Camping at Chickasaw State Park

Welcome back to the camping blog adventures series! This week we visited the beautiful Chickasaw State Park in Henderson, Tennessee in Chester County. Chickasaw State Park got its name from the Chickasaw Indians that used to inhabit the area. 

There are many things at chickasaw state park. They have paddling on two 54 acre lakes. You can bring your own or you can rent one of their kayaks, canoes, SUPs, or pedal boats. You can also swim in Lake Placid at the swimming beach free of charge, this beach is a sandy beach so you can break out those sand castle skills again. We thought about going to rent a pedal boat but we decided not to since we were all tired from swimming all morning. Another thing you can do on the water is fish. Their lakes are stocked with bass, bream, and catfish. You can bring your own fishing boat or rent one of theirs. 

At the park you can enjoy countless trails of different types. There are eight hiking trails throughout the park that vary in difficulty from easy to moderate. You can also bring your bike and travel down the miles of park roads in and around the park. Chickasaw also is one of the few parks that offer wrangler accommodations. You can bring your own horse or you can rent one of the many that they have to use on the trails.  There are five miles of trails in the park and hundreds of miles to ride on in Chickasaw State Forest. 

Chickasaw is a perfect place to get in touch with your inner nature lover. Just make sure you don’t leave the binoculars at home. You can learn more about the nature of Tennessee by watching for many of the bird species that live in the park. Over 100 species of birds have been spotted in the park. Try your luck at catching a peak of the red feathers of a Summer Tanager or see if you can hear the hoot of a nearby owl as you drift off to sleep. While we were there we noticed that there were lots of geese. When we were walking from the footbridge to the beach they were all gathered there and a few started approaching us until we got far enough away from them. Don’t be scared of them because they will leave you alone if you leave them alone. Just always remember to respect the animals and do not to disturb them.

There are multiple campsites at Chickasaw. The first one is the 53 RV sites with water and electrical hookups. They have a picnic table and a grill. They also have bathhouses. The next one is the tent campground. This is the one that we stayed at. You can pick out of 29 sites. The sites have a picnic table, a grill, and a fire pit. They also have a modern bath house as well as a playground next to the bath house. There is a bridge that is near the bathhouse. This bridge will take you to the footbridge that goes across the lake. Where once you are across you can go to the beach, the Chickasaw Trading Post, or rent one of the boats that they have. The tent campsites are very spacious. We were able to have a large 8 person tent plus a large 4 person tent in the tent area and we still had some room left over but not much. The other site is the 32 wrangler campsites. At this site you can have your horse with you. You can also rent one of their stalls in the barn. If you are planning on renting a stall make sure you call ahead to get the pricing. Each one of the sites has electrical and water hookups as well as a bathhouse.

If you are looking for more information about Chickasaw State Park here is the link to the website. https://tnstateparks.com/parks/chickasaw