Maple Springs

The trailer sites are angled the wrong way. You need to enter the campground through the entrance with the sign “do not enter”. While pulling out of the campground to back up on the main road (hoping no traffic would come), I cut the turn too sharp and my wheels went into the ditch and hit the stone culvert. Had to get a welder to come out and repair my trailer.

We stayed in the Maple Springs campground. They recently paved so sights are level. Very remote and secluded. Only a a few other sites at location, so very peaceful. Beautiful hiking and biking trail right at entrance. Be aware, if driving RV need to go around park (adds 45 minutes) to get to visitor center and dump station. If have car, can take ferry which only takes about 20 minutes. Did not bother us-but just be sure to plan accordingly. Great location and cave tour was amazing! Highly recommend.

Beautiful park with lots of hiking opportunities and a pretty posh welcome center that serves as HQ for all of the amazing cave tours offered. I was a little disappointed that it was primitive toilets only at the maple springs campsites. Although they were clean and plenty of them, the only bath house is near the visitor center. You have to take a ferry across the green river, two cars at a time, to get there. The ferry is quaint, and pretty quick, and free, but it closes around 6pm and it’s a 45 min drive to bypass it. It would be so much nicer to have 1 bath house at the campsites.
As for the campsites, they were nicely spaced and roomy but has a lot of mud spots that could use some mulch or gravel.
Lastly, there were a lot of downed trees on the trails. Every one we went on as a matter of fact. I recommend bringing a small saw or hatchet if possible to help clear some of these paths. I also recommend donating to and supporting the national parks service who have been severely underfunded for decades but more so in the last decade. With more help this park could be IMMACULATE!

This review has two parts to it: pre getting into the park, and post getting into the park. First, getting to the park was a challenge. The directions on the website for how to avoid the ferry were clear enough and we were able to find it just fine, but it is a total hassle to go so far out of the way to get in. It added easily an hour to the trip. Once we were in, the campsite was nice enough! We appreciated the flat parking space. There were only a few other campers, which made us feel really remote which we appreciated. The trails were clearly marked, which is also a huge plus. We didn't make it to the caves, so all we really saw was forest. That's fine, but not sure that alone was worth the trek to get to the campground. Not sure we'd visit again because of it!

1) With the Ferry being closed it took about 50 Minutes to get to the campground from the Visitor Center, so should plan for that. 2) Would have been nice to have a shower house at the campground. 3) With the one-way requirement of the campground loop and not being able to move the picnic tables, our site was very difficult to back into if you have a longer rig. 4) The Mammoth Cave Tour that we took was excellent.

We arrived late to find one of our sites occupied by squatters since no reserved notice was posted. So we occupied one site as we originally desired but forced to reserve an additional site due to our number of occupants. This merely demonstrates their occupants restrictions is about money. The restrooms were so disgusting, several chose not to enter due to the horrible smell. They did refund a portion of our money but only a portion.

We didn’t know that we would have to cross the green river ferry when coming in from the south entrance.

So we wasted about 2 driving hours that could have been avoided had we known. Our camper didn’t fit on the Ferry and we arrived 15 minutes after it closed. Closes at 6pm.

I am only posting in hopes that others see this and avoid that mistake. We had to drive around to the north entrance.

The site itself was nice. We had multiple tents and this site wasn't the most level. Also, we arrived at 7pm and the ferry closed at 6pm. Not a nice surprise. We had to drive over an hour around in the dark. We made the best out of a not enjoyable situation.

Electrical hook ups did not work

Bathrooms were pretty dirty

But big lots and lots of space

Great spots, spread out. Kids loved taking the ferry to get there.