Whenever I have a free weekend in the Fall/Spring seasons, I try to get out and go camping at one of our 88 state parks in Texas. This weekend I chose to take a short, two-hour drive out to Palmetto State Park in Gonzalez, Tx.

Palmetto State Park

I arrived at Palmetto State Park on Friday evening. I had time to check in, set up camp, and take a 3/4 mile hike around Lake Oxbow.

The park has multiple entrances, which was a little confusing. I was coming from the north, following google maps, and drove right past the stone Palmetto State Park entrance. Once I noticed I passed the entrance sign, I pulled off, turned around and went back.

Google wasn’t wrong though. I later found out, I could have gone either way. They both lead to the headquarters building.

The headquarters building was easy to find once I was on the correct road. It was well stocked with Texas State Parks gear, t-shirts, cold beverages, and more!

Palmetto State Park Campground Amenities

Palmetto State Park has two camping areas divided by the San Marcos River. One side is for tent camping and one side has RV spaces.

For those tent camping, you’ll enter the campsite by driving around the beautiful Oxbow Lake. It’s really quite a grand entrance! You can see the kayak and paddleboard rental station and children’s park. I found that Palmetto State Park was very family friendly and the park was very well maintained.

There are about 20 tent campsites, some right by the lake, and some further into the park. Additionally, there’s a group camp area in the back of the tent camping section dispersed camping.

I stayed at campsite 29, which was spacious enough, but did give me neighbors on both sides. If I were to have an open selection of campsites, I would have chose campsite 34 (see both in the image below). In my opinion, campsite 34 was the most private. It only had neighbors on one side and was pretty spaced out with trees on both the back side and right side of the site.

Bathroom/showers:

There are two bath houses in the park – one on the RV side and one on the camping side.

The RV side of the grounds had a bath house with toilets and showers.

The showers and restrooms at this park were also very basic. The shower pressure was fantastic and the water was warm, but the stalls are very outdoorsy… for lack of better words. Spider webs in all the corners, dead bugs everywhere, humid, and overall just okay. There were two shower stalls, one was out of order, here’s the one that was available. It looks like it used to have a bench, that was either broken off or removed which left no where to really put your things while showering except on the floor.

The tent camp side of the park only had toilets, no showers. This seemed really backwards to me as most of the people staying on the RV side of the park have showers in their RVs and the tent campers obviously do not.

The hike over to the RV area was too far to casually go shower and come back, unless you want to drive over, which was also inconvenient.

Swimming/Paddle Boarding/ Kayak Rentals at Palmetto State Park

As mentioned above, when you enter the park on the tent camping side, you drive around a small lake called Oxbow Lake. There were kids swimming, families fishing along the edges, and others, like myself out on the water on kayaks and/or paddle boards.

I’ve only been paddle boarding one time, but I thought this would be a great park to try it out again considering the lake isn’t connected to any open water source so it’s pretty still. There weren’t any currents, waves, or fast rushing water to worry about.

I got super lucky and wrote in a local Facebook group that I was looking to rent a kayak or paddle board from someone for less than the park rents them for ($18/hour). I was blessed to receive a few responses. One of the women who responded graciously let me borrow her paddleboard at no expense and I was happy to have it!

In addition to the lake, the San Marcos River had children playing and laying in it. It was pretty shallow at this time of the year, and didn’t really allow for swimming at this time, but it was nice to lay down in and let the water rush over to cool off.

Trail Hiking Experience at Palmetto State Park

Palmetto doesn’t have a lot of trails, and almost all of the trails were 1mile or less on relatively flat ground. I’d say they were easy trails which would allow for you to bring dogs (on a leash) or children.

Oxbow Lake Trail

I arrived at the park in the evening, but I still had enough sunlight to get camp set up and take a short walk around the lake on the Oxbow Lake Trail. Here’s a short little video of my walk around the lake. The weather was great, it was shaded throughout the whole trail, and I got to see the first Palmettos of my trip.

Fun fact: I also got to watch an army of ants trekking across the trail with leaves on their backs. There were soooooo many ants and they were working so hard. It was really cool to stop and watch them for a little bit!

Outside Loop Trails

There are three trails in the park that can connect to make a circle, one side starting on San Marcos River Trail. At the trailhead, there is a sign to watch out for snakes, which kept me on my toes despite not seeing any snakes at all along the trail.

There are a few spots to veer off the trail to a viewpoint of San Marcos which were really nice.

The trail had only 1 spot for a break, which is okay since it was only a 1.25 miles long trail. San Marcos connects to another mile long trail – The Mesquite Flats Trail, which also offered a rest stop area with a bench that I took advantage of.

On my hike this weekend I was testing out a lot of new gear and practicing carrying some weight on my back (25.5lbs to be exact) in an effort to test out my new Gregory Jade 63 Backpacking Backpack. It was also incredibly hot despite me making the trek around 9am. I was sweating bullets between the weight and the 90+ degree temperatures.

Rounding out the last part of the loop was the Ottine Swamp Trail, which was more desert than swamp at this time of the year. All the water beds were as dry as dirt can be. Despite that, the Palmettos were somehow still thriving! I was impressed with their ability to stay alive and thrive during such a dry time.

It looked like they had just finished some trail restoration at the park because many of the bridges I crossed were new, fresh wood.

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Overall Review of Palmetto State Park

I’m never mad or feel like any park is ever a waste of my time to visit, but out of the 9 state parks I’ve been to so far, this one would be on the bottom of that list.

There were definitely some pro’s and con’s that could completely change my experience next time if I choose to visit again.

Pro’s

The palmettos! I haven’t seen so many palmettos in one place ever in my life. They are really pretty and quite a site to see while hiking the trails.

Oxbow Lake. I loved this little lake. It was intimate, still, beautiful, and made for a perfect first time paddleboard, canoe, or kayak experience.

The San Marcos River flowing through the middle of the park. This made both the pro and con list. I can imagine, if this river wasn’t so low, it would be a beautiful sight to see. Not many parks I’ve visited have flowing water through the middle of the park that’s swimmable.

Texas State Parks Passport Stamp. Visiting any park in Texas and getting another stamp in my passport is always fun. I enjoy seeing all Texas has to offer and every stamp I acquire feels like an achievement.

Con’s

It was excruciatingly hot. I knew it was going to be hot when I was planning, but it ended up being almost 10 degrees hotter than the forecast and I was sweaty and exhausted. This wouldn’t have been sooooo bad if I didn’t have to walk 3/4 mile to take a shower at the park. The showers were so far away from the tent camping area.

I had the worst camp neighbors. The people next to me in site 27 brought SIX children (probably under the age of 8) and they were SOOO LOUD! They didn’t go to bed until around 11pm, which is after quiet hours and I kept hoping a park host would come tell them to be quiet. Then, they were up around 6am! I couldn’t believe it.

I actually woke up because their kids kicked a soccer ball into the side of my tent and scared the life out of me.

The San Marcos River flows through the park and provides a great spot for visitors to swim and cool off during the warmer days. However, during my visit, it was ankle deep at most parts, very shallow, and provided little refuge from the heat.

Overall

I might give Palmetto State Park another try during a cooler month and hope/pray for better neighbors, because those things weren’t really factors that were under the parks control. However, I’m not planning on it anytime soon.

Since my experience wasn’t top notch, I scoured the internet to find reviews and surprisingly, I have a very unpopular opinion on the park. Lots of people/reviewers mentioned this is actually their favorite park ever. So take my opinion/experience with a grain of salt.

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As always, if you want to read about my visits to other Texas State Parks, check out my Texas State Parks page!