Thanks to KOA for hosting our stay at the Philadelphia South KOA! I was not otherwise compensated and all opinions are my own.
Visiting big cities with an RV often means either staying an hour or so outside of the city and doing a whole lot of long drives in to see all the attractions or staying closer in in cramped, parking lot-like quarters. So we were very pleased to find the Philadelphia South/Clarksboro KOA just 20 minutes outside of downtown Philadelphia, but with a wooded, rural setting (we even heard a rooster crowing in the distance every morning, much to Abe’s delight).
(not our camper. But this one’s cuter than ours, so I took its picture).
We were coming off of two stays at public campgrounds leading into our Philadelphia visit, so we were excited to get somewhere with private campground perks like full hook-ups, a pool, someone in a golf cart showing us to our site….
We’ve stayed at a ton of KOAs in our nearly 3 years of camping, and we love that we can always count of them to be safe, comfortable campgrounds. KOA also has a branding system in place to help you pick the right campground for your stay and know exactly what to expect. There are KOA Journeys, which are great for overnight stays in particular, and have easy highways access and pull-through sites. KOA Holidays are excellent base camps for exploring the area around the campground and offer amenities like deluxe patio sites and deluxe cabins with full baths. These tend to offer more activities around the campground to keep you entertained on longer stays. KOA Resorts are destinations all by themselves, with tons of staff led activities, on site food, and other campground amenities so that you might never want to leave the campground. And no matter which of the three you stay at, you’ll find standard features like dog parks, laundry rooms, playgrounds, and camp stores.
The Philadelphia South KOA doesn’t have one of the three designations yet (it’s only been a KOA for about a year; it was around before then as a privately owned campground), but I’m guessing it will be a Holiday when it is. You definitely want to stay here at least a few days to see as much of the local area as you can.
Booking and Arrival
We booked several months in advance and had no trouble getting the site we wanted. We were there the weekend after Memorial Day and the campground was pretty full….I would definitely book early if you want to stay during the high season or during a weekend. They are open year round.
I always worry about accessing campgrounds close to cities, but this one was no problem at all. It’s on a rural road just off of I-295; we took the exit and then it was just right there down the street. We got there shortly after check-in time and there was a bit of a back up of RVs waiting to check-in, but things moved quickly and someone came out to guide us to our site. This is one of my favorite things about private campgrounds, particularly when we have back-in sites, because it means I don’t have to get out and help Dave back in. Backing in went very smoothly, and the guy said to Dave, “you’ve done this a few times, haven’t you?” in a complimentary sort of way, so Dave liked that part. I suggest all campgrounds have the people who escort guests to their sites compliment them on their RV parking skills anytime it’s at all reasonable to do so, because we can all use a little ego boost every now and then.
Campsites
There are about a hundred RV sites at the Philadelphia South KOA, plus a handful of cabins, tent sites, and two brand new glamping tents:
They also own ten acres of adjacent land that they’re planning to use to add another 100 RV sites, which will make this quite the bustling campground. They’ve already added a number of new sites since becoming a KOA a year ago. If you read reviews online, some will mention that the sites are small and narrow. Some of the pull-throughs toward the front are indeed on the cramped side; these are the older sites that have been around since the campground opened in the early 70’s, and the manager told us they’ll likely be redoing some of these once they get the new sites in on the undeveloped land. So if having a more spacious site matters to you, make sure to request one as there are plenty of bigger sites in the campground (that said, the older sites were definitely not the most crowded we’ve encountered).
Our site was a back in at the very back of the campground, and we had a lot of shade and plenty of space to spread out (our site was kind of on a corner, so we had more room between us and our neighbors than some of the sites in our row had). This was one of the sites that’s been added in the past year, so you can see that it has shiny new gravel, too. All sites have picnic tables and fire pits:
Amenities and Activities
Our first pool of the trip!
Philadelphia South has the usual assortment of KOA amenities, but nearly everything has been updated or redone in the past year, so everything’s fresh and new.
Abe really enjoyed the playground and jumping pillow and immediately made some new friends who invited him to play a zombie game (Dave was also recruited for said zombie game). There’s this new pavilion and group fire pit area right by the playground, too:
There’s a community room with an air hockey table and a few other games:
We used the laundry room, and everything was clean and in good working order. We didn’t use the bath houses much since we had full hook-ups, but I peeked in and everything looked good in there, too. The store has been updated in the past year and had a decent selection of food and camping gear and souvenirs.
I asked about activities and was told they’re trying to get some going, like movie nights on the weekends, but so far this season they’ve been thwarted by rain (indeed, it rained and rained and rained the weekend we were there).
One cool feature is a small pond with a walking path around it and a little island in the middle:
We were told that the story is the island used to be home to an aviary but then there was some sort of tragic incident involving raccoons….now it’s just a little picnic area (there’s a bridge to get out there).
There’s no free wifi at the sites right now (there’s paid wifi available or free wifi by the office/store), but the manager told us they’re talking to a couple of different companies right now, so that should be coming soon.
Local Area
If you’re staying here, you’re probably staying here to see Philadelphia. And there’s an awful lot to see in Philadelphia (which I’ll talk more about in a later post). I know I started this post off making basically the same point, but we were super impressed/happy to find such a great option so close in to the city. It’s about a 20 minute drive if you don’t mind wrestling with parking (we found parking no problem, but we were there on a weekend) or you can take the train from the station nearby. We also drove to Valley Forge (40 miles away) one day. And, of course, being this close to the city, there are plenty of shopping options within a few miles of the campground, too.
So the Philadelphia KOA comes highly recommended for all your Philadelphia area camping needs. We would not hesitate to stay there again if we were in the area (and we’re excited to come back someday to see what new improvements they’ve made; they have a lot of big plans!)
What? no pictures of the zombie game? I am sad.