Guilford Lake State Park — Attraction in Salem

We had a family camping trip over Memorial Day weekend this year, and decided that this campground was a good central fit. To be honest, the resident campers were the best thing about this place.

The campground itself is incredibly small, and every site is situated right along a road. The road actually turns out to be a very busy road too. There are a few select "tent only" sites in the campground, but because of the long weekend we decided to get an electric site in order to charge our cell phones and what not. Boy was that a mistake! The campground works more like an RV park, and people rarely had fires at night, and it was unlike anything that our families have seen while camping in Ohio.

The bathroom facilities, while close in proximity, left some things to be desired. The water was only warm in the event that someone flushed a toilet while you were showering. And even at 7am after the cleaning crew was done working, there would be trash on the floor and spiderwebs surrounding the toilets. Trust me, I don't ask for much in the way of bathrooms while I'm camping, but if you're going to have one, at least go to the trouble to keep it nice.

The campground information and state park pamphlets at the office indicates plenty of walking trails, including a nature trail that went around the lake. When we asked the people at the office how to get there, they didn't even understand what we were talking about.

There was a camp host on site who handled the wood sales, but he was never there. Eventually, after finding firewood became a cumbersome journey lasting almost two hours, we asked the people at the office if they could get unlock the trailer with the wood. After some coercing, they finally complied. But trust me, they weren't happy about it.

With so many other beautiful and amazing places to go in Ohio, we will definitely NOT be...

This is my first visit to this state park and we are tent camping. I wanted a campsite right on the water and for that, Guilford is perfect. I can fish from my campfire while the kids use dip net to catch crayfish. The swimming beach is just thirty yards away and if my kids were older, I'd be cool with them being there by themselves. You can launch your kayak or canoe right from your campsite and paddle over to an intriguing little island. Some campsites come with boat docks. The showers and bathrooms are the cleanest I've ever seen in a state park. The staff has been helpful and friendly. The park Naturalist took the kids on a dip netting adventure and then led a free kayak paddle excursion for kids. That's awesome. The reason I'm only handing out 3 stars is because this small park has very small campsites that are all right on top of one another. It's claustrophobic. And all of the other campers are super social and because you are on top of one another it feels like a huge group camping trip but with strangers. Additions, the Saturday night family movie is wicked loud. We didn't attend the movie but we could hear it loud and clear as we put our...

The view of the lake is great. Most spots have some type of lake view. There are a number of lake front sites with docks. The campground is really small, but this works to the advantage of those with smaller children. We were able to let our 6 and 5 year old ride their bikes to the playground and we could still see them and hear them. Low traffic in and out of the park. The facilities are mediocre at best. Not really a camp office so much as a window. Make sure you pack everything as the camp office does not carry much. They do have ice for relatively cheap prices. The bathrooms and showers were rather old and not very clean. The biggest down fall was the amount of flies and yellow jackets we encountered during our early October stay. The flies were out of control. They were all over everything and we even ended up bringing some back with us. This is a descent campground for a short stay. I would certainly not recommend a long...