Taylorsville Lake State Park Website

Date of our stay: November 2, 2015 arrival; November 8, 2015 departure; previous stay in April 2012.

General Information:
Encompassing 1,200-acres of some of the most beautiful horse riding country, this former Army Corps of Engineers campground offers 45 spacious RV sites with electric & water hook-ups, 10 equestrian sites with electric & water hook-ups, & 15 primitive tent sites with water available. Note that it is closed from Dec 15th – Mar 31st. A dual dump station is conveniently located near the entrance.

Getting here:
A good distance from any of the KY interstates, be aware that some of the roads your GPS may want to take you on to get here can be very narrow, winding and hilly. If you are arriving from the south our advice is to take exit 42 off the Bluegrass Parkway to SR555 to SR6 to SR248, which for the most part are decent roads. If you make the mistake of taking exit 34/SR 55 from the Bluegrass Parkway, big rigs should definitely avoid SR2239 which is the shortest path when arriving via that route – IGNORE the signs directing you to the State Park via SR2239 and continue on SR55 up to SR44!  If you are arriving from the Northwest, we suggest taking exit 23 off I-265 (Louisville outer beltway), then SR155 south to SR55 south to SR44 east to SR248 east.

Rates:
For a standard site, the rate is $25 Sun-Thurs, $27 Fri-Sat and $29 Holidays. Equestrian sites are $27 Sun-Thurs, $29 Fri-Sat and $31 Holidays. Tent sites are $17 Sun-Thurs, $19 Fri-Sat and $21 Holidays,  Reservations may be made through Reserve America. There is a 10% Senior or AAA discount.

Overall Impression – 4/5
We like this park so much that this time we extended our stay from the planned 4 days to 7 days. We really enjoyed it last time too, here is our blog post from 2012.

The gentle rolling terrain, wide expanses of grass and well forested areas provide for a very pleasant atmosphere. Roads and sites are paved with lots of space between. Because of the spacing and the angled sites, you don’t feel like you are on top of your next door neighbor. In our opinion, there isn’t a bad site in the campground, although there are some preferred spots. We drove through the equestrian area and those very long pull thru sites are quite nice as well. The only complaint we had is the virtually non-existent Verizon signal. For our stay here in 2012 we had Sprint service which was also marginal.

Advice: During slow times it is possible the reserved sites will not by physically marked with a reserved tag. Therefore, when there is no one at the check in booth at the campground entrance, it is advisable to stop at the administrative offices less than 1/4 mile east of the campground entrance to check which sites may already be booked.

Notes from our most recent visit: It was off season and mid-week during our stay in November 2015 so we didn’t make reservations to avoid the additional $7.50 reservation fee. There appeared to be plenty of sites available on Reserve America. Because it was off season when we arrived, no one was at the check in hut at the entrance to the campground. A sign said to pick out a site that didn’t have a reservation tag on it so we chose site #41 which is a  very private location. After settling in, I checked the state park website and saw that our site had been reserved for that night so we drove up to the Administration Office to find out what other sites were available. Joyce in the office told us that the work campers had left the day before and no one had had time to put the reservation notices on the sites.

We ended up switching to nearby site #44. Pain in the butt because we had to unhook, pull the slides in, etc. to move 3 sites over. Oh well! Two days later we decided to extend our stay but #44 was booked so we moved to site #24.

Sites

Size – 4/5
Wide, paved and fairly level, surrounded by grass. Sites #41-#44 have a wide expanse of grass and woods behind them.

Privacy – 3/5
Although there isn’t much foliage between sites, the sites have quite a bit of space between them so you don’t feel like you are on top of your neighbor.

Amenities – 4/5
Lot of amenities here. Besides the fire pit and picnic table found on each site, there is a clean and modern bathhouse, laundry, dump station, two playgrounds, boating, boat ramp, fishing, 24 mile trail system for biking/walking trails, birding and horseback riding. All that’s missing is a sewer hookup.

Location:

Convenience – 2/5
Located out in the middle of nowhere, it is about a 10 mile drive to the nearest grocery store, restaurants and other conveniences. It is about 20 miles to the nearest Walmart.

Physical Surroundings – 5/5
Lovely, grassy campground with well placed trees to create a natural setting. There are nature trails leading from the campground into the woods but we didn’t have a chance to walk any of them.

Maneuverability and Roads – 4/5
Big rig friendly with paved roads. Site pads were at an angle so fairly easy to maneuver into the site despite the narrow roadways in some sections. In the busier seasons, cars parked along roads could be an issue. The turn around loops at the end of the sections are a bit tight for the large turning radius of a big rig although we had no issues.  Depending on the direction you are turning, entering or exiting the dump station may require a two point turn for a big rig. We had to do that in one case for our 43′ tag, so wait to hitch up your tow until after you dump.

Peace & Quiet – 4/5
Very peaceful, quiet setting especially this time of year during the week. Weekend was busier but still relatively quiet. No traffic noise.

Utilities – 3/5

• Sewer – no sewer
  
• Satellite – satellite worked on all 3 sites that we were on (#44, #41 and #24). Site #24 might be iffy when the tree there gets bigger. We were able to hit all 3 satellites (110/119/129) on the DISH Western Arc, but could not receive HD on locals – we think this is due to the 129 spot beam signal in this area being too weak.
• WiFi – zilch, nada, fuhgeddaboutit.
• Cellular signal – Verizon very marginal with Verizon. Oscillated between 1X, 3G, 4G on both Verizon and Bluegrass cellular (roaming) even with our Wilson Sleek booster.
• Over-the-Air (OTA) TV – received most of the OTA networks.
• Power – 30 amp, each site had two 30 amp outlets. If you have a “cheater box” you should be able to get 60A/120V capacity here. On site #41, one of the 30A outlets didn’t work.
• Water Pressure/Quality – pressure good, quality good with moderate hardness, no chlorine smell, no  turbidity or off odors. Perfect limestone filtered bourbon making water!

What We Liked
– Pleasant and attractive grounds
– Large, paved, level and well spaced sites
– Very clean and well maintained

What We Didn’t Like
– Marginal cellular signal
– A good distance from most services
– Not near any interstate and some of the roads to get here are not RV friendly