Where's the electricity

I hate that there isn't any electricity at the horse unit. The recent expansion of Palisades State Park was very disappointing as well in that horses are still not allowed in the grassy parts of the park. I even offered to help mow and designate the trails! Residents would like a place to ride off the roads and ditches, and this would have been a great opportunity for horse enthusiasts (it STILL could be!!). Remember, the State Sport is rodeo!! I was thrilled to see the hydrants and bathroom added to Newton Hills Horse Unit. That is awesome!! However, as a grandmother, Oakwood is the better park because there is more to do for kids. We ride horses in the morning, (the arena is awesome!) then we take the dog for a walk along the same trails, let him wade in the water, and then we get the bikes and ride through the campground and to the beach. We love the park, just would like to see the electricity added to the horse unit. We'd come up a lot more!!
 SD horse lover
10/18/2025
Overall Experience  5.0
Services  5.0

Bushes

We always love camping at Oakwood. Nice park and always clean a friendly staff. The thing we did not like is the keep taking all the bushes and small trees out. That was nice privacy and great wind breakers on some sites. I understand cleaning some out but they are taking all of them out. It was nice having wind breaks and some privacy with some and now they are all gone.
 Ditchcreek
10/17/2025
Overall Experience  5.0
Services  5.0
Facilities  5.0

Oakwood is a gem!

Oakwood has such an array of great parks, spread out campsites with great mature tree coverage, easy trails, and the cleanest bathrooms. Love that the bathroom facility has a family unit on one end with bathroom and shower in 1, huge plus for a family with a few kids under 10.
 Zboys
10/6/2025
Overall Experience  5.0
Services  5.0
Facilities  5.0

Very nice

The sites are nice and large so you don't feel like you are on top of each other. Nice mature trees to give lots of shade. The tent area has so much space you can easilty put 2 tents on each site. 1 improvement would be to have walk in carts provided to be able to carry stuff in rom the parking area. Staff doesn't like it when you park on the grass. And the swings could use some grease. We could hear the squeak across the gounds.
 ManateeLuv09
10/2/2025
Overall Experience  5.0
Services  4.8
Facilities  4.4

Oakwood fun

 Jane Does
10/2/2025
Overall Experience  5.0

camping

 grumpy
10/2/2025
Overall Experience  5.0

Beautiful Autumn colors

 NS
9/29/2025
Overall Experience  5.0

Fall Camping

Really nice camp. Very relaxed in the Fall.
 GP Square
9/26/2025
Overall Experience  4.0
Services  4.0
Facilities  3.6

Great stay

 Family advocate
9/23/2025
Overall Experience  5.0

Nice campground

 NA
9/21/2025
Overall Experience  5.0

Nice campground

 NA
9/21/2025
Overall Experience  5.0

Nice campground

 NA
9/21/2025
Overall Experience  4.8

Camping Trip

 Cam
9/11/2025
Overall Experience  5.0

Oakwood camping trip

 J_Dog1
9/11/2025
Overall Experience  5.0

Oakwood

Water pressure needs to be addressed at the bath houses.
 Cheeto
9/8/2025
Overall Experience  3.8

Pleasant stay

Quite park for the most part plenty of space between campers, it’s a Great Lake for kayaking and they have a nice launch and rentals in campground 2
 Jim N
9/2/2025
Overall Experience  3.3
Services  4.4
Facilities  4.2

nice park

 Jacks
8/25/2025
Overall Experience  4.3

Weekend fun

 Retired campers
8/24/2025
Overall Experience  5.0

Mosquitos

Park staff sprayed the evening we arrived. The mosquitoes were thick before and after spraying. If you aren’t handicapped please let those of us that are use the designated handicap shower.
 Grandma Camper
8/23/2025
Overall Experience  4.3
Services  5.0
Facilities  4.2

Nice weekend except mosquitoes

 Campfreak
8/23/2025
Overall Experience  4.5

Great week

 Moola
8/23/2025
Overall Experience  5.0

Oakwood Lakes is the best!

Oakwood Lakes State Park is our favorite! Grounds are well maintained and restrooms are updated and clean. Staff is wonderful!
 TB
8/17/2025
Overall Experience  5.0
Services  5.0
Facilities  4.7

Our weekend at Oakwood Lake State Park was wonderful. That is a great campground,, the campsites are well spread out and trees everywhere very well kept. Staff was great also.

 Quiz#3 Our weekend at Oakwood Lake State Park was wonderful. That is a great campground,, the campsites are well spread out and trees everywhere very well kept. Staff was great also.
8/13/2025
Overall Experience  5.0

What a calm stay

 Campnforfun
8/13/2025
Overall Experience  4.0

Always a pleasure to camp at Oakwood

Loved the flowers and plants by the comfort station. The comfort stations were very wet and slippery. We had grandkids that hurried in and slipped which had me, a senior citizen, concerned about falling. Maybe a fan to help dry it up after cleaning?
 Grandma
8/11/2025
Overall Experience  4.0
Services  5.0
Facilities  4.7

Fun time, would like more shore access for fishing

 Shawn
8/11/2025
Overall Experience  5.0

Camping

 dorseygirl605
8/11/2025
Overall Experience  5.0

Favorite trails

 Bc
8/7/2025
Overall Experience  5.0

Great State Park

 Katherine Scott
8/2/2025
Overall Experience  5.0

get away

Very nice campground we have stayed there many of times never disappointed . One thing I would like the parks to do is look at the sites and do some tree trimming . With campers getting taller and more slides there needs to be more tree trimming. We have stayed at three state parks so far this year and all of them could use some trimming Branches rubbing on slides and roofs. Thank You
 camp-a-lot
7/30/2025
Overall Experience  4.5
Services  4.7

' where sleep(0)=0 --

7/28/2025

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7/28/2025

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7/28/2025

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7/28/2025

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7/28/2025

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7/28/2025

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7/28/2025

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7/28/2025

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7/27/2025

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7/27/2025

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7/27/2025

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7/27/2025

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7/27/2025

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7/27/2025

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7/27/2025

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7/27/2025

Church Campout

 Koehn Folks
7/25/2025
Overall Experience  5.0

Great stay at Oakwood Lakes

 Krista B.
7/23/2025
Overall Experience  5.0
Services  4.3
Facilities  5.0

Great Place

 Pete
7/23/2025
Overall Experience  5.0

Girls weekend camping

 DK
7/22/2025
Overall Experience  4.8

Weekend

 Karen
7/19/2025
Overall Experience  5.0

Poor campsite

Very odd set up campsite. Why was the power so so far away from the camper? Even with an extension it was almost impossible to plug into. We have camped in this park about a hundred times. But this was the worst experience. We had horrific neighbors that had no care or compassion for animals. The power hookup could not have been further away
 Unhappy camper
7/10/2025
Overall Experience  3.3
Services  4.2
Facilities  4.0

Peaceful cabin

 Jad
7/4/2025
Overall Experience  4.8

Fees

Just wanted people to know, if you change dates,they charge you now! We changed them from Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, to the same Wednesday, but for Thursday and Friday instead of Monday and Tuesday! $27! I think this is a little ridiculous! The answers below are for the people I talked to on the phone! Very rude and not nice at all! Steve and manager, Bionca!
 Retired couple
6/26/2025
Overall Experience  4.8
Services  1.0
Facilities  4.9

Oakwood has a great naturalist

We go to oakwood every year in June and kayak out to see the baby birds on the islands.
 Bird watch
6/25/2025
Overall Experience  5.0
Services  5.0
Facilities  5.0

Campground

Fire pits weren’t cleaned out, tree laying over part of the park (sign at enterence said they would get rid of tree that were a priority guess a tree making it hard for kids to play wasn’t a priority), also never seen a single park worker except in the state building at the entrance
 Lake girl
6/25/2025
Overall Experience  2.0
Services  2.8
Facilities  2.2

Beautiful park

We stayed in the horse camp. Very well kept. Nice paddocks for the horses. Having electric would make it more comfortable in the summer months also water closer to the paddocks would be helpful.
 Copper
6/25/2025
Overall Experience  4.5
Services  4.5
Facilities  3.1

Love Oakwood

 Mara N.
6/22/2025
Overall Experience  5.0

Oakwood

 Esox
6/19/2025
Overall Experience  4.0

Great Park

We always have an enjoyable time camping at Oakwood. The young lady cleaning restroom/comfort station was very friendly
 Rita
6/18/2025
Overall Experience  5.0
Services  5.0
Facilities  5.0

Oakwood

Can campground host come around with wood for sale on occasion like in other parks?
 Bombsville
6/18/2025
Overall Experience  4.8
Services  4.8
Facilities  5.0

Awesome

 Eeyorelover
6/18/2025
Overall Experience  4.8

Bathroom/ dump station

The bathrooms were nice, but they had not been cleaned all weekend. The shower had very little pressure. For the size of the campground it was hard to believe that they only have 2 dump stations. One would think they could use more. The campground host was never seen at all.
 Camper 25
6/18/2025
Overall Experience  3.3
Services  4.3
Facilities  3.7

Reservations

I suggest that a reservation be forfeited (even though it has been payed) within 8 hrs after a no show, cancelled by park personnel, to provide the spot for another camper. Frustrating to see a spot next you open all weekend and not able to have a friend camp next to you.
 Jetwrencher
6/15/2025
Overall Experience  5.0
Services  4.3
Facilities  4.6

oakwood lake state park

We came in on bicyles as part of a cross country ride. It was afterhours and we could not find any information on the hiker/biker sites that most parks offer across the USA. We pick an open site ( which was most of the park) paid in cash and had a good night sleep. My thoughts are that on the maps you show which sites are for hiker/bikers only but over all our experinces were great in your park..
 urbaa
6/13/2025
Overall Experience  5.0
Services  5.0

Awesome park!

 Nature Love
6/12/2025
Overall Experience  5.0

Great campground as always

We always stay in the newer section and campsites are all larger size and nice shape. Lots of gophers and bugs here as there normally is. The firewood felt like a real rip off though. Bags filled 3/4 the way with 5-6 small pieces that burn fast for $7 each.
 Irishflan
6/12/2025
Overall Experience  4.3
Services  5.0
Facilities  4.3

Happy Camper

Our stay at Oakwood was very relaxing. The campground is will cared for and the model facilities makes camping enjoyable. The kayak launches make access to the water very easy for my family and are appreciated. The staff at the Welcoming center were very friendly and helped serve our needs when we requested assistance.
 Happy Camper
6/12/2025
Overall Experience  5.0
Services  5.0
Facilities  5.0

Great Park

 Steph
6/12/2025
Overall Experience  5.0

Mid-week stop

 Old Al
6/12/2025
Overall Experience  5.0

South Dakota State Park

I believe park users already paying the camping fee should not also have to pay the daily usage fee.
 Mike Tursky
6/9/2025
Overall Experience  4.3
Services  5.0

Great Park

 JEB
6/5/2025
Overall Experience  5.0
Services  5.0
Facilities  5.0

Nice stay

The park is looking nice with the shrubs torn out and campsites opened up. The dump station looks much nicer being paved. There's more trimming being done than before. We've camped at Oakwood for 25 years. I think it's being maintained much better. The only complaint I have is that the vaulted toilets could be cleaned better, not just someone breezing by to check the toilet paper.
 SDSU Alum
6/4/2025
Overall Experience  5.0
Services  5.0
Facilities  4.7

Memorial Day Weekend

A great Memorial Day Weekend campground. We arrived on Thursday and departed on Sunday. The campground was excellent. Everything was very well maintained. The campsites were very well spaced and the fire pit location was perfect. We have been to campsites were the fire ring was placed in an odd spot or directly where the awning extended is at. Nice walking trails and I was able to bike within the campground . It was great for a three day stay, however not a park that I would go back every year. I think State Parks should allow a better reservation window. I like to book campsites in the fall for the following season. This park had a 90 day window. I like the campgrounds that allow a year in advance.
 Lisa S.
6/3/2025
Overall Experience  4.8
Services  4.0
Facilities  5.0

Absoultely beautiful, quiet and now my favorite place to camp!

Our only main downfall was the showers and the showerhead. Too short and we had to use a hair tie to make it work for us. Otherwise, everything else was fantastic! We have never visited this campground before, but we will definetly will be back!
 Sampercamper420
6/1/2025
Overall Experience  4.8
Services  4.5
Facilities  4.7

Oakwood Reservations

 MP
5/22/2025
Overall Experience  4.8

Weekend getaway

We had a quick weekend trip, we have stayed once before with our camper but this time we chose a cabin. The location we had was perfect by the water which was nice for fishing. The kids enjoyed the playgrounds and all the facilities were clean and well kept. We definitely will be back, lots of wildlife to view.
 Family of 4
5/8/2025
Overall Experience  5.0
Services  5.0
Facilities  5.0

April visit

I and my wife like Oakwood because it is close to home. It has canoe and kayak rentals and good hiking trails
 Grenbo
5/1/2025
Overall Experience  5.0
Services  5.0
Facilities  5.0
Facilities  5.0