Since the time we bought our truck camper in July 2020 and finally started camping by September, we have camped around our state five times. Plus, we had a sixth trip scheduled a month ago but canceled it due to storms (and it didn’t even rain after all). It has rained the majority of the time throughout every one of those trips. I’m not talking about a short storm. No, these have been all-day showers, and in some cases, thunderstorms.
At the beginning of 2021, we tried to book as many weekend camping trips for the year as we could, knowing that reservations are hard to find due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I tried to book Skidaway Island near Savannah in mid-May since we got married in Savannah in May. Sadly, it was booked, so we backed up our anniversary trip to the last weekend in April at Fort McAllister State Park.
Approximately 30 miles from Savannah, GA, Fort McAllister is a beautiful park along the banks of the Ogeechee River with giant live oaks and Spanish moss. Fort McAllister was one of three forts used to defend Savannah during the Civil War and was considered a key to unlocking Savannah defenses. Union ironclads attacked the fort’s earthworks seven times until it fell in 1864, ending General Sherman’s March to the Sea.
As the trip got closer, our schedule changed, and we were unable to leave until 2 p.m. What should have been a 4.5-hour trip turned into a 6-hour trip, and we only arrived in time to see the sunset, enjoy a few drinks outside and go to bed. If your route to Fort McAllister will take you through Atlanta and Macon, pad in some time for traffic. Atlanta traffic was slow but surprisingly not too terrible, however between Locust Grove and Forsyth, we encountered a car accident that slowed traffic to a crawl and added time to our trip. That put us driving through Macon during Friday afternoon rush hour.
There are 67 tent, trailer, and RV campsites, plus pioneer and backcountry camping and cottage rentals. Campsites 20-36 (even numbers only in this range) would have your outdoor living space facing into the road, so we decided if we book on that loop in a return visit, we will book on the right side of that loop. To access the campground, you will receive a gate code when checking in.
We booked campsite 9, a premium site with electricity, water, and sewer. I selected this one specifically for the marsh views (that we sadly saw little of once the rain started). A review on Campendium indicated this site was good for sunrise views, but it turned out to be the opposite. The sunset from our campsite was beautiful and would likely have been even better if the clouds had cleared. The sunrise was visible from the boat dock, which is closest to the tent-only sites. Site 9 has a very long driveway, which dwarfed our little rig but also gave us a bit more privacy. The sites in this section of the campground are spread further apart from each other than the other loops.
As we sat enjoying the quiet evening, three raccoons walked an arm’s length away through our campsite, and a little while later, two deer also walked right through our site. Campendium reviews had also warned of the brave raccoons, but we had not anticipated they would come so close to our chairs while we were sitting in them.
Saturday, we got an early start due to—you guessed it—rain all day in the forecast. In fact, we almost canceled this trip due to the weather forecast, but after canceling our previous trip for what turned out to be an incorrect weather prediction, we forged ahead. We took a short walk over to the boat ramp to catch the sunrise and then walked the 1.2 miles back to the visitor center to officially check in since we arrived late the previous day. On the walk over to check in there are a handful of geocache sites. We looked for two of them, which was pretty fun for our first geocache experience. One of the finds would be fun for children and is part of a Cub Scout project.
There is a museum at the visitor center, and you can also pay $9 adult/$5 youth to visit the old fort. We didn’t feel we had time to do either, knowing that rain was coming, but you can find plenty of other reviews of these online. A description of the fort on the state park’s website indicates that you’ll see cannons, bombproof barracks, fortifications, and more.
Before walking back to the campsite, we searched for and found the official Georgia State Parks geocache, which I found quite fun. We didn’t take anything, but I left a sticker from my shop and am now hooked on geocaching.
There are 4.3 miles of hiking trails at Fort McAllister, plus some swings overlooking the water, but again because of impending rain, we didn’t take advantage of these opportunities. Back at the campsite, we made a few loops around the campground to stay active and pass the time. At the boat ramp, you can rent kayaks, canoes, and paddleboards. The website also indicates bike rentals.
We debated whether to make our planned day trip to Savannah and decided we didn’t want to drive through the storm. By this time (10:30 a.m.), we had received alerts that a tornado watch was in effect until 6 p.m. We waited for the storm to get closer and then drove a couple of miles down the road to a restaurant called Fish Tales to wait out some of the storms. This amounted to a couple of firsts for us: our first time breaking camp and our first tornado watch while camping. We wanted to get away from the trees, and by breaking camp, we experienced one of the reasons we chose a truck camper. We had filled our freshwater tanks at home, so all we had to do to break camp was put up our chairs and disconnect from electricity. We loved how fast and simple it was to leave and return to our campsite.
Overall, we found this campground very quiet with moderate privacy (depending on the site you choose), close to activities and food, and clean. The bathrooms were clean and the water pressure for the shower was good. The nearest grocery store that we drove by on the way in was a Publix approximately 5-10 minutes away. There is a Love's located at the exit from the interstate. We had 1-2 bars on Verizon while walking around and 3 bars at our campsite with the WeBoost. We were able to watch TV through our phone while it rained with no issues.
