Just bought a small RV for my family. We like Inks lake and Double Lake close to Houston. Can anybody recommend a state park that may be a favorite? Maybe one that’s not quite so crowded? Hopefully sone good fishing?
Thanks for any info.

@The_Dog

We go to lake livingston SP yearly for 10 days during the winter in December.

Yeah...  I saw the post before I saw the tag notificaiton.

OK...  not totally sure where you're located, but I'm assuming Houston area.  If you've been to Inks, you don't mind some driving.  And we (wife and I) agree that Inks is a really good park.

I don't fish, but...

Checkout Pedernales Falls.  We spent a couple of nights there once.  It was December, so we didn't do any swimming for obvious reasons.  But it's a nice park.  Night skies are very good.  Facilities are being upgraded.  Staff was nice.  And if you head west from there, there's all kinds of stuff to do.  We stayed there so that we could hit the Pacific War Museum in Fredericksburg.  

Huntsville SP is decent and on a lake, though their full hook up sites are poorly maintained and poorly engineered (sewer hookups are uphill from the pads).  The electric only sites are much better. It's older and can get a lot of traffic.

Lake Livingston SP is on the water.  It's a tough park if you have a big rig, but easy for smaller ones.  

Sam Rayburn Reservoir has several Corp parks.  We've stayed at Rayburn park and liked it.  It's on a peninsula and gets good breezes when the wind is out of the south.  Important in the Summer.

And then there's always heading down into Padre Island NS and boondocking.  Lots of fishing going on at Bird Island Basin.  Or Malaquite on the surf side if you want some nightime music.

There are tons of good places to camp in Texas.  Grab a map and give it a go.

Thanks for all the info folks.
I’ve been burning up the net chasing the info ya’ll gave me.
God bless!

Big Bend State Park Ranch if it's an off road RV.

Me and my wife are now full timers in the RV world. Been to almost every state park in Texas, my two cents is go to the ones not near big cities or urban areas. To me those are the worst because city dwellers and urbanites are the rudest campers! No offense to those of you who fall in that category but most of the rule breakers and unruly folks fall in that category.
They have to light up the area like an airport don’t know how to regulate the volume on the music and one of the most common is letting the youngsters just roam the campground at will. And by that I mean they cut through your AO and even sometimes just open your RV door and take a lookies no kiddin seen it done.
I prefer to RV way out west myself Seminole Canyon Davis Mt SP South Llano River Sp.

We go to Martin Dies and Lake Livingston most of the time.

Much truth here, but it seems to be getting better.  It was at its worst during the beerbug.

If you've not been to Kickapoo Cavern SP yet, definitely add it to your list.  It's only open on weekends.  But it is deep, deep, deep into Dark Sky territory.  You lose cell signal some 5-10 miles before you get there.  The roads in are skinny as fuck, especially from the north, so driving an big RV can be puckering.  Sign up for the Saturday cave tour.  It's cheap and well worth it.  Plus you get to drive through the area north of Brackettville, TX where they filmed The Alamo.  They've got some trails that are kind of cool, but watch for snakes.  The place is over run by tactical possum at night.  And they have no shits to give.  They will walk right under the chair you're sitting in.  There are only 5 or 6 full hook-up sites, and the rest are water only.  You can get just enough wifi for weather if you stand at the visitors center.  The bathrooms were basic, but plenty for a campground with 15 (?) campsites total.  Staff was super friendly.

Repeating - take the cave tour.  

We've been to Seminole and South Llano.  Also excellent parks.  

Seminole has some nice trails and they do a tour to go see the pictographs below the visitors center.  The camping is kind of tight.  Pretty much no shade unless you're in a site with a structure.  In the winter time, the winds can really whip up so you have to be careful with a fire.  We're usually passing through during the Christmas holiday, and it's pretty quiet.  But we got turned away once when we didn't have a reservation.  We've been there 6 or 7 times.

South Llano has a few trails, but it's mostly set up for fishing and tubing.  Again, nice park with really friendly staff.  Lots of turkey.  They've got a bird hide my wife really likes.  Be aware that an older GPS will try to take you in the wrong way.  Ask me how I know.  We've only stayed here twice.

Davis Mtns SP, for the mountains.
Goose Island SP, on the bay.
Lake Livingston, in the pines.
Monaghan's Sand Hills SP, for the dunes.

Hking

If we step away from the site, our doors are locked.

One thing you forgot about annoying self centered camping cunts is they must bring 5 dogs, tie them up and let them bark the entire time.

I think its long overdue for the state parks to ban completely playing any music but everyone's music is fucking annoying, so I am biased.  It should be considered the same as a dog barking violation.  Theres literally no difference especially when they all walk away from the site and never shut that shit off.


Who's to blame for all of this ?  The state park system. They won't enforce the rules. Especially the noise rules, barking, loud music and the normal annoyances.

We rarely see any actual authority patrolling the state parks. The park hosts have no authority and they are ignored.  But when park police are nearby, remarkably people act somewhat coherent.  Its no different than patrolling in your urban areas.  When cops walk or drive around, it helps.  But for some reasons, we can go to a state park, and -never- see a marked police car drive by and sometimes its only a sheriffs deputy!

We try to avoid the known parks that are near large urban areas and go to the ones that are just a bit too far.  Also ,we only camp in the winter when its too cold for Texan's to camp who are the general annoying cunts as they would never go camp when its below 80f.  

Between NOV and March, its not too bad and our camper is parked the rest of the year.

We have a patrol loop if you will.   Garner, Mustang Island, Goose Island, Choke Canyon, Palmetto, Inks and the Army MWR campground on Canyon Lake. You are going to find us at one of those about 10 days out of every month.  

Will be at Mustang from the 12-19th of May if the weather allows it.

The coast trips are an overnight at Palmetto State park on the way back home.  That only puts us on the road a couple hours each day and I can spend an extended time at Americana Arms in Beeville along the way.

This is quite literally the best way to travel while RVing.  We're heading up to Sioux Falls, SD next month.  It's about 850 miles.  We've got reservations at 3 different campgrounds on the way up.  

Slow down people.  It's more enjoyable.

(and the fuel mileage is better too)

We drove to Colorado a few years back. Took it easy and the road trip was so much better.