Red Top Mountain State Park

We have camped at this park many times over the years while we lived in Atlanta. Its very close to the city while offering great pine forest hiking, water activities and nice sites. Its a large park with separate areas for tent camping and RV camping. Although, you can have a tent in the RV area, just not the other way around. There is a group of large pull-through spots right at the entrance that work best for larger rigs. Don't overlook these sites, they still offer decent space between each site.

We love to hike when we camp and prefer campgrounds that offer some level of hiking right outside our door. This is where Red Top Mountain really excels. There are a huge amount of both hiking and biking trails to choose from while most are pretty easy hikes you can really rack up the miles. The campground itself is quite forested and always makes for a nice evening stroll after dinner. They also have Bluegrass at the old Homestead near the main lodge on Saturday nights through the summer. A few times each year they do an iron pour using the old smelting equipment which we have never seen but always hear great things about.

Despite how busy it sounds, it truly offers some nice solitude if you want to camp within 40 minutes of Atlanta. I recommend making reservations. When we lived in Atlanta you could not reserve specific sites, so that can sometimes be a downside.

PROS:
Beautiful forested lake setting and some sites with water views
TONS of hiking and biking trails
Great variety of sites from very private to shared for groups
Nice pull-through section
Water and electric at RV sites
Dump station as you exit the park

CONS:
Dump station can be tricky for the pull-through sites
Sites can be un-level
Wish it was $25 or under
Cell signal an be spotty but always usable

I have only stayed here in the late fall so although somewhat busy during the weekends, very quiet, peaceful during the week. I love the sites near the water which are not pull-thrus. The great attribute about Georgia SP system, is that you reserve a site but not a specific site. When you arrive, you find your site. This is a really great system if you haven't been to the particular park and can't get a sense of the sites on-line when reserving. I particularly loved site #28. The road around the campground is paved, but does get narrow in some areas.

They have some fun hiking (mountain biking) trails that can be accessed from the campground. Q-dog loves water and pinecones, so she loves this park.

There is also a sweet tent area (perhaps small popup), with some of the sites right on the water.

Pretty sweet park within striking distance of Atlanta. Wooded, pretty quiet (some highway noise), a good bit of hiking. Lots of pines, pretty easy in and out, Verizon was 4G and fast in the pull throughs, not sure about the rest of the park. Showers are hot and clean and as a bonus the inside is kept warm (we were there in December). It's not the shortest trip into Atlanta but it is reachable. Closer is Acworth / Kennesaw with some decent food and all the shopping you need. When we come here it's to visit friends in the metro area so we would love to be closer in but do appreciate the peace and quiet after dealing with the Atlanta traffic.

We came here for the twice annual iron pour event, only to find it was canceled because of rain in the forecast. We still had a great weekend, though. There's a row of 12 pull-through sites here that are most appropriate for bigger rigs, but there are also a few 40' back-in sites scattered throughout the other parts of the campground that could work. Only the back-in sites have lake views and/or access, but our pull through site was very spacious and surrounded by woods; we saw deer from our site several times. Some of the pull throughs are very hilly (we were in site 10 and I think we managed to get the single steepest one); one review I read described the sites as not level but "crowned"....i.e. we had to pull up a steepish hill (and back down to leave), but it was fairly easy to get level once the trailer was at the top of the hill. Bathhouses were nicely updated and very clean. There's a small playground and access to a couple of the park's hiking trails directly from the campground (we walked the Iron Hill Trail, which has lots of nice lake views). The park itself, despite the lack of an iron pour, had a ton of scheduled activities going on, plus lots of recreational opportunities like boating, mountain biking, and hiking. The park is less than an hour north of Atlanta, so it could make a good base for exploring the city, and there's also quite a bit to do in Cartersville (science museum, the Booth Western Art Museum, Etowah Indian Mounds, etc)

A couple of words of caution: there are two entrances to the park; the from the west has a narrow bridge with 14' clearance and a sharp turn in the middle of a steep hill. We took this road in and it was fine, but we left to the south, on Glade Rd, and it was a better route for RVs. Also, there are a couple of sharp turns in the campground....one when you turn to get to the row of pull throughs and another from that loop to the dump station and exit (and an awkwardly placed fence that we nearly got stuck on).

We came here for a family gathering and had a great experience. The sites labeled for 20' units seemed much bigger. The level part might only be 20', but we had no problem with our site fitting my Airstream 23 and no issues leveling. Our friends stayed at site 68 and it was much smaller, not to mention you needed to squeeze between 2 trees. Which made for a cool back drop, but a challenge to get in/out. These sites backed up to a small valley with lots of woods. Great privacy. Not all sites are like this.

Hiking trails are abundant not to mention access to the lake, beach, lots of kids educational activities and live bluegrass every Saturday night during the summer.

All in all, a great weekend.

One thing to note, we did not get the cell signal that some people claim to get. There was definitely some LTE to be had, but maybe not at all sites.

We arrived on a Saturday afternoon in November. The visitor center parking lot was packed, and there seemed to be no obvious place for RVs to park while checking in, so we parked to one side blocking a bunch of cars.

We reserved a 40 foot site and were given a green tag and told to pick an empty spot with a green reflector. We drove through the entire campground, and couldn't find any available sites so we called the ranger.

We ended up in site #35. Even though it's meant for 20 foot rigs, it's still pretty long. I think the real issue for longer rigs is that the site is quite un-level. Once we got it worked out, it seemed like we were in the best spot in the campground. Beautiful views and neighbors were far away.

Cell service was great, though we had friends in the pull-thru section and they said they couldn't get it to work without a booster.

We used the laundry on our last day. $1.25 for wash, $1.25 for dry. There are only 2 washers and dryers and they were relatively clean.

Verizon: DOWNLOAD - 25.00Mb/s, UPLOAD - 2.44Mb/s
AT&T: DOWNLOAD - 30.85Mb/s, UPLOAD - 3.71Mb/s

Many great spots overlooking the lake. Kind of noisy but expected as I camped on a holiday weekend. I work from the road so loved the great 4G connection and ability to throw a hammock up and work over the lake.

I loved this campground. The sites on the pull-through loop were very large and offered abundant privacy which was just what we needed. Everything was clean. Generally, folks were very quiet as well. Having a gate code meant we weren't locked in which allowed us flexibility to go to events and arrive back to the campground later at night. And we had excellent internet! Red Top contracts with Brightlan to offer high speed internet to every campsite. We paid for two weeks at a cost of about $43 and we had wifi speeds better than we used to have at home for about the same price as what two weeks of home internet costs. We had a wifi speed of range of -36 to -42 dBm and Verizon data speed of -77 dBm. Mark could not have been happier with the conditions for working his day job.

The dump station was easy to access and was so discreet we didn't see it at first. There were trash can stations placed in between every few sites that were emptied regularly, so no long walk to a dumpster with trash. We loved the bathhouse! It was just a short walk from our loop and had men's and women's rooms as well as two unisex shower rooms. So far, it is the nicest bathhouse out of the few campgrounds we've stayed at. We really liked having a private shower room to share rather than have to use public shower rooms.

There were a couple of downsides for us. The campground is completely isolated from the rest of the state park and it's amenities. There isn't easy access to the park office except by car. The main road was a narrow two-lane road with no good shoulder for walking and too windy/hilly to feel safe to a novice biker. There is a posted speed limit of 30 mph in that area bit it's a main thoroughfare and most vehicles drove significantly faster, including the school buses that came barreling through each morning and afternoon. There also was nothing to do in the campground except camp, ride a bike, or walk around. There was no public access to the lake for boating or swimming. The public beach was more than a mile down the main road with the cars. We ended up driving to the park office several times to buy more firewood and would have had to break camp if we hadn't had a car with us. Since the car is now in long-term storage, we will have to consider this as a potential issue if we camp there again. Additionally, we would have loved to rent a boat or at least had a picnic or two down by the water, which wasn't possible in the campground. Red Top could go a long way toward improving the amenities by just installing a dock by the water so folks without waterside sites could enjoy the lake views without encroaching on others privacy.

Another downside were the number of people who were in the campground area unauthorized despite the gate with code. Several times, people drove in the open gate behind other campers. One of these folks asked us about leaving their car parked in one of the two parking spots outside the bathhouse while they went on a day hike. A large group of loud motorcyclists simply drove their bikes around the gate to get in and then had a rowdy picnic in one of the open campsites. Overall though, these were isolated incidents and did not effect our stay or decision to return in the future.

The last downside, which didn't effect us but could effect other rigs was that the pull-through sites are not at all level. The entrance and exit to each site is hilly and curved, with ruts in the gravel at the exits. They are located on a ridge and longer rigs may have trouble getting their RV truly level. Because we are so short in a van, it was not an issue for us. But I can see those with longer rigs experiencing difficulty getting into and out of these sites as well as finding a level spot.

Overall, it was a very pleasant stay that met our needs despite the few complaints. There were very few bugs, the weather was perfect, no barking dogs. You really can't beat it if you are a working traveler with heavy internet demands and a strong desire for privacy and peace and quiet.

5 stars means we’d go out of our way to stay here again!
Visited during spring break so pretty full. Staff was helpful and nice. Sites were large, not very level...no problem for us, but a consideration. Lot’s of space between sites. Several nice trails. The park has WiFi for a fee...we didn’t use it because we had good verizon. Decent proximity to Atlanta if you want to drive down there [about an hour].
Warning: plenty of poison ivy growing in the area if that’s a concern for you.

Large park with lots of activities on Lake Altoona. Cabins and campsites are nice. Some of the back in sites can be a little challenging to back in to. Sites could use a little maintainance. Lots of poison ivy all around our site.
Great view of the lake just a short walk downhill from our site. Bath house in our area was new and very nice. A great park, have camped there many times over the years.
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