Sandy Bottom Nature Park — Attraction in Hampton

Great for walking and photography. A lot of people bring their dogs here for walks and the dog park. There is a $10 fee to use the dog park. The only building is the information center so most handicap questions about this place do not apply. The information center also provides information about paddle boat/kayak rentals. The only other structures here are the picnic tables, roofed picnic areas (with grills), the overlook, and the dog park. There are camping sites here, ones with provided shelter but also ones where it's a bring your own tent situation. There's a variety of paths to take, so you are able to walk somewhere different everytime you come here. The most popular places here are the dog park, and a tall, wooden overlook. Benches can be found sporadically throughout the various trails as well. It gets a bit noisy in the parts of the park that are near the highway, but, for the most part, the park is pretty quiet and you can talk at a normal conversation level. The trails are also very well maintained. The gravel on the main trails is refreshed fairly regularly and the trails in the woodsy portions are pretty easy to follow and clear of major branches and roots.

tl;dr: Great park all and all. Clean and very scenic. You can go here every week and it feels like a new park everytime, while still remaining...

It's a nice park for hiking or boat rentals. If you are looking for a place to fish, forget it. I have a person in a wheelchair and getting to the fishing pier is not what I call wheelchair friendly. There are restrooms but bring your sanitizer because they smell and are not clean.

I went for the first time to do some fishing from the pier. The park was busy, but I noticed there were not people on the pier and no people fishing from boats--not a good sign. I soon found out why. First problem is the lake is overrun by turtles. Hundreds of them around the pier and several times they swallowed my bait when I was fishing shallow with a float. I tried fishing with spinner and jigs, but the lake is full of logs and debris. I lost 6 rigs before giving up and leaving. I did not get a single bite after 2 hours of trying.

When I was leaving, another man came out on the pier to fish. I asked him if he fished there before, and he said he comes about once a month to relax. I asked if he ever caught anything, and he said nothing worth keeping and most times one or two fish in half a day if he is lucky. He too said the turtles are a problem and eat all the minnows the fish feed off and there would be a lot more fish without all...

If I could give this place a 0 I would. I recently made a reservation for an outdoor site in May and was informed by the site staff that they were taking online payments to hold sites reservations for outdoor pavilion sites and informed me that they would be able to take individuals post-COVID 19 openings in JUNE 2020. They waited a whole month after taking my payment to inform me that they were unable to accept patrons at their park and that they would have to issue me a refund. Daily, the park is open and I constantly see individuals outside walking around, running and utilizing the pavilion spaces without a reservation and no delegation by staff otherwise telling them they cannot use the property. I am very upset in accordance to this because they should have had better management and communication with local/state government staff in accordance to operation and function. Its not acceptable to be open daily for anyone to show up but when individuals try and take precautions to make careful and skilled reservations, they cannot honor it. I will not be referring others to utilize this property...