travel dates: June, 2025
We’re on a mission to stay at every RV park in the greater St. Louis area.
This is not actually true, but this was our third time RVing St. Louis and our third different campground. Many years ago we stayed at the St. Louis West KOA out in Eureka (that was actually on one of our first RV trips ever!), and then we tried out Casino Queen last time we were in town. Both places had their pros and cons, and we considered returning to one of them this time…but then 370 Lakeside came onto my radar somehow and we decided to add another campground to our St. Louis mix.
And it’s a pretty great campground! 370 Lakeside is a big public park in St. Peters, MO, about a half hour drive from downtown St. Louis. The campground is right on the water (lakeside, if you will), and everything is super tidy and well-maintained, with easy access to St. Louis, to closer shopping and dining, and to all of the larger park’s amenities. Pros and cons of this particular choice when in St. Louis? It’s a similar distance to the city as the KOA is: 370 Lakeside is just under 30 miles; the KOA is just over. Right this second, when I’m typing at 8:17 central time on a Thursday morning, the drive to the arch from 370 Lakeside is 33 minutes vs. 45 for the KOA…okay, so now that I’m looking at all that, 370 Lakeside definitely gets the edge for distance from the city, at least during rush hour. Casino Queen is going to win any contest about commute time, since it’s right across the river from downtown St. Louis, with public transportation options available as well. But it’s basically a parking lot in a not-great neighborhood (although there is security and we never felt unsafe there). Price-wise, 370 Lakeside come out ahead as well (not surprising as it’s the only public campground of the bunch). The standard sites are $50/night for full hook-ups. The cheapest FHU sites I’m seeing at the KOA are in the $90 range, with W/E sites from around $60. For Casino Queen, I’m seeing $60 for the smaller sites and $75 for the bigger ones…plus a whopping $20 fee for pets! I played it around with it, and it looks like it’s a one time fee and not per night, but that’s still kind of nuts. sorry–tangent. Dumb policy, Casino Queen! IMHO.
At any rate, I think we’re pretty much sold on 370 Lakeside as our campground of choice for any future St. Louis visits (and we love St. Louis, and it’s on the way to everywhere, so there probably will be future visits). We liked it so much, in fact, that we stayed there AGAIN on our way back east at the end of our trip.
Location
St. Peters is about 30 miles northwest of St. Louis. If you’re looking for some things to do closer to the campground, St. Charles is only about 15 minutes away and has some historic sites and nicer restaurants. St. Peters itself has everything you need as far as groceries and gas and chain restaurants, but is generally not particularly touristy.
Booking and Arrival
You have to make an actual phone call (or just go in person) to book this campground–old school! We booked a good bit in advance for our first stop, as we tend to do, and were put in one of the premium sites (the ones closest to the lake). But we decided fairly late in the game to stop again on our way home and got a site on a Friday night by calling a couple of weeks in advance. That said, the campground looked very full both times we were there, so I recommend booking as soon as you know your dates. Sites are $50/night for gravel and $57 for concrete pads. The park is right off the highway (Highway 370, which it is, rather unpoetically, named for) and very easy to access. There’s a nice big area in front of the office to stop and check in.
Campsites
The campsites are arranged in three loops (75 sites total), with a mix of pull-throughs and back-ins, and a mix of gravel and concrete sites. All of the sites are long (minimum is 69 feet) and easy to get into, and all the loops are pretty wide open with decent separation (sites are 15 feet wide plus a minimum of 15 feet of grass between sites) but no real privacy to speak of. All sites are full hook-up with 20/30/50 amp electric. Basically, any site in the campground is fine. The premium sites with no one between you and the lake are nice if you can get them (there are only a handful).
We had site # 402 for our first stay, and it was a great spot with a big yard and unobstructed lake views. But our last minute gravel pull-through on the way back east was perfectly fine as well. All sites have picnic tables and fire rings.
One thing you might want to think about with site selection is proximity to the lone bathhouse, in between the first two loops on the main road through the park. The bathhouse (which is a nice one) is fairly close to sites in either of those loops, though it’d be a bit of a hike from the backs of the loops, but it’s far from the third loop. I would say you’d be looking at a good 10 minute walk. Again, every site has full hook-ups, so probably not a huge concern for most people.
Here’s site 401; we noticed it as a particularly great site because the door opens out onto a huge yard and nothing but the walking path between it and the lake (ours had a road in the way). Sites 101 and 201 in the other loops would be similar.
Amenities and Activities
The campground is part of a 500 acre park on a lake, so there are a ton of things to keep you busy if you want to hang out near the campground instead of going into the city. There’s a paved walking (biking also, I believe. At any rate, we saw a lot of bikes on it) path around the lake. There’s the lake itself and canoe and kayak rentals. There’s an archery range and a spray ground. Word is there’s a camp store in the office, but Dave went in by himself both times, so I didn’t see it.
And there are events, particularly in season. On our first stay we were excited to learn that the St. Louis Orchestra was doing a free concert in the park pavilion. We headed over there with Fiesta the Beagle right around when it was scheduled to start, and it was packed. We could not actually see the orchestra (which was playing “music inspired by Bridgerton“), but it was still fun. They invited people to bring instruments for a communal rendition of Ode to Joy at the end, so Abe brought his trumpet along. They have food trucks on site for concerts, too, so we got some ice cream (we bought vanilla ice cream for Fiesta, too, but she had already finished hers in this picture where she’s begging August for some of his).
And then when we stopped by on the way home, we discovered that there would be a cinnamon roll food truck on site the morning we were leaving! It took us awhile to find it because we went back to the pavilion area…it turned out it was set up right by the bathhouse, somewhat oddly, I thought.
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