Nolin State Park Campground — Hotel in Leitchfield

CAMPER BEWARE. This review is specific to the primitive camping plots. We pulled up to the campground shortly after check-in at 2:30pm. We reserved site P15, but the plot was severely slanted and is situated at the base of two hills. You could clearly see that this site was prone to flooding and water runoff from the slopes surrounding it. We didn't let that deter us, and after speaking with the staff (who were very friendly), we were lucky enough to move to spot P17 instead.

Once we set up camp, it seemed we would have a great weekend ahead of us despite the bad weather forecasted for the holiday weekend... boy were we wrong.

At about 9pm a group of 20-25 people pulled up and that is when things went downhill. They immediately set up two large generator run pole mounted flood lights that completely engulfed the entire campground in bright glaring light. The gas run generators were so loud but were soon drowned out when the group set up two big box party speakers. The kind you would expect a DJ at a wedding to have. They turned the speakers on full blast and it was so ungodly loud you would have thought you were at dance club or rave. The music was playing at the highest volume all night until about 2:30am.

Quiet hours are supposed to start at 11:00pm. Every other group of campers had gone in for the night but these folks did not care that they were being so unbelievably rude and disrespectful.

I understand that other campers behavior is not the fault of the campground but I do feel that it is the campgrounds responsibility to ensure that people are following the established rules and guidelines. The campground did nothing about it. This group broke several rules of the campground including having their unleashed pets running around into aother camp sites, having more than the allowed two tents per site, and having more than the permitted 6 campers per site. And still the campground did absolutely nothing about the blatant disregard for the rules.

The next day was even worse. At 7am the group woke up and turned their speakers on at full blast again. I understand it's a holiday weekend and people are trying to have a good time. But there is absolutely no reason for having your music turned up to such a volume that it can be heard a mile down the road. Finally at 5pm a staff member did ask them to turn it down to a reasonable volume.

Not exaggerating, they turned it back up to full blast as soon as the staff member walked away and was in his golf cart. A few minutes later a park ranger pulled up and told them to turn it down. The group responded by putting away one of the speakers and finally they turned the remaining speaker down to a reasonable volume.

The park ranger stayed in the parking lot after that. But that didn't seem to make any difference because once it started to get late and the rest of the campground was turning in for the night and being respectful by being mindful of their volume, this group left the their music turned up well into the early morning hours.

Again, yes I understand it's a public space and it is a holiday weekend but this wasn't just a few people getting out of hand or having a bit too much fun on the holiday. This was a gigantic group men, women, children, and dogs completely ruining the rest of the campgrounds experience because they broke multiple rules and were disrespectful of all the other people around them.

The fact that the campground didn't do anything of real consequence to this group is why I for one will never be back and will warn everyone to steer clear. Bad campers can be anywhere and their behavior isn't the fault of the campground, but the campground staff and Park Rangers should have stepped in to remedy the situation and the fact that they failed to do anything at all is a poor reflection on this campground overall.

We literally packed up and left a day earlier than we intended because of these people. We spoke to a few other campers who also decided to leave early. In total, 10 other groups left because of this one...

This review is specific to the Primitive/Tent campground.

There was poison ivy ALL OVER the tent campground, including at the base of almost every tree and picnic table. It wouldn't take much to kill this, but it certainly takes extraordinary effort to avoid it! Trash pickup was inadequate. The park knows how many people are registered, so it should know how frequently the trash should be emptied. Having stinky, sticky trash overflowing just a few feet from your tent is nasty and inexcusable when we're paying $24/night to be there! Keeping the beach closed until Memorial Day is arbitrary, unnecessary, and unprofessional. It was 85 degrees out and we let our kids swim. Every time a park employee came by they would give us a lame excuse that "the water hasn't been tested yet" and kick our kids out of the water. That's pitiful. If private landowners can swim around the corner or swim off a boat, there's no legitimate reason why your beaches should stay closed. The tent camping is right next to the boat launch and parking, making sleep nearly impossible in the early summer mornings--too much noise! I realize it's difficult to move an entire campground, but this is at least something to consider. Many of the camping spots were unlevel. They weren't terrible, but just bad enough that we had to sleep on an incline. It wouldn't really take a whole lot of effort or expense to level out an area for each spot. There were ticks all over the campground. I know they're all over the woods and they're bad this year, but spraying the relatively small campground should be fairly easy and inexpensive.

Pros: Clean bathrooms! The setting was beautiful, especially in the middle of the pines and next to the water (even if the beach was "closed"). There is a picnic table available at each spot, with water just a few feet away. There are showers not far away, and they are kept in good condition.

Hiking/Biking We took the trail from the boat launch to the waterfall. Just a short way down the trail, we reached a Y where a signed pointed to BOTH the Left and the Right and said "Waterfall." We went to the left and arrived at the waterfall in about ten minutes. We decided to return to camp the other way, thinking it was a simple loop. Well, the other way was probably 10 times longer than the first way, so my kids and I didn't arrive back at camp until after dark. They were scared and I had to lead us out with the flashlight on my phone. This could have been avoided if there were simple mileage figures on the sign near the front.

We took our bikes on this venture. This is NOT a good trail for bikes--way too many roots and rocks! Again, a simple sign can inform people so they can make a decision...

The campsite itself is beautiful, in pine trees, close to a lake, and the sites are nice. The problem with this campground is no park employees enforce any of the rules that are in place.

On Thursday, 6/13, we were the only campers besides one other site that was unfortunately directly next to our. So, they were there to do drugs and were awake ALL night (if that gives you an idea of which drug they were doing), loudly talking, belching, cursing, and just overall being awful. They even drove their car, through the grass (multiple signs saying not to drive on grass), through the empty campsites. We were in the primitive campsites, NOWAY anyone was suppose to drive there. In fact, we were in P20 and they were directly behind us. If you look at the map and you'll see why I say there is no way they should have had a car there. It's almost impressive they navigated the trees to get there. When they had to...get more supplies....they started this piece of junk car (that was SO loud) and shone their headlights INTO OUR TENT, at 12AM and 3AM. We didn't know who to call and were afraid, since we were the only other campers, that if we did call someone they would come back and mess with our camp. I finally went and slept in my car at 3:30AM, but my husband stayed in the tent (he was afraid they would come an steal our things) and the other couple with us, their little boys were asleep, so they did not want to risk waking them up. When I went back to our site at 6AM, they said it continued well past 4AM, the littles woke up at 5AM, so they had exactly 1 hour of sleep. A great start to a family camping trip.

There were also fireworks shot off at random intervals until about 11PM, which we thought was going to be the most annoying part, I wish it was the most annoying part.

The horrible couple left by 7AM, don't worry, they never went to sleep and were driving on the road drunk and high, so that should make you feel safe driving in the area.

Friday night, totally different story. Campsite was completely full but every single site went quiet at 11PM, as it should be. That was great, but we just could not recover from our experience on Thursday. We ended up leaving a day early.

Such a shame, because it could be a great campsite with some enforcement of the rules.

I should also mention, the young women working in the registration booth were incredibly nice...