Tickfaw State Park — Hotel in Livingston

When I hear about local camping/hiking spots, this always the #1 place mentioned in Louisiana.

There are quite a few trails (at least 5) and they are nice. Decent lengths and views. Some are one way while some do a loop.

Expect the trails to be unkept (pits, puddles, flooded, etc). The boardwalks are the nicest, of course. I saw little to no litter either.

Please, do not tear up the foliage. The bamboo is not a toy. It will never grow if people keep breaking it.

The river trail is wide and a bit secluded. Appears to be underdevelopment and is the only trail that you can ride bikes on.

You won't see much foliage or wildlife during the winter. Most of the wildlife, aside from birds, you will see at night (owls, possums, armadillos, bats, etc). It's not uncommon to see an owl sitting on the boardwalk at night.

Deer will most likely be seen between sunrise and early afternoon.

And, of course, don't expect to see many snakes (if any) or alligators during the cold weather.

The still water can smell quite awful, like sewage. I'm not sure how it is during the summer, tbh.

You can rent a canoe or bring your own. The path is one way. You canoe as far as you want to then turn back to the canue launch.

Camping rates aren't bad. You can rent cabins, rv camping spots, tent spots, and there's a group camping area which is just a large cabin that can board a party of up to 52 people (I think).

I'm not sure about tent camps, but rv camping and cabins have benched tables and fire pits.

The rv spots vary in layout. Some have a deck or pavement the benched tables sit on while others are just grass. They all have electricity you can plug into and water spickets at each spot.

There's also decently placed restrooms around the park with vending machines. Restrooms near camp areas have showers and washers/dryers. All of this is very well kept and it's warm inside the buildings during the winter.

There is a lil playground that is quite nice. And a little "waterpark" that is functioning, I'm assuming, during the summer.

Many pavilions and benches/tables to rest at. Theres also a lil fishing pond with a trail around it. And a sandy volleyball court with many benched table pavilions.

Someone patrols every hour or so around canp areas and picks up the trash from the bins in the morning.

Overall, I felt very safe here and had a good time in...

I should preface my review by stating that I was a Boy Scout and have been to quite a few camping areas, most of which were not as "improved" as Tickfaw State Park. As such, I was expecting a similar environment but definitely did not find one which met those expectations. I made many assumptions that turned out to be completely inaccurate.

We reserved a camping site for early March through the website, which was very convenient. However the map on the website of the camping sites gave no indication as to how close the sites were to each other. The one picture of each site provided online also didn't give any indication so I assumed each site was a good distance from the other as to provide some level of seclusion and privacy. That was incorrect. Each site is right up on the other sites and anyone talking at a regular volume can be heard by their neighbors. This is extremely problematic when your neighbors either arrive after you've gone to bed, they decide to stay up until 5:00 am, or when they begin using foul language and you know your kids are likely to hear it. If you go with a large group, this would be a positive as you could be close to the others in your group.

I should have known due to the closure of the park in February due to flooding that the area was in a low lying area. Once again, I assumed since the park had roads which lead to the camping sites that the sites would be in a somewhat dryer area. That was a poor assumption. When we first arrived, we found that our reserved site's tent area was dry enough, but the fire pit was in 2-3 inches of standing water. Fortunately, we had arrived early enough to switch to another drier, albeit still wet, site which the staff was more than willing to allow us to do.

Once again, I made a poor assumption that there would be wood available for building fires. That was partially correct, but most of the wood was water logged and mostly rotten, probably due to flooding and the amount of remaining water in the area. Fortunately, as any good Boy Scout should be, I was prepared to be able to cook on a stove that I had brought.

To summarize, it was not what I expected, but I probably should have done much more research to know exactly...

SUPPORT YOUR STATE PARKS!! This was our first stay at a Louisiana State Park and we will be back! We were traveling through from Texas on our way to Tennessee and only stayed 1 night (a Wednesday night), but we enjoyed our stay. What a steal at $35! We've stayed at "RV resorts" for nearly $200 a night that couldn't hold a candle to this place! We hope this review will assist other RVers in making their decision on where to stay. This place checks all the boxes if your looking for a spacious, nature filled stay. The park was beautiful and well maintained, plenty of room to navigate with larger RVs. While somewhat clandestine and hidden, we found the place peaceful as it is nestled in the sounds and sights of nature. The RV sites are VERY spacious and some of them provide a lot of shade, ours site (RV site 6) was not well shaded but that was the site I booked site unseen. I'm sure we could have moved spaces (there were plenty available, only 4 other RVs) because the staff was super friendly and helpful. While most, if not all of the trails are still closed (assuming they are still cleaning up from the Hurricane/Storm) we were able to walk down to the fishing pond which my Husband repeatedly said how it was one of the nicest he's ever seen, sadly no fish. The Nature Center was closed, but it looked very nice. The splashpad was running and looked great for smaller children. The cabins and glamping tents looked very cool (especially if you want to sleep close to a gator I'd recommend one of the glamping tents close to the pond). We were bummed we didn't rent a canoe, that was a missed opportunity but we...