Kelly Park Campground: The County Park That Beat Disney at Camping
Kelly Park Campground takes No. 1 in our RV Parks & Places to Camp rankings with a Net Score of 92.3 — why it won, and what to know before you book.
3 minute read
The best place to camp in the Orlando metro, on the public evidence, is not a resort with a lazy river. It is a 26-site Orange County campground in Apopka, under a pine-and-hardwood canopy, inside the park that feeds one of Florida’s great spring runs.
Kelly Park Campground, at 400 E Kelly Park Rd. in Apopka, takes the No. 1 spot in Orlando Citizen’s 2026 RV Parks & Places to Camp rankings with a Net Score of 92.3 — the highest in a field of 26 metro campgrounds that cleared our 25-review evidence bar. One disclosure belongs up front, and the ranking page makes it too: the campground has no Google listing of its own, so its 4.7★ across 7,275 reviews is the whole-park figure, spring swimmers included. The county parks swept this list — seven of the ten spots are public campgrounds — and Kelly Park leads them.
What campers get is space, which is the one thing the big commercial RV resorts cannot sell them. The 26 sites run 35 to 70 feet deep, are well separated, and sit under dense canopy; every site has water and electric hookups, with a dump station on site (there is no sewer at the pads). You are based inside the park that feeds Rock Springs, so the spring run — the reason most people know Kelly Park at all — is your home water for the stay, and campers come in through their own gate rather than joining the day-use line, which the county caps at 280 tickets a day.
The rules are the trade. Pets are not allowed anywhere in Kelly Park and alcohol is prohibited — both are county rules, enforced at the gate, and both are reasons some campers will rank the private resorts above it. Reservations run through the county’s OCPORTAL system up to 45 days ahead, and a campground this small, this close to a famous spring, does not stay bookable for long on spring and summer weekends.
It finished ahead of another county park, Mount Dora’s Trimble Park (91.9), and ahead of Disney’s own Fort Wilderness campsites (88.1) — a result that says something true about camping in this metro: the best-reviewed nights under the trees are the public ones, and the best of those is a county campground in Apopka that most visitors drive straight past on their way somewhere more expensive.
See the full rankings: The 10 Best RV Parks & Places to Camp in Orlando.
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