Camping in Connecticut

Camping rules worth knowing in Connecticut

Camping is a permit, a marked site and a footprint

Camping is restricted to the places and times the department designates, and anyone wishing to camp in a state park or forest campground must secure a permit and be eighteen or older. Equipment on a single site may not cover more than four hundred square feet of ground, a maximum of two motor vehicles is allowed per campsite unless posted otherwise, and six is the limit on occupants except for a parent with their own children. Lights out by 11:00 p.m., nothing added to a fire after 11:00 p.m., quiet hours from 10:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m., and a permit is forfeited if the site is not occupied in the first twenty-four hours. Source 22

The camping season is April to Columbus Day

The Austin F. Hawes Memorial Campground in the 1,245-acre American Legion State Forest at Barkhamsted sets the pattern: 30 campsites and six rustic cabins beside the West Branch of the Farmington, a season that begins in mid-April and ends on Columbus Day, a six-person maximum per site and a 14-day maximum stay. Sites run seventeen dollars a night for a Connecticut resident and twenty-seven otherwise, plus a processing fee; cabins fifty and sixty. Rustic camping is permitted in the off season. Source 48

Some campgrounds take no walk-ins and have no water

Macedonia Brook in Kent is the one to read before you drive there. The 2,300-acre park has 51 tent and RV sites at fourteen dollars for a resident and seventeen otherwise, and it states plainly that advance reservations are required and walk-ins are not allowed. There are no bathrooms, no showers and no running water, only portable toilets; pets are not allowed and alcohol is prohibited; and cell phone service is described as extremely limited. Source 47

Some forests allow no camping and no ground fire at all

Shenipsit State Forest spreads 7,170 acres over Ellington, Somers and Stafford and carries the Soapstone Mountain tower and the state’s only surviving Civilian Conservation Corps barracks, and its page says there is no camping or ground fires permitted within the forest. Its hours are also its own, half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset. A Connecticut state forest is not a general permission; each property publishes what it allows. Source 41

A campfire outside a campground is a town matter

DEEP states that campfires and bonfires are not defined by state statute or regulation, and that towns may set their own requirements: the size of the fire, setbacks from structures and property lines, lot size, and whether a permit is needed at all. Burn only clean, non-processed wood, and a fire that creates a nuisance for neighbours or breaks a local restriction is prohibited. Ask the town’s Open Burning Official or fire marshal, because there is no statewide answer to give you. Source 17

The only federal campground is a Corps of Engineers site

West Thompson Lake in the northeast corner is the whole of federal drive-in camping in Connecticut: 24 sites made up of 11 basic, 11 with electric and water hookups and two lean-to shelters, on level gravel pads that the Corps says suit anything from a truck-back pop-up to a 45-foot camper, with flush toilets, hot showers, a dump station and firewood on site. The Corps posts the campground’s operating status on that page and has had it out of the reservation system for repairs, so check it before you plan a night there. Source 32

The full guide to overlanding Connecticut