Stephen F. Austin State Park

The first time I visited SFA State Park I was 15 years younger and had only camped a few times. My husband and I set up our 8-person tent and made a fire. We tried hiking but a lot of the trails were closed due to flooding. I remember having sour cream and onion Pringles. I put them in front of the tent to go to the bathroom. When I came back, they were…GONE! I thought someone had stolen them and felt annoyed that someone would be so heartless. My husband told me it was a racoon. Who had ever heard of vermin stealing food? Obviously, I wasn’t a camper at that point.

The coolest thing we saw on that overnight trip was a massive snake, it took up about half the road. I was scared and mystified at the same time.

I was such a non-camper that I told my husband that we needed to go to Pizza Hut for dinner, and we did. We sat INSIDE and ate.

This past week I decided that I needed to camp, it had been at least a month since my last trip. I was supposed to camp the week before but one of my kids got sick. It was a Thursday when I decided this. I texted a friend and asked if he and his family wanted to join me. You see my kids hate camping and the outdoors and my husband hurt his foot, so I was all alone.

On Saturday my friend, his family and I headed down the road, a whole 35-minute drive to Stephen F. Austin State Park. We had to wait in a line to check in, they only allow 5 people inside the headquarters at a time. The drive was short to get to our site, 63. We choose one in the back so that we weren’t near the main road or the bathrooms. I didn’t realize a trail was directly behind our site, but it wasn’t bothersome.

We had plenty of space to pitch 4 tents, 2 one persons, and 2 two persons. We could have easily pitched more, the site is huge! It was a nice day, so we set out to hike 3.5 miles. A few of the trails were closed, but there are around 10, so that it didn’t hinder us.

We saw tons of deer! They appear to be more prevalent in the morning as opposed to the afternoon. We hiked to the Brazos River, if you bring fishing gear, you might be able to catch dinner.

What I loved most about this trip was all the people I saw. There were only 2 empty camp sites. It was fun looking at the different tents people use, the different hammock systems, and I almost asked someone if I could look at their camper van, I’m curious about them. I saw one family that ran rope from one tree to another and were playing volleyball with a beach ball. I saw multiple people with propane tanks outside their tent and I’m not sure how they’re running that into the tent or why. I assume it’s for heat. I saw one site that had an electrical cord running from their tent to their car battery, I’m not sure how that works either. It was nice to be among other campers, others that prefer to be outdoors in nature than indoors watching TV.

Overall this park is perfect. It’s small compared to others but has plenty of trails so you don’t feel like you’re walking the same one all the time. The bathrooms are nice, and they even have 2 family bathrooms with showers. There were a few spots with standing water in the tent camping area, in the winter it wasn’t a problem but in the warmer months you’ll want to have bug spray for mosquitos.

The park has screened shelters, cabins, group camping, primitive/tent and tent with water sites, sites with water/electricity/sewer, a dump station, exhibit/interpretive center, day use facility, overnight facility, fishing, a historic site, park store, picnic tables, a playground, and bike trails.

Gear that I used: Tarantula tent, Hammock Gear 10-degree Quilt, Naturehike Outdoors down booties, Sea to Summit sleep sack, HitorHike Sleep pad, Hummingbird Hammocks. Reviews are available for these items.