Holly Bay

Very friendly Staff! You will NOT regret any time that you spend at Holly Bay Campground!! Very clean sites, and if you want to enjoy the water; campers enjoy their own boat launch! It is separate from the Holly Bay Marina, I must tell you that the HBM is also an excellent experience. Delicious food and the hiking trails are well marked!

I took my kids and grandkids for a long weekend for my son's 25th birthday. We had a great time. It was close to the lake, so my son could easily fish. The spillway beach was right down the road and they all love the water, so they were very happy. The campsites were very clean and a good size. The only drawback was their closeness to each other, but it wasn't overwhelming.

Best campground in KY.

It is the best place to go if you just want to be off the grid and re-enter yourself. Sites are great as well.

We loved Holly Bay campground! It was very private and secluded. The staff was very helpful and so friendly. We would definitely go back to this amazing campground.

Clean facilities, friendly people, pretty water.

We travel extensively with a small 18-foot travel trailer and have experienced all levels of campgrounds, from excellent to less than ideal. Holly Bay, in our estimation, is one of, if not the best, campground yet. The forest is lush. The campsites are well spaced and level. The facilities are excellent. Additionally, the campsites offer electricity, a feature that most National campgrounds do not. Holly Bay, while located in the southern unit of the Daniel Boone National Forest and on a beautiful reservoir, is just an hour away from the spectacular Red River Gorge area in the northern unit of the Daniel Boone National Forest. We highly recommend this campground.

Fun trip all around, whether boating, hiking or just camping. The camping area and facilities are great and well maintained. So peaceful!

Holly Bay Campground is awesome and Laurel Lake is the most beautiful lake in Kentucky.
My family and I have been coming here about every year since ‘94. This visit was the first one in our 31 years that we were never visited by the campground hosts. Every other visit the hosts would come by a couple times a day to ask if we needed ice or firewood etc. Which is what good hosts do. This year every morning we had to hop in our vehicle and drive to the entrance to get anything.
Again, we highly recommend the location but the hospitality has taken a steep dive.

Made my reservation for Holly Bay in February, stayed at Holly Bay for Memorial Day and Forth of July without issue. Showed up for my reservation on Labor Day and was told I was only allowed to have 1 boat trailer per site, which was NOT stated on the website as a restriction. Vista Recreation staff on site was rude about this new enforcement and only offered to sell us another site for us to get a second boat pass. The day before I arrived I received a text from camp staff that stated I check-in time but didn’t include the new enforcement of a rule I have yet to find other than on a paper they printed at the entrance shack. I drove over 4 hours without any notice of any rule enforcement changes and was greeted by rude staff. This experience was horrible and USFS needs to seriously reconsider using Vista Recreation as campground hosts. At one point during our terrible check-in we were told by Vista staff that perhaps we needed to go somewhere else. How is this aligned with the USFS motto of ‘Caring for the land and serving the people’? Holly Bay used to be such a wonderful campground to stay at prior to the USFS getting low bid contractors to run the sites that don’t value the people trying to enjoy nature as intended. I will continue to visit Holly Bay as it holds a special place in my heart and countless memories with my family, but if USFS doesn’t get the correct contractors in place I will unfortunately have to look elsewhere for places that better ‘serve the people’.