Travel dates: July, 2021
We had a bit of a motley itinerary in summer of 2021, one that tied together New England with parts of the midwest. But one nice thing about this somewhat inefficient route is that it let us spend some time along the way checking out parts of New York we’d never seen before, like the Finger Lakes region.
We chose Sned-Acres Family Campground as our base for exploring sites like Watkins Glen State Park and the town of Seneca Falls, and we had an excellent–if often quite stormy–time there.
Storms make scenes like this possible, though:
Location:
Sned-Acres is right on Cayuga Lake in the Finger Lakes region of New York, with easy access from I-90. It’s about 20 minutes from the town of Seneca Falls and about 40 minutes from Watkins Glen State Park, so we found it a good base camp for exploring both of those. It’s also near tons of wineries if, for example, you want to leave your kids at the trailer one day and go for a wine tasting.
There are plenty of restaurants in Seneca Falls; we ate at and enjoyed Wolffy’s Grill and Marina, just outside of Seneca Falls (on the same side of town as the campground), where you can sit outside right on the water:
Booking and Arrival
You have to call to book a site; when we called they spent a good bit of time taking us through the different types of sites and making sure we got what we wanted. Rates for RV sites range from $38-45/night; w/e and full hookup sites are available.
There’s a fairly long drive on smaller, local roads to get to get to the campground from I-90, but it was an easy drive. Navigating the campground itself can be a little tricky; we pulled in to the half where the office is, which meant we had to circle through most of the campground to get back to the main road and cross it to the other side (where our site was). It turned out we could have gone directly to our site and then just come to the office to check in. Not a big deal, but good to know ahead of time.
Campsites
The campground spans both sides of the road it’s located on. The bigger side where the camp store and office are has most of the amenities and seems to have a lot of seasonal campers. In general, the sites over there seemed to be pretty close together.
We were across the road, where there’s a row of sites down at the bottom of the hill and then another row of sites going up the hill. We were at the very top of the hill, which made for some nice views, but also for a long walk to the bathhouse and laundry down at the bottom of the hill. Some of the sites on the hill had very nice wooden decks, but our site was level enough that we didn’t get one.
We were happy with our site and would have been happy with any of those on the hill; all are long pull-throughs. We also liked being on the quieter side of the campground, but if you want to use the pool and playground and all that, the other side might suit your needs better (there is a small playground on the side we were on); it was a pretty long hike to get to that area.
In addition to RV sites, they offer rustic cabins, several rental RVs, tent sites, and a 2 bedroom house for rent.
Amenities
As I mentioned, most of the entertainment is on the main side of the campground; over there you’ll find a pool, playground, fishing pond, game room, and camp store. The other side is a little more spartan, but has a bathhouse and laundry and a small play area.
There’s also a nice grassy area for taking pictures of your dogs:
My clearest memory of Sned-Acres is unpleasant but not at all the campground’s fault. We had some really severe storms the first night we were there; sheets of rain, trailer rocking in the wind sorts of storms. So I can attest that the drainage in the sites is pretty good–at least the ones on the hill!
Some reviews mention problems with the electricity. I can report that we did have our power go out briefly (it was very hot while we were there, so I’m sure everyone was using a lot of electricity running AC; also could have had something to do with the storms), but it didn’t last long at all or cause any problems. Our neighbors seemed to have more trouble than we did, though, and at one point we noted that an electrician was there working on it.
Next up: what we did in the Finger Lakes!
maybe you would like to pin this?
My inability to see straight leads to fun things like reading “tons of wineries” as “tons of wherries” at first glance, and wondering why the Finger Lakes had so many wherries, specifically.
I hope to find out that you went out on a lake in SOME kind of boat.
wherries sounds fun, too!