Covered Bridge Campground

Beautiful, quaint campground not off the beaten path. We wanted to stop here just to see the historic bridge and learned they had camping and lucked out getting a spot on Sunday of Memorial weekend. It's first come, first serve, but we did call the camp host Don before arriving and he let us know it's cash or check payment and that he did have two spots available and would keep one for us. Super kind! We got site 7 for our camper van and it was absolutely perfect!. Several trees for shade, brand new fire ring, w/e hook ups and right by the walking path along the Zumbro River. Bathrooms offer plumbed toilets and free shower which were clean in my opinion. The grounds offer playgrounds, volleyball court, horseshoes, disc golf, and lovely walking trials. For $35 a night ($20 for tent sites) you can't go wrong!

I’m making this review to hopefully help other travelers to avoid showing up when it’s not open - this campground does not open until May 15th. Unfortunately I have no idea when it closes because there is literally *nothing* available to tell you this information. The website does not tell you this, the sign when you show up does not tell you any dates, everything simply says that it’s first come first serve and to show up and pay the camp host. I arrived after several hours of driving cross country on my way back to New York, called the number, and was greeted with an extremely unhelpful and somewhat rude man who said if I tried to stay I would be kicked out by 10pm by the police. He also insisted that “nothing in Minnesota opens until May” which is the most ridiculous lie I’ve heard in a while, I had literally just camped at Buffalo Run state park the night before, and winter camping is extremely popular in Minnesota (I know because I used to live in Minnesota, the U Regularly runs winter camping trips and I myself regularly winter camped while I lived here). So, this park is apparently completely ok letting a single young woman off into the night with no place to stay. He acted like it was my fault that I didn’t know it was closed? I will say, the location seems nice and the sites decent (why I give two stars instead of one). I was very luckily able to get a spot on Hipcamp in Rochester last minute for the night as every other campground was well out of my way home. Just…someone put the dates *somewhere* I don’t get why that’s difficult.