good things: The campground is an oasis of woods in the middle of suburbia DC. It is close to 2 metro stops, though I do recommend driving to them. It is nearly impossible to not see deer when you are there. You won't find a cheaper way to stay near DC. Our 4 night stay including metro parking and travel didn't add up to staying one night in any hotel in downtown DC.

And now, for the bad news: Because it is an oasis in Suburbia, there are expressways and major roads on all four sides of the park. Road noise is inevitable. You can also hear the trains, planes, and numerous low-flying (I mean..you can read the tail numbers) helicopters. One morning, there were over 9 fly-overs.

When we arrived on the first night, the grass in the campsite was shin to knee-high. It was not cut until the 3rd day we were there. With the warning of chiggers and ticks posted in the bathroom, having to walk through tall grass each day just to walk around our site was not comforting. There was poison ivy growing in the site as well as in the walkway to the bathrooms. Oh, and there was 1 men's and 1 women's shower to service about 60 camp sites.

Speaking of the bathrooms, the toilets and sinks seemed to be clean, but the floors and walls (including the shower) were never cleaned in the 4 days we were there. The sinks were in disrepair as were the restrooms in general. The women's shower had a hole in the wall that had insulation stuffed in it. The men's shower also had some sort of opening in the outside wall that was somewhat covered by wood but clearly wasn't water-proof or sealed in any way.

If I was in an RV, I wouldn't care about most of this. Though, if I was in an RV, I'd probably want water and power hookups which this campground doesn't have. I guess that's why the campground was half empty the whole time we were there (which is a...

Stayed Aug 3 through the 9th 2015 to visit DC and you cannot beat the price! Very close to transportation into DC but it is still a forty minute trip to actually get to the National Mall via the Metro. Also, as others have noted, walking to the nearest Metro stop and then walking all over DC and sites is pretty much out of the question. Shopping and restaurants very close by, though not exactly well supplied for what we needed [also watch Giant's meat and produce; as it wasn't very fresh and some produce actually rotted before we could use it] and yet this park is a woodland setting and teeming with deer. Mosquitoes a minor problem and we found one attached tick in a week. This included us venturing off of the trails into the woods. Wood for cooking fires needed to be gleaned from the surrounding woods as neither the ranger's station nor the local stores carry bundled wood. Try to stay in area D if you are tenting as the area is for large RVs and the clearings correspondingly larger. The bathrooms and showers are not great but not soul-numbingly horrible and the staff friendly. At no time did I or my daughters feel in any way unsafe as three lone women camping near the city. One encounter with a racoon who stole an entire package of cookies and apparently took it away to it's den as no trace was ever found. There is a constant but distant hum of traffic and the skies remain pink with sodium glare all night but, over all, do it; you...