Shawnee Forest Campground

Shawnee Forest Campground

If you are traveling through southern Illinois and looking for a unique camping experience I suggest making the stop at Shawnee Forest Campground. Located in Vienna, Illinois and just off Interstate 24 Shawnee Forest Campground is a perfect location to stop for a night while in transit. It also serves as the perfect location (and one of the only) locations that has full hookups for you to enjoy the most beautiful National Forest in Illinois, the Shawnee National Forest. We used Shawnee Forest Campground as a base camp for a long weekend exploring all of the different areas of Shawnee National Forest. It was the perfect set up for us! Close enough to the park and still gave us all the amenities that we wanted.

What makes this campground so unique? Well for starters it used to be a golf course. That makes the landscape a beautiful mixture of rolling hills, large mature trees, and 2 large ponds. The campground also has kept all of the cart paths. This gives you approximately 2 miles worth of walking and biking trails. Currently they are not using off the grounds available. Leaving plenty of trails that will get you away from all the noise and allow you to relax in solitude. My boys particularly liked using the paved trails for scooter rides. We got plenty of steps in during our stay! Personally, I think the back part of the campground would make an amazing disk golf course! Maybe that’s just me.

All the Amenities You Could Want

Shawnee Forest Campground Walking Trails
Killian and Jameson enjoying the walking trails at Shawnee Forest Campground.

Open year round this campground can accommodate 60 RV’s and even big rigs. Some of their sites are up to 100ft in length. Planning multiple night stays? Make sure you take a look at the 4 night deal they offer, giving you 12% off.  Every single site has 30 amp, 50 amp, water, and sewer. The only thing I was missing was a cable hookup. Though if you have a satellite there are plenty of spots with open sky view so there should be no problem getting a signal.

Most of the sites are fairly level, but with the gravel sites it is hard to get that 100% level. This is a fairly new, family owned campground. So, there is going to be a lot of improvements in the future and a lot of changes. With that being said I think Shawnee Forest Campground has a special place in Illinois. It is a strong start to a great campground.