Lake Whitney State Park — Attraction in Hillsboro

I will just bullet list the PROS and CONS.. PS (There were NO CONS except one) .. We camped here in a 5th wheeler for 5 nights on our way to San Antonio. BEST Check-in of any state park anywhere in my entire life. Seriously. They did a great job. Friendly beyond expectation. Bryan checked us in. Had pictures of what each of the sites looked like - provided us with his recommendation and turned out to be a GREAT site. We were right next to the water with probably the best view in the park. One of the other Ranger girls showed my daughter while I was checking in where the best fishing was and which bait they recommended… Sites are long for pull thrus – short but wide for back-ins. No one should have any problem parking here. Pull thru Sites are somewhat level but long. I had to only put one set of blocks under my tires to get me level. Good water pressure. Electricity stayed right at 120 VAC the entire time. 30/50 amp. Half the sites have very good shade… the other half is directly exposed mostly to sun. The sites right next to the water does NOT have sewer hookups. They are elec and water only. For supplies there is small town of Whitney about 4 miles from the campsite and 2 miles from the State Park gate. There is also a Brookshire and a well stocked ACE Hardware. Tons of wildlife – turkeys, deer, armadillos, and at night lots of strange looking things in the woods. It is so quiet out here. Absolutely no noise at all but the wind going through the trees. Yes the lake level is down about 12 feet but this lake is huge and bareley noticeable. My daughter was catching fish 5 minutes after she through in her first throw at our campsite. If you enjoy walking the entire “road” loop around the park is about 4 miles long. There is spotty wireless here… they have wireless at the group camping areas – but not hardly anywhere else. I have TMobile and was getting 5 bars and 4G the entire time. Kids went swimming in the lake daily. Water was warm of course but kids had great time. Clean water. OK – the CON –.. OMG we had zero night time activities outside … during the day not a single bug, fly, wasp, anything – the reason is that they are all sleeping getting ready for the night. I swear you cannot keep any outside lights on at all otherwise they are covered in a thick carpet of gnats. Not many mosquitoes but billions of gnats. If you start a fire they seem to stay away from that – just be warned. Bathrooms and showers were super clean. I would stay here again in a heartbeat. This was our first time. If you enjoy walking the paths are will maintained – in fact the entire park is well maintained – everything was mowed – no trash – no graffiti – just very clean. The Park Host cleanup guys did a phenomenal job also. I noticed that after each guest left they went by the site – cleaned up any residue – and in fact saw them actually take a water hose and a broom and clean up some fish residue that the previous camper had left. Our site when we pulled in looked as if it had just been cleaned also. There is no pool – there is no boat rental – there is nothing but a huge lake, majestic views, awesome quietness, long trials, and peace and quiet. If this is the type of place you are looking for –...

It wish the range wasn't poor-fair and Google allowed you to rate something lower. Do you enjoy having random men wander through your campsite late at night? Do you enjoy seeing nothing but an ugly, smelly lake surrounded by factories? Do you enjoy not enjoying yourself? If so, you have found the right place!

I should have realized that this park is awful when numerous more well known state parks were fully booked and Lake Whitney had 53 available campsites. Unfortunately, I didn't fully think it through and ended up spending a miserable night camping in this godforsaken place. We noticed signs saying picking up wood was frowned upon so we attempted to go buy wood from the park ranger Christopher Bishop. He told us it was (5 minutes) too late and we couldn't buy any wood. So, we decided to just pick up some wood from the ground to get the camp fire going, because camping without a campfire just seems wrong. Within 5 minutes, park ranger Bishop had parked his car out of sight up the road, crept through the woods and appeared beside our fire with citations in hand for "illegal gathering of firewood". We apologized profusely and doused our fire. This meant nothing to Ranger Bishop because his first priority was to harass and annoy instead of protect and serve.

We now found ourselves cold, in the dark and without a fire. So, we decided to warm ourselves with the assistance of alcohol. Apparently, drinking at a state park is also frowned upon, even though there was not a soul (besides apparently Ranger Bishop) within a half mile of our camping ground and we were not making any noise. Not even thirty minutes later, Park Ranger Bishop was back in our campsite, pouring out our drinks, and lecturing us about the rules of state parks. His lecture dragged on for nearly 30 minutes before he finally decided to leave us alone. At this point we retired to our tent; cold, dejected, and hungry because we were planning on cooking our meals over the campfire. The next morning when we awoke we decided that we did not wish to spend another night in this terrible place. We had already paid for the second night upon entering the state park so we asked for a refund. They refused to give us a refund, claiming their credit card reader had broken. Luckily, I was able to convince my credit card company that this was a fraudulent charge.

Frankly, this whole state park seems fraudulent. The "lake" was dirty, the "great fishing" was nonexistent, and it was certainly not an enjoyable or friendly environment. If you are planning a camping trip, I would recommend crossing Lake Whitney off of your list and going someplace where the employees are not...

We seemed to not have lucked out at this state park like most everyone leaving reviews. It was very disappointing and not small kid friendly at all!! We had went to 4 different state parks prior in the week and they were all amazing. We have an 11 month old who loves to crawl and walk all over our camp site, and was able to at our other camping experiences, but we had to keep her off the ground the entire time when we were here! On arrival, which was past headquarters closing time, we drove to our site and upon inspecting our area there was broken glass on the picnic table cement, zip ties and water bottle caps and seal tabs and cigarette butts scattered everywhere, crawfish trash left in the grill pit, used napkins, and red ants infesting the tent site that we had to use. There was also no place to hang our trash, and it looked like there wasn't any throughout the whole park. As well as each bathroom was a long walk away from any campsite. We woke up with red ants quickly spreading through our tent and had to get out quickly. They also would crawl up on the picnic table when we were trying to eat. A camper in a site next to us would just free range their dog and it came into our campsite and dragged the leftover trash around and ate out of it, as well as trying to approach us. The owners were not watching their dog at all. We didn't see a park ranger at all the whole time we were there either. We were also expecting to swim in the lake a bit as it was shown you could do that. Well the "designated swimming spot" looked very rough and definitely not suited for kids. Adults only and only if they knew how to swim very well. There was no safe guards protecting anyone from floating away into the lake. Overall I'm extremely disappointed by our experience here and it was not worth what we paid...