Wells State Park — Attraction in Sturbridge

We had a great weekend stay at this park. Well-maintained, and the campsites were absolutely huge and super private. They let us set up a "kids tent" so we weren't all jammed into the pop-up camper. Bathrooms were reasonably clean-ish for a state park (i.e., constantly tidied up, but rarely scrubbed with bleach, so bring your flip-flops to the shower). Shower was nice and hot, and the water pressure was good.

The entire campsite was nice and quiet. Most of the spots filled up for the weekend, but emptied out on Sunday. Our dog was welcome here and all the other dogs were kept leashed and well-behaved. Trails were well-maintained. The beach (for campers only) is lovely. No dogs allowed on the beach itself, but you can sit back at the picnic tables to watch the kids swim so long as you pick up after them.

Water spigots and bathrooms were a bit far from some of the spots ... if you need to use the bathroom a lot, you might want to book closer to the bathrooms than you normally would because the spots are HUGE, so the bathrooms are further away than it looks on the map. It won't matter in the daytime, but those 2am bathroom breaks with flashlights can be an inconvenient walk.

Bathrooms TRY to be handicap accessible, including the shower. The one along the pond is brand new and totally accessible, but the ones up on the hill are older and a bit tighter to navigate a wheelchair, and the ring-road has a crazy steep incline at places if you have to cross the street, so keep that in mind if you have mobility issues. The yurts are right next to the bathrooms and the walkway flat, but coming off one of the campsites off the side-roads off the hill are all dirt roads and pretty steep.

If you stay up on one of the side-roads up on the hill and have an RV, call and ask the staff for guidance before you book because, while the campsites are pull-in and absolutely huge, there are a few spots that might be a bit tight to haul a larger rig up between some of the trees because you'll be dealing with a narrow dirt road, a curve, and then trees right on the road. Spots right off the main loop road are easy to navigate, but the off-loops might be dicey unless you're an experienced driver.

The best part was the price. $17 a night for such a massive, well-maintained campsite, free hot showers, hiking trails and a pond? We will definitely...

I really wanted to love this place but the women’s room near site 35 (where I stayed) was atrocious! It was like National Geographic in there. Clearly, no one monitors or cleans it. I wanted to take a shower and couldn’t. I understand that with camping, yes…there are bugs but this was too much. Tree frogs, huge spiders and a clogged drain from massive amounts of hair building up. The roads are extremely bad and pot holed/rocky so if you have a car be careful, you’ll get a flat. I was nervous to drive around and explore this place for fear of getting a blowout! My site was under pine trees and my black suv got covered in tree sap. All over. There was no where else to park, except under these trees. I was up at 5am boiling water to remove it. I have to get it professionally detailed which is going to cost money. Lastly, the mosquitoes were really bad. I’ve never in my experience of camping have encountered as many bug bites in my life. Such a disappointment. Too many bad things that happened to make this enjoyable. I packed up at 7am and couldn’t wait to go home....

Wells seems like a great place to visit, but there is little to no enforcement of the rules?! We took our two dogs to walk them there for the first time, and noticed clear rules posted.

We cleaned up after our dogs each time; we made sure to not let them pull too far ahead of us so as to scare anyone (all animals have to be leashed) and we wore long sleeves instead of using bug spray.

Instead, we got passed by someone racing around in a car. They zoomed passed us twice and stopped to ask how the dogs were leashed to ensure they were secure.

We had three dogs walk past us, and two of them were unleashed. We passed a camp where one dog wasn't leashed or kennelled. That dog charged our two dogs.

We got back to our parking space and ran into someone from public television who asked us about our hike. We were frank about keeping our large dogs exposed to all kinds of environments and that her neice would likely encounter unleashed dogs. We advised her on how to react to an unleashed dog.

Where are the park rangers or whoever polices this...