Our First Visit to a Georgia State Park

Unicoi State Park in North Georgia

1788 Highway 356, Helen, GA 30545

This past July we had our first visit to a Georgia state park. We visited Unicoi State Park, just outside of Helen over a long weekend. The drive to north Georgia from central Florida was a long one. The drive was made even longer by rolling roadblocks and a shutdown interstate. Pulling up to the entrance was a welcome sight. We were ready to begin our adventure!

Park

Unicoi State Park offers a little bit of everything. Park hours are from 7:00am – 10:00pm daily and there is a $5.00 per vehicle fee. You can fish, kayak, and swim in the 53 acre Unicoi Lake. The lake’s beach offers a nice, refreshing place for kids and adults to play. When we visited, the max depth looked to be around 5 feet. There are boat rentals available near the beach area. It’s not always open, so check ahead of time. Zip lining and archery are also available nearby. We didn’t experience either so I can’t give you a review. Have kids? There are multiple playgrounds at Unicoi and they were approved by my kids. One is located not far from the Smith Creek cabins. While the other is adjacent to the Visitor’s Center.

The Visitor’s Center is located in the middle of the camping area. The hours vary depending on the season. We attempted to visit on an evening during the weekend and found it closed. The Visitor’s Center contains a small store and a meeting room. There are also restrooms nearby.

Lodging

Unicoi offers a variety of options to stay overnight. They have a Lodge with hotel-like accommodations. We didn’t see any of the rooms, but from their website learned that the rooms do not have refrigerators or microwaves. The Lodge has two restaurants in which you can purchase meals, snacks, or beverages.

The park also has two types of cabins, Smith Creek cabins, and Barrel cabins. The Barrel cabins range from one bedroom, one bath cabins to 2 bedrooms, 1 bath cabins. We drove past these cabins and thought they were awfully close together. The Barrel cabins are perched on a hillside overlooking the lake.

Smith Creek Cabin

We stayed four nights in Smith Creek cabin #3. Since we reserved the last available cabin we got a handicap accessible cabin. Unlike the other cabins, it had a ramp to the front door, a small carport for your vehicle, and a handicap-accessible bathroom. The cabin had a small eat-in kitchen, living room with a fireplace, 2 bathrooms, and 2 bedrooms. The kitchen was a bit dated but had a refrigerator, range, microwave, coffee maker, dishwasher, toaster, basic cooking utensils, and dishes.

While the cabin was spacious for our family of 5, it was in desperate need of deep cleaning. Dust could be seen on the wall wood paneling and on the ceiling fans. The bathrooms were just about spotless. There were no TVs, phones, or wifi in the cabin. In fact, for the majority of our stay we had no cell signal.  We didn’t have a reliable cell signal until we got into the town of Helen. Keep that in mind if you need to stay connected.

The one negative during our stay, we had a little furry visitor during breakfast one morning. My son jumped up and started yelling “mouse”. At first, we thought he was seeing things, but since we discovered a mousetrap in a kitchen cabinet we decided he might have actually seen a mouse. We set the trap under the couch and not even 5 minutes later, SNAP! We caught that mouse! My husband and son took it outside while the girls and I hid our faces. Thankfully we didn’t see another one. After that, we made sure all our non-refrigerated food was in sealed containers. Because, yep, we had been feeding that little mouse bread. It had chewed a nice little hole in the bread bag and had himself a feast.

Smith Creek

Across the street from the Smith Creek cabins is a hidden gem! There are a couple sets of stairs hidden among the trees that lead down to Smith Creek. The creek was deep enough for the kids to have a great time splashing around, but not deep enough to swim or be swept downstream. Please use caution! The conditions we experienced may not be the conditions you encounter. The area is very shaded and has no benches or tables. We had the entire area to ourselves.

Campsites

We were blessed on this trip to have some extended family come with us. They chose to bring their travel trailer and camp. Unicoi State Park offers lots of different camping choices. You can tent camp, primitive camp, or RV/trailer camp. They have ADA sites, buddy hook-up sites, 30 foot, and 40 foot RV sites, and sites for family tent camping. There are a select number of full RV hook-ups sites. Most sites have water, electricity, a picnic table, a fire ring, and a grill. Comfort stations are located on each loop. A dump station is centrally located. Unlike Florida state parks, you can not choose your campsite ahead of time. You are assigned your site when you check in. You can note your site preference when making your reservation online. But no guarantees!

Florida Residents

If you are a Florida resident make sure you check out the Specials & Promotions area on the Unicoi State Park website. As of the time I’m writing this, they are offering a 20% discount when you book a stay at the park or lodge. You need to enter the promo code when making a reservation.

Final Thoughts

My final thoughts on Unicoi State Park…despite the furry creature encounter and the dust, it is a really nice park with lots to do. Even if you just stayed inside the park, you wouldn’t get bored. Add in everything to do outside the park and there are easily enough activities to keep you busy for many days. Stayed tuned for Part 2 of our visit. In that post, I’ll share some of the many activities to do outside of Unicoi. The possibilities are endless.

Also, check out 7 Family Hikes in North Georgia to read about the hiking trails we visited on our second trip to North Georgia.

Disclaimer: All opinions expressed here are solely mine. I did not receive compensation for this review.