Delaware State Park — Hotel in Troy Township

**Far off the road you will hear little to no traffic. All 214 camp sites are located within 4 loops with all-inclusive bathhouses in the center of each circle (meaning each bathroom contains a toilet, shower, sink & bench). Each site is spacious and many are shaded. **Sites are ELECTRIC only (not sure if any have water or FHU but we've never seen or been offered any in our several stays). A water spigot is located in the back of each loop. So fill your fresh water tank before you arrive & use bathhouse too. **Close to Waldo, OH - famous for bologna sandwiches & a great sausage shop is just north of the park. Columbus, Marion, Richwood, Marysville, Delaware, and Prospect are nearby (we have relatives in all of them!) Playgrounds. Boat launch. Great beach. Reasonable nightly rates. Book in advance if you wish to stay Fri or Sat as they are booked on these nights most of the time. Weekdays are quiet. **Park employees clean the bathhouses daily and natural resource officers drive thru daily. You will feel safe. The long drive in & out of the park will reward you with frequent sightings of deer, squirrel and birds. **Booking the park via ReserveAmerica is just a headache (and their accuracy of what sites are booked are often wrong) so we try to arrive on a weekday as the office can reserve & check you in on ARRIVAL DAY only. No advance res at the office. Good luck &...

What a gorgeous park. My husband competed in the Ironman 70.3 2021. We took the kids out Friday afternoon to hit the beach while he did a workout in a river/lake, which was a completely different experience to the closed lakes as the river has a current. The beach was nice and clean as well. The best gem, on Saturday, hubby had to bring his bicycle to set up for Sunday’s race, over the course of the previous couple of days I noticed an amazing playground at the entrance to the Dam location called Delaware Reservoir Playground. When you park, you immediately see this huge grand structure of slides! So, I asked hubby to drop me and the kids off there while he took care of Ironman business. I knew if the kids saw the water, they would be in it in seconds and I wanted them to remain dry.

Well behind this grand play ground were 2 small play areas. I think we waited an hour and you would never know we ‘waited’ because the playground was amazing!

When hubby returned to us, we took a walk over to the dam. Apparently, Delaware, Ohio experienced a massive flood in June 1913, which was an unusual time of year to flood, as most occur in the spring. In 1938, congress signed in the Flood Control Act and in 1947 the US Army Corps. Of Engineers started building this dam, effectively completing the process by 1951, with the State Park being...

There's a lot of things to like about this park, particularly if you're looking for someplace to be outside with the kids.

There's a small beach, with a nearby fenced in dog Park, a Frisbee course that winds through the trees with views of the lake, a kiddie fishing pond, marina, boat launches, fishing spots, places to watch birds both water and field, and a number of campsites. So there's a lot to do there.

However, if you're mainly interested in hiking, like me, it's quite limited, and if you're looking for that "getting away from the rest of the world feeling" this isn't the best. There's only one real walking trail, mink run trail. Fortunately it's a nice hike, though it can get crowded at peak times. Autumn hikes on early weekday mornings like I've had most recently are perfect though!

There is another longish trail along the dam and dike at the southern end of the lake (separate entrance and parking lot) but the dam is currently blocked off and the walk itself down there is much less interesting (to me), as it runs through farm fields much of the way. There are some good bird watching areas, butt watch out for dog doo on that trail!

It's also worth pointing out that there's a very nice, but very short wooded loop with an easy wide path at that entrance, which is great for really small kids or those with...